This week lynda.com released the latest update to Deke’s signature Illustrator course, Illustrator CC One-on-One: Mastery—and with it you get a dekeSplanation of an amusingly handy new tool in Illustrator Creative Cloud: the Touch Type tool.
If you’re a member of lynda.com and you’re a “let’s get right to the new stuff” kinda person, then check out the last few videos of Chapter 38, “Free Transform and Touch Type” in the latest course. If you’re not a member of lynda.com, why then scurry over to lynda.com/deke and get yourself a free week’s trial.
‘Course, if you’d like to see how it works without scurrying anywhere, read on for a words-and-pictures example of how I made a classic deke-with-backward-droopy-e (hey, it’s classic around here) in a matter of seconds using Illustrator’s handy new feature:
I’ll start with some standard lowercase dekeInCourier type on a red background in Adobe Illustrator:
Next, I’ll choose the Touch Type tool from the toolbox; it lives under the regular T (for type) tool, just click and hold and grab the last one from the list. Or easier, press Shift-T. Either way, you can now simply click the letter you want to mess with. When you do, you’ll see a bounding box appear with five controls, each of which helps you do something as documented below:
Since I want to turn my e upside-down, I grab the rotate control at the top and use it to swing my e around recklessly:
You can click that solid point (or anywhere inside the box, really) to move the letter around. The other letters will politely get out of the way. If you check out the Character panel, you can see how far you’ve moved it and rotated it. (If I had changed the scale in some way, that would appear in the standard Width and Height scale fields here, too.)
Since my wacky character rudely pushed the other letters around during the process, I can move the k and second-e back into place with the Touch Type tool. (When you use the tool, the letters of the word all turn blue, as below).
I can easily continue my shenanigans with the Touch Type tool until my story is told. (Don’t feel bad for Deke. My name has two e’s, as well.)
Check out Deke’s course for more on how this new fun feature flies.
Good stuff, but….
Why no more love for Perspective Drawing?, I noticed it didn’t show up as a chapter in the CS6 Mastery course either.
Anyway, as always, glad to see this out, buttons pressed -‘Queued’ for viewing.
Yeah, I mulled over that one
What with the ongoing nature of the Creative Cloud, we’re trying to create courses that I can update every so often on a moment’s notice, whether in the event of impending necessity or just because we have nothing better to do.
The Perspective Drawing feature was one of those things that didn’t seem to gain a lot of traction last time around. So I left it out this go around. But if anyone feels like, “Good Gawd, you fool, you’ve made a terrible blunder!” please tell me, and I’ll either pretend I didn’t hear you or get to work pronto.
Given the incessant nature of CC, I have a feeling you’ll be telling me, “Good Gawd, you fool, you’ve made a terrible blunder” an awful lot in the upcoming months. Which is okay, b/c given my haughty nature, I need to be reminded of that.