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CHARACTER PALETTE GUIDE
FONT FAMILY | This is where you choose your fonts. I know, I'm a genius.
FONT STYLE | Some fonts come with more than one style. The most common are regular, bold and italic. If you ever find yourself getting tired of your fonts and are too lazy to go hunting for new ones, try out new settings!
FONT SIZE | The size of your font. Brilliant insight, I know.
LEADING SIZE | In basic terms, this controls the size of the space between lines of text. Play with this, it can REALLY change the look of your text!
KERNING | I generally don't mess with this unless something is seriously wrong. Basically, if the spacing between individual letters looks off, click your mouse between the letters and then try different numbers in this box until it looks right.
TRACKING | Kind of like kerning, except this controls the space between letters throughout the entire block of text. Also critical in getting an individualized look with your text.
VERTICALLY/HORIZONTALLY SCALE | I don't fuck with these unless I want my text to look horrible. I suggest you follow my lead of "AVOID THESE LIKE THE PLAGUE."
BASELINE | Sort of like leading, except you can highlight one word and change how high or low it is. Hard for me to explain. Just play around with it.
COLOR | If you don't understand this part, I think this little how-to might be somewhat beyond your skill level.
FAUX BOLD | Your font didn't come with a bold font style? Don't sweat it, just turn this on and Photoshop fakes it for you!
FAUX ITALIC | Same as faux bold.
ALL-CAPS | Say you aren't sure whether you want something to be all lowercase, all caps, or a mix. I'd recommend typing all lowercase first, if that doesn't work, click this button and see how it looks with all-caps. If you don't like either of those, try...
SMALL-CAPS | Type like you normally would (with upper and lower case letters) and then click this on. ALL-CAPS BUT THERE ARE BIG AND SMALL CAPS.
SUPERSCRIPT | You don't need this unless you are making fractions or citing something. Just ignore it.
SUBSCRIPT | Same.
UNDERLINE | We all know what this does.
STRIKETHROUGH | This too.
EXAMPLE OF SOME OF THIS IN ACTION
USELESS TIPS ABOUT TEXT
1. Always try to use text in an icon. Even if you don't like the result, you can always delete the text layer before you save it. If you try with every icon, the practice is bound to make you improve.
2. THINK LONG AND HARD about positioning. Some people are really timid about text placement, and they don't want to cover up anything potentially important. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THIS. If you're going to go with text, GO BIG AND BOLD. LET YOUR TEXT RING FROM THE MOUNTAINTOPS! Don't be afraid to cover up ~REALLY IMPORTANT STUFF~ with your text. Chances are, the audience for your icon is already familiar with the cap you're using, they already know what is going on; you covering up half of someones face isn't going to make them clueless.
3. Text in icons should always be more than pure labeling. Icons of Rachel Berry that say "Rachel Berry" aren't interesting. Try to bring some humorous/tragic/etc insight in with your text. BUT OMG, IF YOU'RE JUST GOING TO LABEL STUFF YOU MIGHT AS WELL NOT USE TEXT AT ALL.
4. Look for nice fonts. Yes, I know your computer came with Comic Sans and Papyrus already loaded, BUT IT'S ALWAYS GOOD TO BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS.
5. Don't be afraid to rotate your text or slant it a little bit. This always makes things more interesting.
6. Be careful with color! I've seen so many icons that have decent text, but the color IS HORRIBLE. If you have a beautiful pastel-colored icon, don't just slap some BRIGHT RED text on it. Put more thought into it!
7. The size of your text can be very important. If you have an icon with lots of small and delicate details, using a GIGANTIC, BOLD SANS-SERIF FONT may not be the best idea. On the other hand, if your icon is bold, complex and full of large textures or something, using a tiny little script text just isn't going to cut it.
EFFECTS/MANIPULATION
BLURRING | Filter→Blur→Gaussian Blur. Use a radius of 0.3 to 0.6.
LAYERS | Duplicate your text layer, & change the color. Drag the layer containing the duplicated text underneath the original text layer. Then move the duplicated text a few pixels to the right, left, up or down.
SHADOW | Layer→Layer Styles→Drop Shadow. Distance: 2; Spread: 2; Size: 1.
MULTIPLES | Like "Layers" except you do it a lot, with a lot of different colors, and alternate setting them to screen and multiply.
GRADIENT | Layer→Layer Styles→Gradient Overlay. Just experiment! Set it to multiply, screen, soft light or normal! Also, try experimenting by lowering the fill percentage of the layer. The layer style will remain at full opacity, but you'll start to see the actual text layer disappear. Very fun!
WARPED TEXT | Click the button I've highlighted in red. I like to use wave or arc, and play around with all the sliders. Just go nuts.
MASKING | Never forget the power of a good layer mask.
MY FAVORITE FONTS
ALDO | DOWNLOAD
No matter how you slice it, this is a nice looking font. I can never decide if I like it small or large, so I usually start with 24pt with 22pt leading.
