TUTORIALS ILLUSTRATOR

Create Fun, Eye-catching Text with

Adobe Illustrator
This time around, we’ll explore the many ways you can manipulate text in Illustrator. By
combining color and effects, you can create really fun and eye-catching text in no time
at all.

1 TYPE THE TEXT

To begin this text effect, we must start with the most critical element—the text. Select
the Type tool (T) in the Toolbox and click in the artboard to set a text object. Enter
whatever text you like. We entered “WOW” in all caps using the font Gill Sans Ultra
Bold. Once entered, scale the text as necessary.

2 DUPLICATE; CONVERT TO OUTLINES

Just in case you want to go back and change the text later, drag the type layer in the
Layers panel to the Create New Layer icon to duplicate the text object. Click the Eye
icon next to the original text layer to hide it. Select the duplicated text with the Selection
tool (V) and convert it to outlines by going under the Type menu and choosing Create
Outlines. For the sake of visibility, set the Fill to white and the Stroke to black.
3 FREE TRANSFORM THE LETTERS
Now we need to distort the individual letters. For this we’ll use the Free Transform tool,
which can be a bit tricky. First, make sure all of the letters are ungrouped
(Object>Ungroup) and select the first letter with the Selection tool. Switch to the Free
Transform tool (E), and click-and-hold on the top-left corner of the transform box.
Press-and-hold the Command key (PC: Ctrl key) and drag the corner to manipulate the
shape of the letter. The Free Transform tool takes a little practice if you’ve never used it.
Continue to do this to the remaining letters, varying the distortion and position of each.

4 DUPLICATE; SET FILL & STROKE TO BLACK

Select all the distorted letters and create a duplicate of these letters just as we did earlier.
Move the duplicate off to the side of the artboard for now and reselect the original
transformed text. In Illustrator CS4, open the Appearance panel (under the Window
menu) and set both the Fill and Stroke to black using the drop-down menu for each
property. Also set the Stroke weight to 40 pt. (In CS3, set the Fill and Stroke colors and
the Stroke weight in the Control panel.)
5 OUTLINE STROKE
With these objects still selected, go into the Object menu to Path and choose Outline
Stroke. This will expand the shape area out to the stroked area, making it a regular
shape.
6 UNITE SHAPES
Open the Pathfinder panel from the Window menu. Click the Unite icon, which is the
first icon under Shape Modes. (In Illustrator CS3, the Unite icon is called the Add to
Shape Area icon, and after you click the icon, you also need to click the Expand button.)
This will combine all the expanded shapes into one single shape. This shape will act as
our outer border effect. (Note: If you see any stray points inside the shape, use the
Ellipse tool to draw a shape over the points, select everything, and click the Unite icon
again.)
7 CHANGE FILL & STROKE; THICKEN STROKE
Now we need to change the color of this shape. Open the Swatches panel and set the Fill
color to blue and the Stroke color to red. Open the Stroke panel from the Window menu.
Set the Stroke weight relatively thick, depending on the size of your art—we used 5 pt in
this example. Click the center icon next to Align Stroke to put the stroke on the inside of
the shape.

8 POSITION DUPLICATE; CHANGE FILL & STROKE

Now go and get the duplicated text that we distorted earlier and position it on top of the
border shape. Change the Fill color to an orange and the Stroke to black. Don’t make the
stroke too big; make it just enough to define the shape so the two shapes don’t appear to
be combined (1 pt in this example).
9 APPLY DROP SHADOW TO LAST LETTER
Select just the last letter. Go under the Effect menu to Stylize (under the Illustrator
Effects listing) and choose Drop Shadow. Enter –5 pt in the X Offset so the shadow
appears more to the left. Enter 5 pt for the Y Offset and enter a 3 pt Blur. (Note: These
numbers will vary depending on the size of your art.) Click OK.

10 APPLY DROP SHADOW TO OTHER LETTERS

Select each of the other letters individually and apply the same effect by choosing Apply
Drop Shadow under the Effect menu. Apply it to the border shape behind the letters, as
well.

