Lab 14 Reflection

     Many logos are wordmark logos. This means that the logos are only composed of text and many times these logos are a custom font. The font used to make the logo exists but it has been altered. In our 14th lab we learned how to alter text in Adobe Illustrator.
     The three tools we used in this lab were the type tool, type on a path tool, and the direct selection tool. The type tool types out letters. Similarly the type on a path tool types letters on a path, think of a path as a line that you created. The direct selection tool works like the the normal selection tool except you can use it to select individual points of an object.

     The first thing we needed to do was create a word with 30 pt san serif bold text, scaled 200% horizontally and tracked to -100 vertically. Let me get a few terms out of the way. Serif and san serif are classifications of type. Serifs are little flags or serifs at the ends of letters, such as in Times New Roman. Serif text will have these serifs while san serif will not. Tracking is spacing between all letters in a word. Tracking can be increased to space out letters or decreased to bring

them closer together. Horizontal and vertical scaling is simply increasing the size of a letter or letters along the x or y axis respectively. To set all of these specifications I first typed out the word. Next I went to the Character panel. Here I am able to change these things to fit the specifications to fit these conditions. Once they were changed I ended up with the picture above. But I also needed to create my own specifications with another word. So I made a word with 60 pt serif regualer text, scaled vertically 200% and tracked to 100. The result is the bottom picture.

      The next task was to create the word top and kern only two of the letters, and change its color to grey. Let me get some terminology out of the way again. Kerning is the spacing between individual letter. Unlike tracking, kerning foucuses on space between specific letters rather than all letters. Here you can see there is more space between the T and o than usual. The color of the text was change to grey by changing it in the properties bar. When then needed to create our own specifications again. I kerned all letters but I made sure the B and first o were more spaced out along

with the second o and m being more spaced out as well. Then I made sure the space between the 'otto' part of the word was closer together. Once that was done the fill color was changed back to black.

     After that we needed to create two 60 pt letters which we needed to convert into outlines, change the shape of one letter, turn off the fill, and have a black stroke. The way I changed the shape of a letter was first making the outline of the shape. The way I did this was go to Type in the menu bar and go to create outlines, having the letter selected while doing this. Then I used the direct selection tool to select individual anchor points on the letter itself, holding down shift to select multiple at once. Then I draged them in one direction changing the shape of the letter. Once this was done I created outlines of the

other shape, placed them in a specific way, turned off their fill, and turned on their stroke. We again needed to make our own version. I made three letters, repeated the exact same steps as before in a previous way but in a different way, and resulted with this.
     We then made a copy of the outlines and combined them into one shape. This was done using the pathfinder panel. To access this panel I went to Window/Pathfinder. Then I selected an appropraite option to combine the letters. I ended up with this:

 I again did the same thing for my version and ended up with the picture below the previous.
     It was finally time to type on a path. Using the Pen tool I made a wavy path. Then I selected the type on a path tool, a tool associated with the type tool. Then I put the cursor on my path and when the cursor looked like a normal 'I' but with a slash going through it I clicked on the pathe and started typing. The result was this:

There was unappealing spacing between a few letters which I fix by kerning them. We needed to make our own version so I made a slighlty curved path and did the same thing I did previously to type on it.
     These skills are important to a web designer because text is an important part of designing a website. Things like spacing between letters and shape of letters can mean the difference between a fine work of a website or a web page with words vomitted on to it. Your audience will be reading a lot on your site so if you know these skills you can make it easier for your audience to read your site. It overall makes your website more appealing.