BEBAS | DOWNLOAD
JUST GO CRAZY. Don't forget to mess with the kerning between letters, because this font definitely has its quirks.
CIRCULA | DOWNLOAD
14pt or larger, or else this font starts to get a little squirrely.
COURIER NEW | DOWNLOAD
Your computer should have come with this font. This font looks good all the time, I love it so much. I usually use this at 11pt with 12pt leading, occasionally with +50 tracking.
DAISYWHEEL | DOWNLOAD
I like this font small (it remains legible) and large (so many fun details!) You will have to adjust the kerning between letters though; as a monospaced font it does all sorts of wacky stuff. The tracking is pretty spaced out as well, so either make the leading pretty large (to even things out) or adjust the tracking to make it smaller (I usually go with -50 at the very least).
DANIEL | DOWNLOAD
When you need a good handwriting font, this is one of the best ones to turn to. I LOVE that it comes with three different styles (regular, bold and black), so you can use it at pretty much any size. If you are using a smaller point size, I'd use the black style as it's MUCH easier to read. Favorite setting: BLACK, 14pt, 18pt leading.
FRANKLIN GOTHIC | DOWNLOAD
This font has so many styles, I love the condensed and compressed styles, as well as the light ones. It is a licensed font so you either have to pay for all the styles (PRICEY) or you can type in your own sample text, take a screenshot of the result and edit the color in photoshop AND NOBODY WOULD EVER HAVE TO KNOW YOU'D NEVER PAID FOR IT.
FUTURA | DOWNLOAD
This is a licensed font, but you use the same method described for Franklin Gothic to get around that. I pretty much always use this with all-caps turned on, HEAVY, 18pt with 14pt leading.
GARDENSC | DOWNLOAD
Not the greatest font ever, but it's cute enough. It looks so pretty and delicate at smaller sizes (like smaller than 12pt) and I usually go with 10pt and 11pt leading.
INDIFERENTE | DOWNLOAD
I haven't used this font in an icon yet, but I have terrible dastardly plans for it. I'm planning on using it at 150pt to make non-perfect borders for some icons I have up my sleeves. IDK. Maybe you can come up with a more practical use for it.
INGRATA | DOWNLOAD
OK, I haven't technically used this font yet, either. It looks so good, but I haven't found the right icon for it yet. It comes with an italicized style that looks even better IMO.
LA CHATA | DOWNLOAD
The cutest font in the world. La Chata looks great, all the time. Seriously. Try ANY settings with it, and it's going to be attractive!
MUDSHOVEL | DOWNLOAD
I just like the texture there is to this. I'm definitely going to use this at 200pt to add some noise to my textures (I'M SUCH A CHEATER).
NEW ATHLETIC M54 | DOWNLOAD
This font is so heavy-handed, I typically only use it as an accent surrounded by a lighter, thinner font. If you want to use it for a block of text, 10pt or less, with 12pt or less leading. Accent word? 24pt at the most, IMO.
ORATOR | DOWNLOAD
Another licensed font. You know what to do! TBH, I hate the way this font looks in large sizes. I use it almost exclusively at 9pt, 12pt leading.
ROCKWELL | DOWNLOAD
This comes with most computers, and I believe Adobe includes it in all of its software. I use this font whenever I want a fun serif font, but Courier New just isn't cutting it. Another font that looks nice both big and small, although I'd recommend using a smaller leading.
SPINWERAD | DOWNLOAD
I had some strange plan for this font, but I forget what it was. ANYWAYS. For those of you tired of everybody and their mother using Nouvelle Vague, here is a more boring and more practical alternative.
SPLURGE | DOWNLOAD
I'd only use this on bold if you're going below 24pt, otherwise this looks nice any way you use it. Just be sure to include plenty of leading so you don't have lines overlapping each other!
STANDARD INTERNATIONAL | DOWNLOAD
I like how clean and unfussy this font is. I originally downloaded this font in the hopes of editing it for a Hanna graphic (ALL-CAPS, EDIT THE BOTTOM HALF OF THE LETTERS), but that wasn't meant to be. I still like it a lot though, even though I haven't used it on an icon yet. I can't really read it at 8pt, but I like the way it looks at that size, so I'll probably make some text textures with this. IDK. SOMEBODY STOP ME.
VTKS Contact | DOWNLOAD
I have text texture plans for this... IDK. It's like a distorted version of Rockwell, and I love it. I like pretty much all of the fonts by this guy, TBH. There are plenty I'll never use, but he makes some VERY interesting stuff.
ZNIKOMIT | DOWNLOAD
This font is incredibly delicate looking, so now matter what size you use it at, I recommend duplicating the text layers.
FONT IDENTIFICATION*
*IF YOU WANT ME TO IDENTIFY A FONT IN AN ICON OF MINE, POST A COMMENT AND & I'LL TRY AND FIGURE IT OUT
→ Folks (bold)
→ Helvetica Neue (85 heavy)
→ Rockwell and Palatino
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REQUEST AWAY AT MY ASK THE MAKER 2.0 THREAD
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