11 DRAW HIGHLIGHTS
Now we’re going to apply some subtle highlights. Grab the Pen tool from the Toolbox.
Set the Fill color to white and the Stroke color to none. Then at various corners of the
letters, draw some very small corner shapes to give the letters a little more interest.
Continue this on all the letters but don’t get carried away—it’s easy to overwork
something until it doesn’t look cool anymore. That pretty much does it. You can see the
possibilities here and the many different directions you can go with this. Have fun!
Turn Any Font Into a Sketch Font
Tutorial Details

 Program: Adobe Illustrator CS6 – CC

 Difficulty: Beginner
 Topics Covered: Appearance panel, Graphic Styles
 Estimated Completion Time: 10 minutes

Final Image

Below is an example of the sketch font we will be creating.

Step 1

Create a new document and with the Text tool (T), type out some text with the font of
your choosing. I am using Glypha Black as my font.

Step 2

With the text selected, take off any stroke and fill. We are going to add a stroke and fill
separate from each other in the Appearance panel in the next couple of steps.
Step 3

With the no fill and no stroke text selected, open the pop-up menu in the Appearance
panel, and chose Add New Fill. Keep the default black color of the fill.
Step 4

Select the new fill in the Appearance panel, and go Effect > Stylize > Scribble. With the
Scribble Options dialog open, change the Angle to 45, the Path Overlap to 0 px, the Path
Overlap Variation to 2 px, the Stroke Width to 1 px, the Curviness to 0, the Curviness
Variation to 50, the Spacing to 2 px, and the Spacing Variation to 1.5 px.
Step 5

Select the Stroke option in the Appearance panel and give the text a 2 pt stroke.

Step 6

With the Stroke still selected in the Appearance panel, go Effect > Distort & Transform
> Roughen. In the Roughen dialog, change the Size to .5, select the Relative radial
button, change the Detail to 30, and select the Smooth radial button for Point. This will
give the stroke a little distress.
Step 7

Now, we have a custom sketch font. Moreover, you can easily edit the font! To make
this technique even more useful, let’s create a Graphic Style so we can quickly apply
these effects to other fonts and text. First select your font and take a look at the
Appearance panel. You can see all the effects in your type. Now, simply press the New
Graphic Style Button in the Graphic Styles panel and name your new Graphic Style!

Step 8

Now type out some more text and change the font. With the text selected, press the
thumbnail of your new sketchy Graphic Style and see all the wonderful sketchy results!
Experiment

You can apply the sketchy graphic style to other objects other than text. I also suggest
playing around with the Scribble and Roughen effect settings. Post links to images in the
comments with your results!
Create a Cute Vector Monster from a
Pencil Sketch
The tips and techniques explained may be outdated.

I guess with recent topics being based on vector illustrations and cute characters, it's
about time for another Illustrator character tutorial. Previous versions saw the creation of
Captain BlackSpoon and Freddy the Fish which seemed pretty popular, not to mention
the quick and simple monster series. This time follow this Adobe Illustrator walkthrough
on the creation of a cute little vector monster character, beginning with a quick pencil
sketch on paper.
Starting with paper and pencil, sketch out the rough shapes with quick and dirty circular
shapes. With reference to the head in particular, don't worry about drawing a perfect
shape – the disproportionate features is what I think makes this monster so cute.

Sketch in some additional circles to plan out the limbs and ears.
Continue to draw in the facial features, large eyes and a drooling tongue are a must.

Concentrating more on the overall form and shape of the character, outline the building
blocks to develop the body.
I like to go over any final pencil marks with a black marker to give a better view of how
the illustration is looking, this also helps when it comes to scanning or photographing
the image for tracing.

Open up Adobe Illustrator and create a new document. Under the File > Place document
select a scanned or photographed image of the initial sketch. Select the Template
checkbox to set the image as a locked translucent picture ready for tracing.
Begin with an oval using the Circle Tool to outline the rough shape of the head.

