How to use the Distort Envelope Shape & Type

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SECTION: 4
Keyboard Shortcuts 14:06

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Course info

104 lessons / 10 hours 33 quiz questions 31 projects Certificate of achievement

Overview

Hey there, I'm Dan Scott, an Adobe Certified Instructor with over 16 years of design experience under my belt, I'm part of the Adobe Expert program, and my online and in-person classes have been attended by more than a million people, just like you! Join me as we dive into the exciting world of Adobe Illustrator Advanced! In this course, you're not just leveling up in Illustrator, you're transforming into an Illustrator SuperHero!

In this course you will work on a bespoke brief designed to ignite your imagination, coupled with immersive course videos, you'll be crafting jaw-dropping graphics in no time. Throughout our journey together, you'll flex your creative muscles and construct projects that will elevate your portfolio to new heights. So, let's dive in and unleash your creativity!

You’ll learn:

  • - How to use artificial intelligence to boost your creativity in ideation. 
  • - The quick way to take hand-drawn sketches and vectorize and color them. 
  • - The building blocks needed to set you loose on a huge variety of beautiful effects and techniques.
  • - To make beautiful charts and graphs for your documents. 
  • - Color mastery to make quick color adjustments, Pantones, and blend it all together beautifully.
  • - How to master images inside of your illustrator workflow. 
  • - To harness all the secret gems that'll help you level up your typography skills. 
  • - All the tricks of the trade for drawing complex shapes easily. 
  • - To double your creativity with the Transform and Distort section. 
  • - To speed up your personal workflow to get the most out of your creative day.

Explore the full course outline for a comprehensive list of topics that will expand your Illustrator prowess beyond imagination.

If you're already comfortable navigating the basics but want to  unlock the true potential of Illustrator, then this Illustrator Advanced course is your ticket to becoming a master of Illustrator! So join me and the ranks of design superheroes and let's embark on this thrilling journey together.

Requirements:

- All you need is a copy of Adobe Illustrator, you can get a free trial from Adobe here to get started.
- A basic knowledge of Illustrator is required. I recommend watching my Illustrator Essentials course prior to embarking on this epic adventure.

Who this course is for:

- Creative adventurers who already have a basic understanding of Illustrator.
- Self-taught Illustrator enthusiasts yearning for structured guidance.
- Graduates of my Illustrator Essentials Course, hungry for more knowledge and skills.
- Visionaries who have developed their own unique Illustrator approach but crave exploration of the vast universe of tools, updates, and time-saving techniques.

What you'll learn:

- How to use Text to Vector Ai
- How to use Text to Pattern Ai
- How to use Generative Recolor
- When to use the Scissor Tool, Eraser Tool & Knife Tool
- Advanced Shape Builder Uses
- The differences between the Pathfinder Vs Shape Builder
- How to use the Join tool & Joining Path Ends
- Advanced Pen Tool Tricks
- Width Tool Advanced Techniques
- The Curvature Tool
- How to master corners with corner widget effects
- How to work with Compound Paths
- The difference between Expand & Expand Appearance
- How to create Graphic Styles
- How to make Symbols
- How to use the Smooth Tool
- Advanced use of Simplify Path
- What Live Shape Effects are for
- How to make Repeating Grids & Concentric Circles
- How to make Random Objects
- Advanced Keyboard Shortcuts in Illustrator
- How to add a Gradient on a Stroke
- How to add a Gradient in Text
- How to use the Freeform Gradient tool
- How to use Advanced Color Swatches
- How to use Global Color Swatches
- What is the difference between RGB vs CMYK color modes?
- How to proof colors
- How to use Pantone Spot Colors
- Recolor Artwork & Changing all colors at once
- How to use Blending Modes
- How to work with Images & Blending Modes
- How to make Black & White Images
- Learn Advanced Workflow Tricks
- All the Super Selection Mastery
- How to use the History Panel
- Advanced Fonts Tricks & Tips
- Use Retype to know what Font is being used
- How to put Text Inside a Letter or Shape
- How to use the Touch Type Tool
- How to add a Connected Stroke Around Multiple Shapes
- How to Offset a Stroke with Text
- How to make a Bar Chart in Illustrator
- How to make a Pie Chart in Illustrator
- Layer Power Moves
- Advanced Artboard & Pages Tricks
- How to Unlink vs Embedded Images
- How to Crop Images Rather than Mask
- How to Mask Inside Text & Multiple Shapes
- How to you use the Puppet Warp Tool
- How to use the Distort Envelope Shape & Type
- How to use the Envelope Mesh
- How to blend lines together
- How to make a Linocut Effect
- How to make 3D Gradient Lettering Blends
- How to spin text into a ring
- How to turn text into a 3D donut shape
- How to make a Duotone image effect
- How to make a Roughen Stamp Vector Effect
- How to make a Neon Sign Glow Effect
- How to use a Halftone Effect using Plugins
- Advanced Exporting Assets Tricks in Illustrator
- How to use the Dimension Tool

