Dynamic Sign Up Sign

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Background

In October Veerle had a post about Leopard style effects on her blog. In one section she discusses text effects and uses the Appearance Palette in Illustrator to create a button. Mordy Golding shows how to create a Similar Effect in Illustrator in a video podcast in December. You may also find his blog post on Rounded Corners helpful.

The techniques presented in this tutorial take some of the work presented above a bit further. This exposes the benefits of using these techniques and some of the difficulties.

An excessive amount of screenshots are displayed in the next section so you get the feel for these techniques. Thereafter, the screenshots will be sparse and you'll need to rely on the text instructions.

Let's Get Started

Select the Type Tool (B) and type in the text "SIGN UP". I used Myriad Pro Bold Font at 22pt and I used All Caps. Change the text to a White Fill.

Make sure the Characters Layer is chosen in the Appearance Pallette. Select the Arrow in the top right corner of the Pallette and Add a New Fill.

Set this New Fill to a Green Gradient of your choice. I used a Green Linear Gradient set to an Angle of -60. You can see below that there isn't much to see yet. Make sure you Keep This Gradient Selected for the next step.

Now go to Effects > Convert to Shape > Rounded Rectangle. Select Relative and set Extra Width: 18px and Extra Height 10px. I used the default Coner Radius: 9px. Hit Ok.

We are going to apply a stroke to the sign next. Select the existing Stroke that currently has no fill and set it to a Fill of White. You'll see the text get stroked, but keep it Selected for the next effect when you'll tranform it into a Rounded Rectangle.

Now go to Effects > Convert to Shape > Rounded Rectangle. Select Relative and set Extra Width: 16px and Extra Height 8px. I used the default Coner Radius: 9px. With Preview selected you can see the result. Hit Ok.

We are going to apply a drop shadow behind the text to make it stand out a bit. Select the White Fill Layer in the Appearance Palette.

Now go to Effects > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Set Opacity to 75. Set X Offset: 1px. Set Y Offset to 1px. Set Blur: 1px. Set Color: Black. With Preview selected you can see the result. Hit Ok.

Our Sign Will Look better on a Pole

Create a New Fill below our Green Gradient Layer. Give it a Gray Gradient with an Angle of 0. You won't see anything take effect yet.

Go to Effects > Convert to Shape > Rectangle. Select Absolute and set Width: 8px and Height 20px. With Preview selected you can see the result. Hit Ok.

Our pole needs to be moved down a bit. Go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform Effect. Under Move set Verticle: -32px. With Preview selected you can see the result. Hit Ok.

Now we are going to put a cap on top of the pole. Create a New Fill above the last one with the same gradient as the pole. Go to Effects > Convert to Shape > Rectangle. Select Absolute and set Width: 8px and Height 1px. With Preview selected you can see the result. Hit Ok.

Our pole needs to be moved up a bit. Go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform Effect. Under Move set Verticle: 32px. With Preview selected you can see the result. Hit Ok.

Create a Radial Gradient Background and set it to White in the center and Light Blue on the outside. This will make your sign look like there is sky behind it.

Turn This Into a Reusable Graphic Style

Select your Sign. Drag it to your Graphic Styles Palette and Drop it in. Your graphic style is now ready to be applied to any text you select. Below you can see how your final Palette should look.

Take Advantage of the Dynamic Effect

Select the text with your Text Tool (T). And try typing different words. Watch the sign grow as you type letters.

Review of Benefits and Potential Issues with this Technique

Its great that Graphic Styles can be saved and applied over and over again on new documents. If you have text you need enclosed in a Graphic Style often this is a good technique.

There are some issues with this technique. The layers that are setup in the Appearance Palette cannot be named. This can make organizing the styles difficult. Maybe Adobe will allow naming of these layers in the future.

Creating some of these styles is not so intuitive. Especially when you apply something and you don't see any effect until you apply another technique on top of it.

There can be size issues. Styles might not look good at text set at different sizes. It may only look good at the size you targeted. You'll have to experiment with this. It depends on the effects your using.

Overall using the Appearance and Graphic Styles Palette is pretty cool. Lots of interesting, dynamic, and reusable styles you can create. Try out some of the other Effects and share your results in the comments. I'd love to see what you can come up with.