As mentioned before, the disproportions of the monster is what adds to it's character, use
the Pen Tool to add in extra points and move these into position with the Direct
Selection Tool to rough the oval into a more inaccurate shape.
Just like when sketching out the character, add in building blocks to make up the body
shape.

Use Rounded Rectangles for the ears and rotate into place.
The eyes and nose are simply made up of basic circles, draw these up and move into
position.

The head shape needs modifying to allow it to merge into the body. Using the Pen Tool
add two additional points where the shape begins to stray away from the initial sketch.
Use the Direct Select Tool to then delete the excess area leaving an unclosed path.
Use a similar process on the ovals than make up the limbs, this time the use of additional
points isn't needed, simply delete one of the existing points to alter the shapes.

Back with the Pen Tool, hover over the unclosed path of the head and notice the icon
with a minus sign appear, continue to click and drag the path following the curvature of
the neck. When you reach the top of the arm look out for another icon change, this time
a little circle that indicates that you will be joining the path.

Extend the paths of the other limbs to give a complete outline of the monster character.
Use the Direct Selection Tool to delete out the lower two points of the rounded
rectangles.

With the Pen Tool use the same technique to extend the paths to merge into the head.
Select the shape that makes up the head and add points at the areas that intersect with the
ears.

With the Direct Selection Tool delete these additional points to remove the line that cuts
right through the ears.
Select the points of the two separate pieces (ears and head) in individual groups of two
and press CTRL / CMD + J to join them together into a single shape.

Add a little detail to the ears with the Pen Tool, simply clicking and dragging a shape
into place.
Open the Artistic-Ink brush library from the Brushes Palette and choose a nice tapered
effect to remove the square edges.

Using the same brush preset draw in the mouth dragging in the rough shape with the Pen
Tool.
Also draw in the shapes that make up the tongue and teeth.

Draw in a simple oval to outline the belly area.

At this point the visibility of the sketch layer can be toggled off to view how the
illustration is looking and to tweak any points with the Direct Selection Tool.
Adjust the thickness of the strokes, with the main outline being the thickest at 7pt.

Adjust the thickness of the eyes to 5pt, making them less than the main outline, but
being important features they are still given prominence.
Begin adding colour by first creating a new layer underneath the vector lines. Use the
Pen Tool to roughly draw around the complete outline of the character, paying attention
not to stray out of the black area.

Fill the complete with a desired colour, this monster is a nice vibrant slimey green.
Some elements obviously don't want to be filled with green, such as the teeth, tongue
and eyes. Use the same technique to add blocks of colour behind the lines.

The following is a technique I personally like to use on characters to give a nice little
touch of depth and dimension.

Copy and paste in place (CTRL + F) the main outline strokes, go to Object > Expand
and check the Stroke option.
With all of the shapes of that make up the outline selected, merge them into one single
shape using the Add to Shape Area option from the Pathfinder Tool.

With the Direct Selection Tool, click on the outer path and press delete a couple of times
to completely remove it. The result will fill the whole character area in black, but simply
swap the Fill and Stroke checkboxes around.
Swap the original black stroke for a darker green, bump up the weight and set the
alignment to the Inside to give a simple shading effect to the character.

Select the facial features and add the same green stoke, this time aligned to the outline.
Remember for objects such as the eyes that already have a stroke applied, simply Copy
and Paste Behind (CTRL / CMD + B).
Add some extra shading to the eyes by drawing in the desired shape with the Pen Tool,
concentrate on a smooth curve across the ear then roughly complete the path within the
confines of the black outlines.

Adjust the order of the shading so that it is placed underneath the black outlines, hiding
the rough edges of the path.
Using the Star Tool drag a triangle onto the artboard, reduce the points by pressing the
down cursor key while dragging. Drag the uppermost point vertically with the Direct
Selection Tool to stretch out the triangle a little.

Duplicate the triangle and move slightly to the left, go to Object > Envelope Distort >
Make with Warp and add a slight vertical Arc.
Duplicate this new curved triangle and head to Object > Transform > Reflect to create a
mirror image.

Go to Object > Expand and select Object to reset the Warped shapes into editable
objects.
Position the groups of triangles in place as toes on the feet of the monster character.