So what're you waiting for? Let's start the course now!
Daniel Scott

Daniel Scott

Founder of Bring Your Own Laptop & Chief Instructor

instructor

I discovered the world of design as an art student when I stumbled upon a lab full of green & blue iMac G3’s. My initial curiosity around using the computer to create ‘art’ developed into a full-blown passion, eventually leading me to become a digital designer and founder of Bring Your Own Laptop.

Sharing and teaching are a huge part of who I am. As a certified Adobe instructor, I've had the honor of winning multiple Adobe teaching awards at their annual MAX conference. I see Bring Your Own Laptop as the supportive community I wished for when I was first starting out and intimidated by design. Through teaching, I hope to bring others along for the ride and empower my students to bring their stories, labors of love, and art into the world.
True to my Kiwi roots, I've lived in many places, and currently, I reside in Ireland with my wife and kids.

Certificates

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Downloads & Exercise files

Transcript

Hello. Hey, we are going to distort both regular old shapes,  like this kind of, uh, group of rectangles  with gradients in it, into this lovely whippy flag  warpy thing, okay? And we'll do the same thing with text  where we kinda squish it into a shape. Um, there is a bonus at the end where we do, um,  something similar but with the puppet pin tool. So let's get busy distorting shapes using what's called  an envelope distort. Alright?

To get started, um,  open up envelope distort from your exercise files. You can do with any old shape as long as it's vector. Okay? And let's start with uh, this top group of the top this. These are just rectangles that I've grouped together  and added gradients to. There's nothing fancy about them.

Okay? I'm gonna have them all selected. I've grouped them and I'm gonna go up to object. And there's an option in here that says Envelope distort. In this video we'll look at make with whap  and make with top object. And we'll do make with mesh in the next one.

So let's go make with whap, okay? And that often will do a lot of what you want to do. Need a rainbow Done. We've got an arc. Okay? You can adjust the bins in here, okay?

To get it how you want. There is some different  options underneath. When I say different is,  it'll depend on the style that you pick. Okay? So if you need an arch,  actually I'm gonna put these back to zero, tab zero. So they're back in the middle  to give you a better sense of them.

So obviously arch, these little icons are helpful. Arch and arc are very similar,  but kind of give you that kind of different look. And of course we all need the fish. I've never used the fish option. Okay? I waiting for the day where I get a client  that says, all right, I'm a fish shop.

I'm like, bingo fish style followed by fisheye. It is just so easy to be able to kind of like,  things like flag  and wave are just so easy when you get to kind  of just drag a slider rather than trying to,  I don't know if you've ever tried to do this  with like a pen tool and give all  the curves to follow each other. It's a nightmare. Okay? Make sure your preview's on so you can actually see what's  going on when you make your changes. But there you go.

Make with Warp, it's pretty easy. Um, let's click. Okay. What'll happen is if I click out  and I click back on, I'm like, can I change it still? You totally can. Um, over here there's warp options  or if you've got this top bar turned on, okay,  you can see there's a lot of options up here.

There's a dropdown, okay? And all the options that are just in here, it's up to you. Go back into Warp Options, okay? And it is kind of continually editable. I'm gonna click okay. There will be a time  where this is kind like trapped in this like envelope warp.

It's an envelope because basically imagine sticking objects  inside of an actual envelope, like a letter envelope  and then twisting the envelope. The stuff inside of it's still fine. It's the envelope that is actually distorting everything. That's why it's called an envelope distort at the moment. It's kinda like trapped in this zone of editability. Okay?

We can go back into Warps options,  but let's say we wanna break it apart  'cause we want to like adjust anything, okay? It's kind of stuck here. There's two options. You can go up to Object and our regular old expand, okay? And that'll kind of, uh, click okay. It'll get it to the thing that you know and love.

Okay? I'm gonna ungroup it  and now it's just like I'm gonna ungroup it again, okay? And it's now just parts, okay? It's no longer editable as that warp. Um, but it is kind of like as we know it. So sometimes that is useful.

