2015 | (Belated) Ask the Maker: another guide to text.
So this was requested a long time ago (almost half a year, oops) at Ask the Maker by lumsx and seconded by damsiedam. So here it is! Better late than never...right?
side question: do y'all ever get tired of me talking about text because...
Let's just take what I hope is a redundant moment to have a look at the following menu.
This little guy holds all the secrets to making your text work extra fly. You need to figure out how this menu works if you want to take your text game to the next level. If you are not using this menu at least once or twice (but probably more, honestly) during your icon making process when text is involved then I'm just going to go out on a limb and say your text work is not nearly as fantastic as it could be. So take some time and play around with all the settings available. In previous text guides, I've linked to places that explain this menu in depth so I'm not going to go into it now, but text work needs this menu like like water, like breath, like rain~~~
FONT COMBINATIONS:
- choose an accent font
- choose a stable, foundation font without any frills
- only use the accent on one word or two
- put the majority of text in the foundation font
- the accent font is the fun font!
- the foundation font should be something easy to read and very simple.
- ALTERNATIVELY
- use all the same font and use different sizes/weights or colors to make it look varied.
To demonstrate, we'll be looking at this icon I whipped up really quick for this tutorial. In this case, I started the icon with the text.
Fonts used:
NEVER + ME = Ayres
tease = Shipped Goods
Additional character menu details: Bold option ticked for all, ALL CAPS ticked for Ayres I think, and the tracking for 'NEVER' was changed so the spacing between the letters was wider. Other edits: All were free transformed to sit on different angles, and 'tease' was duplicated so that two layers of it existed; one was #b16e88 (underneath) and one was #0f0d1a (ontop). All layers rasterized and blurred on a lowered opacity.
In this case, our foundation font is Ayres. It doesn't have a lot of frills. It's a very stable, readable font. Shipped Goods is our accent font. It gets to take centre stage because the foundation font is much more compact; this gives Shipped Goods room to breathe and do it's own curly whirly thing. Shipped Goods is also only used on one word, but imagine for a second I used it on every word in the icon.
Hm. You could probably make it work with a little elbow grease that I wasn't willing to give this example. However, you'll notice it's harder to get all the tails into the frame, difficult to get the spacing between the words to look right, and just altogether far messier than my first example.
Now when I made this icon, I already had my subject cut out and placed onto the canvas. Using your subject to shape your text is a great way to bring life into your icon and give your text work that extra punch. It just looks more dynamic if you use the shape of your subject to guide your text. Now let's look at both text examples with the subject added into the canvas.
vs.
In the first example, the text fits around the subject. You can see most, if not all, of the words and read what the text says. You also get a more exciting composition because their are levels and angles for your eyes to traverse. But because you've used your subject as the guideline, you're still keeping the attention on the subject. In the second example...well, the text is barely readable. It seems tacked on and unnecessary, and frankly, it's boring. This text was added without thought to the subject, and the composition suffers as a result.
You'll notice one other main difference between the two icons, and that would be that there's extra text in the first example. This can be one of the easiest ways to make your text icons more complex because the tools are already right there. Duplicate your text and use it as texture in the icon! In this case, I grabbed the layer that had 'tease' on it because I was enamored with how the cursive aspects of it curled around (+ it matched with the MV the subject was taken from which heavily features roses/thorns/vines as symbolism); I took this layer, duplicated it, free transformed it, and I moved it around the canvas to add curls and frills around the border.
So this would be way #1 to give the combo font look, but maybe using a frilly accent font isn't up your alley. No problem! You can sort of "trick" the eye into thinking you're a combo master! All you need to do is use the same font (usually a foundation font), but vary some aspect of it: size, weight, color.
hover for explanation for each icon.
TEXT + TEXTURES:
- clipping masks will be your best friend
- adding a blurred layer on soft light can make your text blend better
- stuck in a rut using the same font (I feel you), use textures to spice things up!
- text is just like any other part of your icon, and you use textures on those parts so why not text? works the same way essentially.
vs.
On the left we have text without any editing. It's just what may be Cubano (but also idk) with a couple colors pulled from the canvas using the eye dropper tool, but it looks like it was just tacked on without any thought again. It just doesn't pop like the rest of the icon so what's the point of it being there, right? Not a problem. Let's get our texture on!