Let's work on the tummy area and add a little interest. Begin with a radial gradient and
stroke with complimentary shades of green.
Draw a long thin rectangle, Copy and Paste in place (CTRL / CMD + F), then move to
the right. Use the shortcut combinations of CTRL / CMD + F then CTRL / CMD + D to
repeatedly paste and move an additional rectangle until a large group has been made.
Group these together by clicking Object > Group.

With both the group of rectangles and belly oval selected, use the Intersect from Shape
Area option from the Pathfinder to trim out the excess rectangle. Press Expand to reset
the shape.
Adjust the colour, blending mode or transparency to suit. Here I use Soft Light to blend
in the lines with the gradient.

While working with gradients, drag a very slight gradient across the main body of the
character to add a little variation in tone.
Using a random colour along with the Pen Tool roughly draw in some spots/scales
across the whole body of the character.

Use the Magic Wand to select one of the scales, with them being the same colour all of
the objects are selected together. Go to Object > Path > Simplify and adjust the settings
to smooth out the shapes and remove any sharp angles.
Adjust the colour, blending mode and transparency to blend in these scales. Keep them
subtle enough to add a little texture to the character while not being too prominent.

That's one cute little monster character complete, now all that is needed is a name – any
suggestions?

Why not combine this walkthrough with a previous Illustrator tutorial: Create a Blissful
Vector Scene to create a nice home for your monster character!
Blueprint-Style Text in Adobe Illustrator
This blueprint technique has been seen just about everywhere—even on the cover of The
Photoshop Help Desk Book by Dave Cross. This is a quick demo using a blend of live
effects, filters, and even a little gradient mesh to create a seemingly complex logo
treatment.

1 START WITH THE TEXT

Begin by setting your text. Select the Type tool (T) in the Toolbox and click on the
artboard to set a text object. In the Control panel, set the font to Arial Black and the text
size to 285 pt. Enter one or two lines of text using any word(s) you like. We have simply
typed in “HOUSE WORKS” on two lines. We also typed four spaces before “WORKS”
and tightened up the tracking by selecting all the text with the Type tool and pressing
Option-Left Arrow (PC: Alt-Left Arrow) a few times.

2 ADD STROKE; FILL WITH WHITE

Select all the text with the Selection tool (V). Near the bottom of the Toolbox, click on
the Stroke option to make it active. Go under the Window menu and choose Swatches to
open the Swatches panel. Then select the blue swatch in the Swatches panel, as shown
here, to set the stroke color. Set the Stroke size to 5 pt in the Control panel. Now simply
set the Fill color to white.
3 COPY TEXT; SWAP FILL AND STROKE
Copy this text to the clipboard by going under the Edit menu and choosing Copy. Then,
go under the Edit menu again and choose Paste in Front. This will paste the copy
directly over the original, so you won’t see any change. (Trust us, it’s there.) Then, swap
the Fill and Stroke colors by clicking the bent double-headed arrow next to the Fill and
Stroke color swatches in the Toolbox. Set the Stroke to None. All you should have is a
blue fill and no stroke. Keep this object selected.

4 APPLY SCRIBBLE EFFECT

With this object still selected, go into the Effect menu, under Stylize (in the Illustrator
Effects section), and choose Scribble. This is one really involved effect. At this point,
you can either use the settings shown here or you can experiment to see the different
results you can get. Keep an open mind—you may discover a really cool effect. Click
OK when you’re done.
5 DRAW BLUE LINE ABOVE TEXT
Next, select the Pen tool (P) in the Toolbox and click a point just above and to the left of
the text. Hold the Shift key and click a second point to the right of the text. Set the
Stroke color to the same blue color we used for the text. Then in the Control panel, set
the Stroke size to 7 pt. Lastly, select the line and position it right along the top edge of
the top line of text.

Note: If you can’t see the stroke, make sure the Scribble effect isn’t applied to it in the
Appearance panel.