Um, I'm gonna go  Undo, undo, undo until it's back to a wp. You can kind of see it, it's kind of in a bigger box. And there's these lines in here. Um, another way to do it is you can go to Object  and down to envelope, distort, okay? And in here there's one called Release. So expand is the exact same thing,  either clicking it here or up here.

But if I go to, uh, envelope Distort  and go to release, what ends up happening is it shows you  kind of like, it's just interesting if you need that shape  and separate these out, I'm gonna actually copy  and paste it so I've got it. Then do that object envelope, distort release, okay? Kind of separates them out. But this is the shape that was forcing this  to do the bend, okay? And that shape you can use later on, I'll show you. So this is the thing, forcing this into a shape.

So we can use that technique, okay? For that type that you saw at the beginning. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab some type type tool. I'm gonna go much enter Love. I'm gonna pick a font. You wait there, okay?

I like this font. It's called um, hobo Rocco. I don't know how to pronounce that. Um, you can see it there. Okay? It's a, uh, Doby font.

I've made it bigger. I'm gonna make it actually a different color  and I'm gonna stick it on top of this. 'cause what we can do is, um, first of all,  the layer order needs to be right. Okay? So I'm gonna say this heart needs  to be on the top, okay? And I'm selecting both the heart and the text.

And I'll show you why. You can go into object  and you can go to envelope store  and you can say instead of Make with Warp,  you can say Make with Top object. Okay? And as long as the object's on top,  it will start bending it. Cool. A okay?

So whatever you design on top can kind  of be squished in there. Now it is really hard to edit this afterwards, okay? You can go inside, it's still editable text, okay? I can go inside it and say, all right,  I wanna play around with the lidding here. Found it all. I'm gonna use my shortcut for the lidding,  which is Option up,  but it's kind of weird to work in this view.

Okay? That's alt up  and I've got it all selected to do the letting. Okay, I'm gonna kind of come all the  way out, double click the background. I find it's easier to get the type, kind of close to  where you want it to be before you get it in  and actually pick a font  that actually is legible much in this font is tricky. Love kind of works. There you go.

Oh, I love you too. Um, double click the background. Okay? So it is editable type and you can just use the top shape. So that is really handy  because if you say you get like, um, like this one here,  you like the kind of whip in the, you know, flag style  of this, you can release it, okay? And then use this multiple times on different shapes,  different text to get the same  effect, if you know what I mean.

Um, so you use the kind of make with warp  to get the original shape, release it. So you've got this thing and then use this again and again  and again as the top object. Just make sure it's on top. Sometimes though as well is I'm gonna copy this. I'm gonna go undo, undo, undo, undo, undo, undo. I'm gonna come back to here when I had the actual heart.

Often I want it inside of it, you know. So what I'm gonna do is just paste it  and maybe shrink it down a little bit so that um,  You know, I'm using the top shape,  which obviously disappears when you've used it. And I've got another copy  that just kinda like fills the void there. Oh, good way. The other thing you might do is I'm gonna make a duplicate  of this, is we looked at the puppet um, pin tool. So you don't have a lot of control.

The top shape drives the font  and you're like, oh, it's doing some weird  stuff with this U here. So what I'm gonna do is kind of show you an alternative  is I'm gonna play with the lidding optional alt up arrow  and I'm gonna go there  and I'm gonna grab the puppet pin tool. Okay? So this is completely different,  but a kind of a similar effect  with maybe a bit more control. So can't remember where the puppet pin tool is. See somewhere, oh does everybody turn that thing on?

You can hit the cross or hit escape and it gets rid of it. Um, oh, I can't remember what the puppet pin tool is. Oh there it is. It was there the whole time. Anyway, okay, so you've got some random pins going in. Might add some more to the corners.

Get rid of this one. Just be very kind of deliberate with this text, okay? And maybe have wing one there and get rid of that one. Maybe one there. You gotta actually click on the object. If I try and click there, it doesn't go in.

Okay. Probably a bit too much control, but you can kind  of see I'm gonna do the same sort of thing. Um, but I get to be a little bit more deliberate around. It takes longer, okay? But I can start kind of rotating this around  and decide where it's gonna go. You get the idea?

We've done the puppet pin tool. You made a cool flock or a murder, alright? Alternative use of the puppet pin tool, using it for type. It'll depend on what you're doing. Alright, my friends that is using the envelope warp tool  with a bit of puppet pin tool in there for good measure. Alright, I'll see you in the next video.
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