Okay so I cheated a little bit. I just used the icon itself as a "texture". Work with what you've got, right? But you can use this technique/method/whatever using regular textures as well. For this icon, I wanted a particular effect; the text needed to match and be just as bright and ridiculous as the rest of the icon. So I took the icon and copy merged it a few times, rotated and dragged it, and then clipped those layers to the text layer using a clipping mask (which essentially just means that the layers you clip are now attached only to the layer you clip them to; i.e. all the stamped layers are now attached only to the text layer). Then I just masked away the bits that didn't please me.
But doesn't the text jump out at you a bit more now? You bet!
Some more examples using this texture by mm3butterfly:
texture set to: screen | saturation | pin light | multiply
In these examples, the light texture is clipped to the text layer (which consists of all my text layers rasterized and merged together for the purposes of this example). This is just a basic edit, but you can see how--just like when you use a light texture on your whole icon--the text drastically changes how the text looks and feels.
TEXT + VIBRANCY:
- it's easier to do when you add your text earlier on
- because then you can just "color" it along with the rest of your icon
- you can do it later too though
- you just have to get really comfortable with clipping masks as used in the last section
- and/or find other ways to spice up your text!
- if you add text early on, make sure you've rasterized your text before you start doing anything else
- (but also remember that once you rasterize you can't change the font, tracking, etc anymore so wait until you're sure you're happy with all those choices)
- and also I find it helps to gently blur your text as well
- this just helps keep your text from getting too sharp/low quality as you work on the rest of the icon.
Okay so now we're going to have a go at this magic trick:
--->
There's no actual magic; I was joking. Basically, it's just what I've said before: treat your text just like every other part of your icon. When I up the vibrancy on my subject, the text gets a taste too. What I add textures, I think about how they impact the text as well. When I go to my trusty diffuse glow filter, well, the text gets some as well because it wants to sparkle too, dang it.
So let's have a look behind the curtain here. Above you can see a bit of the layer palette once I started in on the...lighting/contrast/coloring stuff. What you'll see, most of all, is that I stamp layers way too much, but also that I take the text along for the ride each time.
Also, as I said above, make sure you rasterize your text (and optional step: blur it as well) before you move on to other coloring steps. This will help improve the quality of your text in the long run, I find.
vs.
NOT RASTERIZED VERSUS RASTERIZED/BLURRED
Y'all probably won't believe me, but if you really look at these two examples, you can see the difference that rasterizing before you start anything else makes in the end. You can skip this if you want, but if you are really heavy on techniques that just naturally add a bit of grain or sharp edge to your icon (lots of curves or saturation especially), you will appreciate taking the time to do this, I promise.
Okay, but what if you don't decide to add your text until the very end? Totes cool! Here are some tricks for that!
fonts used: Fairy Strange | League Gothic it was late @ night when I wrote this tutorial; the font is actually Intro, wow @ me
1. The easiest way is just to use that eye dropper tool to its fullest potential. You already have a super vibrant icon by the time you're done so just use those colors for your text. Make sure you choose from areas in your icon that are already pretty bright and saturated and place your text somewhere that those colors will stand out (& avoid areas where the text will blend in due to similar colors; make words half one color and half another if you have to).
2. But you can also utilize the fact that layers are super editable! You have heaps of blending modes to use so try those out for your text! In the example above 'SAIL' was set to hard light.
vs.
The first image has the text set to normal; the second has it set to hard light like in the final icon. The difference is subtle, but it is definitely there. The hard light option stands out from the canvas a bit more. It has that bright, reflective nature that water sometimes has, and it doesn't disappear into the blue behind it. It's just more eye catching!
You should also explore what changing the opacity does for your text! In the icon above, the text at the bottom of the icon is only at 33% opacity. I didn't want it to complete with the text at the top of the icon, and fading the opacity allowed me to keep it there to act as a border without it being too eye catching.
vs.
Opacity set at 100% versus opacity set at 33% as in the final icon version.
SOME FONTS:
So here are 30 fonts that I have installed on my computer. I'm not even sure I've used all of them, but the possibility is there! There's a variety including some foundation fonts and some accent fonts. And...you can download all 30 here for personal use only. I forgot to put Ayres (used earlier) into the pack so you can get that by itself here if it struck your fancy.
And I think we'll wrap it up there since I'm not sure what else to put into this giant thing. Hopefully it's helpful to someone out there! Thanks for reading!
My other text guides: My first guide: "A guide to: TEXT" | My second guide: "The Second Time's the Charm version"
Other text related posts: Font recs | Textual Healing (an inspiration post)
All my other tutorials and guides: here!
Let me know if you have any questions and/or need clarification on anything in this guide. I'm always happy to chat! Feel free to rec this if you feel like it, but just make sure you link back to me directly.