6 COPY BLUE LINE THREE TIMES

Press Command-C (PC: Ctrl-C) to copy this line, and then press Command-V (PC: Ctrl-
V) three times to paste it three times. Drag a copy to the bottom of the first line of text
and then drag copies to the top and bottom of the next line of text (as shown here). This
will give us the baselines illustrating the straightness of the letters. Offset the lines from
each other so it doesn’t look too symmetrical.

7 ADD ADDITIONIONAL LINES AND ARROW SYMBOL

Use the Pen tool to create similar blue lines along the sides of some of the letters to
enhance the blueprint effect (set the Stroke to 5 points to match the stroke on the letters).
Open the Symbols panel under the Window menu. In the panel’s flyout menu, go to
Open Symbol Library>Arrows. Drag-and-drop the third arrow onto the artboard. With it
still selected, go into the Control panel and click the Break Link button. In the Object
menu, select Expand Appearance. This will turn the Symbol into a regular object. Set the
Fill to the same blue we’ve been using and resize as necessary.
8 ADD ARROWS, DOTTED LINES, AND NUMBERS
Arbitrarily place arrows on the lines that you drew in Step 7. Just copy-and-paste
numerous copies of the arrow and drag them into place. Use the Selection tool to vary
the size and rotate them as necessary. Now add some small, meaningless numbers
around the text to give the idea of measurements. Then add some simple, dotted lines
using the settings in the Stroke panel, as shown here. We also used the Pen tool to draw
an additional element to our original arrow.

9 CREATE BLUE BOX AND MASK WITH BLACK BOX

Select the Rectangle tool in the Toolbox and draw a box over the entire graphic. Set the
Fill color of this box to—you guessed it—blue. Now draw another box right over this
blue one that’s slightly inset and set the Fill color of this box to black (make sure the fill
is R:0, G:0, B:0 or C:0, M:0, Y:0, K:100). So you should have a black box on top of a
slightly larger blue box. Select both boxes and open the Transparency panel under the
Window menu. In the panel’s flyout menu, choose Make Opacity Mask. The black box
will mask away the blue box.
10 ADD GRADIENT MESH TO MASK
We need to do a little more work on the mask, so make sure that the mask thumbnail is
highlighted in the Transparency panel (indicated by a thick, black line). Select the mask
shape and go under the Object menu and select Create Gradient Mesh. Enter 6 for Rows
and 6 for Columns. Set the Appearance to Flat and Highlight to 0%. Click OK. (Did you
know that you could have a gradient mesh mask?)

11 CHANGE POINTS ON THE GRID TO WHITE OR GRAY

Using the Direct Selection tool (A), select various points of the mesh and set their colors
to white or any varying shade of gray to allow all or some of the blue to come through.
The mask works similar to that of a layer mask in Photoshop where black will
completely mask a shape, white reveals everything, and gray will show some
transparency. The goal here is to give the effect of the blue powder on a blueprint. Note:
Make sure the Fill is active in the Toolbox.

12 ADD TEXTURE
The last thing is the texture. Use the Rectangle tool to draw another box approximately
the same size as the mesh (make sure you’re back in art mode and not mask mode in the
Transparency panel). Set the Fill color to an off-white like this one shown in the
Swatches panel. Go under the Effect menu, under Photoshop Effects, and choose
Texture>Texturizer. Set the Texture to Sandstone, the Scaling to 100%, and the Relief to
3. For the Light direction, choose Top Right. Click OK. Then go under the Object menu,
under Arrange, and choose Send to Back. This will finish the effect of blueprint paper.
Final Image
How To Create a Distressed Vintage Style
Logo Design in Adobe Illustrator
I recently received a great tutorial suggestion from a reader named Alix, who asked if I
could show how to make a vintage style logo design in a similar style to the fighting T-
Shirts over at Roots of Fight. I’ve produced a few vintage logo tutorials in the past, but
since I’m a big fan of this design style, I’m always happy to play around with that kind
of artwork! Follow along with today’s tutorial to create a distressed type based logo
design in Adobe Illustrator. We’ll apply a range of adjustments to form the layout using
fonts, then finish the artwork with texturing to achieve the aged look.

