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ART140.tut_1 Sec2:52

7/8/07 13:01:12

ON THE CDTIME NEEDED

1 hour

SKILLS

• Clipping Masks• Compound paths• Blend tool

INFO

Based inManchester,Martin Fewellhas sevenyears’ experience in thedesign industry, workingfor some of the world’slargest brands. He’srecently set up his owndesign company calledYolo. To ﬁnd out morevisit www.yo-lo.com.

MASKING WITH TYPE

Illustrator’

s masking tools have long been a powerful part of its feature set. Here

Martin Fewell

shows youhow to use masked images with typography to create an eye-catching illustration

Now type out your title text. Choosean ornate but chunky font. Its thickerlines will show a lot of the image whenused as a mask, with the thinner linescreating a nice contrast. You’ll ﬁnd themain title text as outlines on the CD.

First off, ﬁre up

Illustrator

. Thistutorial uses

CS3

but you’ll be able touse older versions. Create a new CMYKdocument of 280x280mm.

When you’re happy with your text,kerning, line spacing and so on,select it and Copy and Paste it to one side.Next, select your original text and convertit to paths by using Type>CreateOutlines.Apple+Shift+O is the keyboard shortcutfor this selection.

Next go to File>Place… to importyour ﬁrst image on to your

Illustrator

page. Choose the Type Mask image fromthe CD, or use one of your own. You’regoing to create a poster for a ﬁctitioussummer event, The City Garden Show.

Pioneered by the likes of WimCrouwel and 8vo, usingtypography as the main focus point in place of an image is a very effectivemeans of getting a message across.Type used in this way is popular todayacross a range of campaigns and is easyto achieve in

Illustrator

.As well as experimenting with largeheaders by modifying letters, coloursand so on, you can use type to mask over elements of your design. Theeffect can also be used to enhance themeaning of the wording. For example,you could mask an image of a fish withtext saying ‘fish’ and then put a FisheyeWarp filter on the text.As well as enhancing the meaning of text you can hide it and make it reallysubtle, creating a watermark effect by building up layers of masked images.In doing this you’ll see how interestingeffects start to happen when letter forms cut into your images.In this tutorial you’ll learn how tocreate the example image on theopposite page. You’ll see how easy themain masking technique is to followand how it adds another essential stringto your creative bow.After the image is done, you can build up layers and experiment to learnhow the effect can be used in differentways. But, as with all design treatmentsand styles, the key is not knowing howto use the effects; rather it’s knowingwhen to use them.

Tutorial and illustration by Martin Fewellwww.yo-lo.com

ILLUSTRATOR

You’ll ﬁnd all the ﬁlesyou need for this tutorialin the folder markedTutorials\Masking onthis issue’s CD.

This renders the type as vectorartwork, which you can’t edit with theType tool. The copy of it you made is incase you need to change it at a later date,or have more text with the same spec.

Now select your type and go to Object>CompoundPath>Make, or pressApple+8. This uniﬁes all the letters eventhough they’re still separated.

September 2007

TUTORIAL

ART140.tut_1 Sec2:53

7/8/07 13:01:19

TUTORIAL

When turned into a compound paththe letters lose their ﬁll colour. Youcan re-colour them, without effecting thepath, to help you see what you’re doing.Alternatively go to View>Outline (or hitApple+Y) to go into Outline mode.

Now position the ﬁrst image on the

Illustrator

art board. It needs to bebehind the text. Do this by selecting it andgoing to Object>Arrange>SendToBackor using the key command Apple+Shift+[.A ﬁll to the letters has been added here soyou can see them.

You’re now ready to make your ﬁrsttext mask. To do this select both theimage and the outlined text and chooseObject>ClippingMask>Make. This givesyou an image masked inside the text.

As with a normal

Illustrator

mask,you can move the imagearound while still in themask. To do this just clickthe image with the whitearrow and move it freely.

CS3

also comes with anEdit Contents optionin Object>ClippingMask>EditContents,which selects themasked image for you.

In this example a block has beenadded in the background to betteraccentuate the effect. So that’s theprocess covered, now you can start usingthe technique a little more creatively withhelp from multiple masking, the use oflayers and by shifting the images around.

Should you want to release theimage from the mask, go toObject>ClippingMask>Release andyour image reverts back to beingunmasked. You’ll notice the outlinedtext has also lost any ﬁll it had – it hasn’tvanished, it just no longer has one.

You’ve probably noticed that theexample subject matter is a littleabstract. That’s because image maskingcan create good juxtapositions with thephotograph and the wording. Contrastingdifferent elements in the design createsan interesting tension.

Now you can look at using imagemasking more subtly to greateffect. First, mask an image as explainedabove. Next, select the image with thewhite arrow and hit Apple+C to copy it.

Masking images withtext can make yourmessage stronger.Use textures thatvisualise yourmessage; forexample, a grasstexture masked in atitle about conservingthe environmentwould work well.Here you could addsome vector detailto the lettering, suchas blades of grassor ﬂowers, to furtherenhance the mood.

A PICTURE TELLS ATHOUSAND WORDS

Create a watermarkfor your photographsusing text masking.Make a matrix ofyour name orcompany logo,change it to acompound path, asexplained in thistutorial, and maskyour image with it.Then Copy and Pastethe photographbehind the originalone and move itslightly, giving you awatermark effectover your image.From here you’ll seehow masking imageswith patterns cangive you veryinteresting effects.

CREATE AWATERMARK

September 2007

ILLUSTRATOR

ART140.tut_1 Sec2:54

7/8/07 13:01:34