Making Editable Letterpress Styled Text

Let’s see in this Illustrator tutorial how we can create editable letterpress styled text.

Step 1

 

Make a rectangle using the Rectangle tool (M) and fill it with a colour: on which the text can be placed. You can also create this tutorial on a white background.

 

 

 

 

Step 2

 

Type some text with the Text tool (T) and choose a font. Select the text and take off any fill or stroke.

 

 

 

Step 3

 

From the Appearance panel’s pop-up menu, pick New Fill. Press the swatch thumbnail in the Appearance panel of the new fill and change the colour to a darker shade of the background colour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 4

 

Then navigate to Effect > Stylize > Inner Glow. In the Inner Glow dialog box, change the Mode to Normal, the fill colour (the swatch thumbnail to the direct right of the Mode drop-down menu) to a colour slightly darker than the background colour, the Opacity to 90 and the Blur to 2 px. Now when you press the drop-down arrow of the new fill in the Appearance panel you can see the Inner Glow effect listed under it.

 

 

 

Step 5

 

Without leaving the text selection, make a new fill from the Appearance panel. The Inner Glow effect you applied will seem lost, but it isn’t. In the Appearance panel, when we created the latest new fill it got placed on top of the first fill. Rearrange the fills by dragging the newest fill below the first one in the Appearance panel.

 

 

 

Step 6

Choose the latest fill in the Appearance panel and change the fill to a darker colour than the original text fill colour. You won’t be able to see any change because the new fill is behind the first one.

 

 

Step 7

Select the new fill and navigate to Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. In the Transform Effect dialog box, change the Vertical Move to 1 px. This might need to be increase depending on the size of your text.

 

 

 

Step 8

 

Make a new fill from the Appearance panel like and fill it with white. Place the new fill below all the other fills.

 

 

 

Step 9

 

Select the white fill and navigate to Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. In the Transform Effect dialog box, change the Vertical Move to -1 px. Again, this can be increased depending on the size of the text.

 

 

 

 

Step 10

 

We are done! The text is still editable! To make this technique more useful, choose the text and press New Graphic Style in the Graphic Style panel. Now you can apply Graphic Style to other fonts and even to other shapes and objects. Choose a text or other vector paths and click the thumbnail of the Graphic Style.