To complement the fighting theme of those Boxing and MMA T-Shirt designs cited by
Alix, I’ve created a design based on Gracie Jiu Jitsu. Whilst this kind of vintage style
has a hand lettered look, we’ll use display fonts to form our design, with some
adjustments in Adobe Illustrator to produce the layout. We’ll then give the artwork the
old t-shirt look with my free “Washed & Worn” textures.
Working with fonts rather than lettering by hand makes composing the layout so much
easier and gives you the ability to edit or change the wording if you ever needed to. I’ll
be using the fantastic font named Bloomsbury, which is a Script, Sans and Serif typeface
with a hand drawn style. Not only do these fonts perfectly complement each other, the
script variant also includes some great flourishes to decorate your design. If you like the
look of this font, you can purchase it for $16. Create a new document in Adobe
Illustrator and set out your fonts as text elements.
Hold the ALT key and drag the script font to make a copy. Edit the contents to spell the
word ‘Gracie’. Select just the last letter and choose one of the alternative glyphs to apply
a cool underline.

Go to Object > Transform > Shear and select the Vertical option. Edit the Shear Angle
to -10° to flow the text in an upwards direction.
Select the Ellipse tool from the toolbar and draw a circle around the text. Nudge it
roughly central to the text, then clear out the default fill and stroke.
Select the Type on a Path Tool from under the Type Tool’s menu, then click on the
circle path to set a passage of text around its circumference.

Use the Eyedropper tool to quickly convert the default placeholder text to the
Bloomsbury Sans font.
Edit the wording to ‘Jiu Jitsu Academy’, then alter the tracking to 50 from the Character
panel and set the paragraph style to center.
Activate the Direct Selection Tool, then click and drag the middle handle of the Type on
a Path element to reposition the text centrally. If you have Smart Guides turned on
(View > Smart Guides), you’ll see a pink guide appear when the alignment is perfectly
vertical.

Edit the font size so the wording spans from one side of the circle to the other, then
move the whole circle downwards to better compose the layout.
Select the Star tool and draw a small shape underneath the lettering. Hold ALT and Shift
while dragging a copy to the other side, then select them both and make a Group.
Hold the Shift key and select the Type on a Path circle, then release Shift and give the
circle and extra click to make it the key object. Click the Horizontal Align Center button
to align the stars up centrally, without moving the key object out of place.

Make a copy of the Bloomsbury Sans font element and edit its wording to EST.
Decrease its size and set the tracking to 200. Position this text element in the empty
space between the two other text elements.
Drag a duplicate of the text and change the wording to 1925. Hold Shift and select both
the smaller text elements and the circular Type on a Path. Make the circle the key object
and align everything up centrally.

Make another copy of the Bloomsbury Sans font. Change the wording to Rio de Janeiro
Brazil, edit the tracking to 50 and set the leading to suit. Make any kerning adjustments
by placing the cursor between the relevant letters, then use the ALT key and Cursor
Keys to adjust the spacing.
Use the CMD+R shortcut to display the document rulers (if they aren’t active already),
then drag out guides aligned to each side of the word Gracie. Scale and position the Rio
de Janeiro text within the layout.

To add a couple of decorative lines, we can use the letter I of the Bloomsbury font so it
matches the same irregular, hand drawn style. Right click and select Create Outlines to
convert this letter into a shape.
Rotate the shape by 90° and stretch it to fit between the guide and the word Brazil. Make
a copy for the other side.

Another way to create interesting layouts is to use Illustrator’s Envelope Distort feature.
Select the Rio text and the two lines, then go to Object > Envelope Distort > Make With
Warp. Change the settings to Arc at 10%.

Draw a selection around all the elements that form the logo and drag a copy to one side.
We’ll convert the final design into shapes, so it’s useful to retain an editable copy just in
case you need to make any changes.
Select all the elements of the original again, then go to Object > Expand. This will
convert all the text to shapes and permanently apply the Envelope Distort effect.

