Explore different methods of adding and stylizing text in design elements, like a card, through copying and pasting from previous work and making key adjustments. Learn how to modify text color, resize text, adjust tracking and align text, all while ensuring your text fits properly within the design frame.
Key Insights
- The article advises on how to add and stylize text simultaneously, a method often chosen by many designers. This includes copying text from previous work, pasting it into the new design, and adjusting features like color and size for suitability.
- Techniques on properly integrating text into a design frame are discussed, such as using the selection tool to adjust the text frame size or dragging text to a specific location within the design. It also discusses how to center text or align it to other elements on the page.
- The article provides tips for refining the appearance of text, including adjusting the tracking of letters, changing the leading between lines of text, and adding design elements like a detailed line for visual interest.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
In this video, we'll be adding text to the back of our card. While creating the front of our card, we added all of the text elements to the page before actually stylizing it.
In the back of this card, we're going to go with a different method that other individuals choose to use, which is adding text and stylizing it at once. So to do this, let's zoom in and scroll to the top, and the first text that we'll be creating is at the top. For here, we're going to add May 20th, our date.
And while we could create a text frame and type it and stylize it, let's simply copy the text from page one. We'll scroll up to the top, and let's select this, May. We'll select the entire text frame and hit CTRL + C on the keyboard.
And then scrolling back down, let's make sure that we're within our text layer, and we'll lock our shapes and images. And within the text layer, let's simply hit CTRL + V to paste. The first thing we'll need to do is change our color from white to black.
So triple clicking, we'll go to our fill, and we'll double click, selecting black. In addition, we simply want to resize some of the characteristics. So let's scroll down and add 100% for our stretching, and 100% horizontally, and hit ENTER.
And from here, we have overset text as it no longer fits. So let's utilize our selection tool and drag out our text frame. We can then drag it to the top within our white rectangle.
And if we double click, let's add a second line for 20th. For the T and H, we'll again do superscript. And we now need to reduce the size of this text overall.
To do this, we'll highlight all of it, hitting CTRL + A on the keyboard. And let's reduce the size from 64 points, double clicking, and let's reduce it down to 50, and hit ENTER. I think this looks like a little more appropriate of a size.
However, looking at the tracking of the A and Y now, we do need to separate it a little bit more. We'll highlight the letter A, and for our tracking, let's simply hit up, and I think negative 110. Looks a bit better.
We'll also align center, so we'll hit CTRL + A, and for our paragraph, let's align center. From here, we'll now work with the text frame, so we'll utilize our selection tool. Let's drag the text frame so it's within the page here, not simply within the margin, and we'll align until it's at the grid of two inches, and at the guide.
And finally, we're going to center align, and if we hit W on the keyboard, we'll see what this looks like. As one additional change, let's also highlight 20th, and we're going to bring it up a bit. To do this, we'll go back into our character here, and we're going to change our letting.
We'll simply reduce it here, and we'll see the separation between the two changes. We go back to our selection tool, we can see that this is centered, and if we hit W on the keyboard, we'll see what this looks like. I like the look of this so far, so let's move on to our next text element.
The next text element is we're going to have the word, you're invited, up top. If we'll remember, we have that right up top here. So again, let's copy this element, hitting CTRL + C on the keyboard, and going back down into page two, we'll hit W on the keyboard, and hit CTRL + V to paste this element.
The one change we will want to make is changing the color of the text. We'll triple click it, and go into our fill, we'll double click, and select paper. In addition, we'll also want to change the text frame, utilizing the selection tool, and we'll drag it from one edge of the page to the center, and for a paragraph, let's center the paragraph.
From here, we're going to want to add another line of text within this area, and so we'll copy RSVP by May 5th, hitting CTRL + C, and again, pasting it using CTRL + V. We'll again put it right in this area, and in this case, it matches up with the correct margin and sizing, and for this text here, let's line it up so that the bottom of 5th is right in line with 20th. In addition, we'll select You're Invited, and we're just going to move it down a bit, so again, it's in line with May. The top of Y and Y are consistent.
We can drag that text frame up, and we hit W on the keyboard. We'll see that there's a little bit of space here, so let's add a detailed line. To do this, we'll utilize our line tool, and let's drag out a line from the guide to the end of the page, holding Shift so it draws straight, and let's change this line stroke by double-clicking the stroke and selecting Paper, and let's change it to something more interesting.
Feel free to select whatever line you'd prefer. I'm going to select Dotted, because I like the dots, and I'm going to increase the size of this line. I like these big, large dots.
In addition, I'll hit V on the keyboard, and let's reduce the size, holding ALT, and in this case, it looks like my line is a little bit off from the center, so let's realign it up, and this is probably because I have the edge all the way at the edge of the bleed rather than the page, so when you notice that elements are off, go ahead and double check it, and again, holding ALT here will recenter, and this looks much better. Finally, I'll use the arrow keys to move it down so it's a bit more centered between the two lines of text, and hit W on the keyboard to see how this looks. I like the look of this, however, I am going to reduce the size of the stroke just a bit.
These circles aren't quite as big, and this looks good. I'll hit CTRL + S on the keyboard to save our work thus far, and in the next video, we'll be working on some additional text elements. See you there!