Since the letters of the script font overlap, merge them all into one continuous outline
using the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel.
The script font is also quite smooth, whereas the sans font has an irregular outline. We
can add a similar effect using the Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen filter.
Change the settings to Smooth, Absolute, then set the Detail to 30 and experiment with a
small value for the Size, which will depend on the overall size of your artwork.

Select all the elements of your logo design and Group them together. The graphic looks
great, but some texturing will really finish off the vintage style.
Click the Make Mask button in the Transparency panel to apply an Opacity Mask to the
artwork. Click on the square thumbnail on the right to activate the mask.

Open one of my “Washed & Worn” textures and paste it into the mask. Scale the texture
down to cover the artwork. Click on the thumbnail on the left to exit out of mask mode.
The final logo design looks great with a textured appearance that gives the artwork an
aged and distressed look. Apply different fills to change the colour for different
applications. The mask will erase the textured areas to allow the background to show
through.
4 Free Ink Stamp Effect
Styles for Adobe Illustrator
 Freebies
 13 July 2015
 30 Comments

In last week’s video tutorial I explained a bunch of techniques

for creating letterpress style print effects in Photoshop and
Illustrator. One of those techniques looked really great in
Adobe Illustrator, so I thought I’d share a ready made version
so you can instantly apply those cool ink stamp effects to your
logos and typography illustrations with just a click of a
button! This free download contains 4 free Graphic Styles for
Adobe Illustrator that give your artwork the appearance of a
hand made inked print.

This pack of 4 Graphic Styles for Adobe Illustrator adds

grungy textures to your logos, typography and any other
single colour shapes. Eliminate those clean vector lines and
give your designs a trashy, hand made ink print appearance!
There’s different levels of texture detail, so you can choose
how much to distress your artwork.

How to Use the Ink Stamp Effect Styles

The download package contains an Illustrator Style .ai file, along with a normal
Illustrator document containing styled elements. Load the Styles file directly into the
Styles panel, or copy/paste the elements from the document into your own design file to
transfer the Style swatches.

These ink stamp effect styles work best on logos or typography. Scale your artwork to
around 500px for best results, then apply one of the four Styles with increasing levels of
texture.

Optional: Turn off the Roughen effect in the Appearances panel if you prefer to maintain
clean edges, rather than the ink bleed look.
To permanently apply the effect, first go to Object > Expand Appearance, then open the
Image Trace panel from the Window menu.

Configure the tracing settings to around 56 Threshold, 100% Paths, 100% Corners, 1px
Noise. Deselect the Snap Curves To Lines option and check Ignore White. Click the
Preview button to test the result.
Go to Object > Expand to apply the Image Trace and convert the effect to vector paths.
The logo can now be scaled to any size without losing quality or affecting the texturing
effect.

If you’re a little obsessive with your paths in Illustrator, head to Object > Path > Simply
and enter between 98-99% to remove any unnecessary points.
25 Free Linocut & Woodcut Brushes for
Adobe Illustrator
 Freebies
 14 March 2016
 40 Comments

Authentic linocut and woodcut illustrations require a variety of

specialist tools, patience and skill, but there’s a way to have fun
producing similar artwork styles but with the safety net of the
Undo button. My free set of 25 brushes for Adobe Illustrator
help you carve your own designs digitally while achieving the
linocut and woodcut look. Choose from a range of brush
shapes, including tapered strokes, texture fills, split brushes and
edge shading to construct your illustrations with realistic
techniques, but in less time and without the frustration of
making a permanent mistake!

How to use the Linocut Illustrator Brushes

The Linocut Illustrator Brushes Ai file in the download package can be opened as a
brush library from the Brushes panel in Adobe Illustrator. Alternatively, opening the file
directly will give you a series of paths with each brush already applied, which can be
copied into another document to automatically transfer the brushes into the Brushes
panel.

Use the Brush tool to draw your illustrations and select a brush style from the library. A
graphics tablet can make the illustration process easier, but since the pressure and
tapering effects are built into each brush, the same results can be achieved with a mouse.
The Stroke weight can also be used to adjust the size of the brush marks.