Lettering: A Guide to Adobe Illustrator

[Jim_Campbell]

Given that my feeble web-fu is rather delaying my attempt to put an updated tutorial online, I thought I'd post a step-by-step here, which should at least focus my mind on what text needs to be said, and what screenshots are required.

Also, it gives you guys the chance to query anything that I'm not making clear, and to ask additional questions, which I can then include in the website version as and when I eventually finish it.

A couple of fairly important general notes before we start:

I'm using Illustrator CS3 throughout on the Mac. Mac keyboard shortcuts can usually be replicated in Windows by substituting CTRL for CMD. Illustrator is the unloved, red-headed stepchild of the CS family, and has changed relatively little since the last version I used which was (I think) V8.0, so most of this stuff should be backwards-compatible.

If in doubt, ask.

Also, a word about Photoshop. Although you can't get professional work lettering with Photoshop, and although I object profoundly to Adobe's misguided attempts to get people to think it's OK to set type in an image-editing package, the sky won't actually fall in if you letter something in Photoshop. If you want to know how to do something you see here in Photoshop, ask me and I'll see if I can figure it out.

Right ... I'll try and put something up on this thread every day until we get to the end of the process. I may split long posts into multiple ones, but I'll see how things go.

Cheers!

Jim

[Jim_Campbell]

Step One: Document Set-Up

First things first. Launch Illustrator (hereafter AI for brevity), and create your document:



The document size should always be the full bleed size of the artwork, unless bleed is specifically prohibited, in which case use the finished document size. Use CMYK for everything except web-comics. Leave the resolution as it is -- you can always reduce the resolution in another application, like Photoshop, but you can't put it back in.

The next thing you need are four layers:











It's possible you may need to move the SFX layer to the top if it overlaps balloons, or even have two SFX layers if some are behind balloons and some are in front.

Annoyingly, AI automatically defaults its ruler origin points to bottom left of document when every other app in the world uses top left. Reset it by clicking in the corner of the rulers and then dragging to the top left corner of the document:



Make sure you have the Artwork Layer selected in the palette (ignore the guides layer in this screenshot!):



And then place your artwork (you'll need to hit CMD-0 (zero) to centre your view in order for the artwork to place where you expect it) from the File menu:



If you're self-publishing, you'll need to ask your printer for the following information, otherwise your editor will be able to tell you ...

You need to know the Bleed, Trim and Live (Safe Type) areas. As briefly as possible, the bleed is the outer edge of the artwork, to which anything that's meant to bleed off the page needs to be drawn. Trim is the finished page size, and Live is the area anything that needs NOT to be chopped off during print finishing needs to go inside.

You can either drag guides onto the artwork layer from the rulers to mark these up, or position rectangles on the document and turn them into guides from the View menu:




You end up with something like this:



Lastly, draw a rectangle over the whole of the document area ... don't try this by eye, use the measurements palette at the top of the screen:



Then turn the rectangle into a Crop Area:





This means that you can place any crap you want -- pasted text, pre-prepared speech balloons and the like -- outside the artwork area and they'll automatically be excluded when you export the finished, lettered page as a TIFF, EPS, or whatever the editor/printer wants.

Finally, remember to lock this layer, because you don't want to mess with it from now on:



You're now ready to start setting type ...

Cheers!

Jim

[Kev Levell]

Excellent notes Jim. I love seeing how other people do things - I always pick up new tricks... CMD 0(zero) fantastic, how I've got along without that one is beyond me! Thanks!

[Jim_Campbell]

Step Two: Setting Type

I'm not going to go into all the peculiar typographic quirks of comic lettering, except where it specifically impacts on something I'm dealing with here.

Top letterer and all-round decent bloke Nate Piekos of Blambot has an excellent essay on this very subject here.

The first thing you need is a good dialogue font. For non-commercial projects, Blambot offers a number of really good free fonts alongside pay versions for commercial use. If you're feeling flush, or want to specifically imitate the style of another letterer, many pro-level fonts are available (at a price) from Comicraft.

Note that I say you need A good dialogue font. Pick one, and stick to it. The fashion for giving different characters different fonts is primarily editorial-driven -- a great many letterers hate it!

(A brief diversion on a related subject: the use of standard sentence case for dialogue, which is used in some Marvel books. Use of lower case in dialogue makes it look -- to me -- like all the characters are whispering, and renders the book almost unreadable. I have yet to find anyone, reader, letterer or artist, who actually likes this. I wish they'd stop, and I'm not alone.)

The sparing application of alternative fonts for robots, zombies, vampires and the like can be effective, but just as often you can achieve the same effect with a custom balloon style. Sparing use of different colours -- like Jesse's 'voice of power' in Preacher -- can also be a powerful tool, but is similarly rendered ineffective by overuse.

Simply consider how annoying it would be to try and read a novel where a three-way conversation had each character displayed in a different font, and a fourth for narration. Comic lettering is a very specialist subset of typesetting, but some rules still apply, and less is still most definitely more!

You should also pick a point size, and stick to it. You should never, ever, change the point size of your text to make it fit a balloon or caption. It is acceptable to reduce the horizontal scale on the occasional word down to about 95% in an emergency, but otherwise leave it the hell alone!

Although you probably won't go far wrong starting at 6 point for dialogue, be aware that the proportions of fonts can make them look quite different:



If in doubt, print out a sample at actual size, on artwork, and see if you can read it.

Once you've settled on a point size, the 'Auto' leading (line spacing) setting in AI will probably be fine, but some fonts can look very gappy at this setting and you may need to apply a bit of judgement in a minority of cases. Once again, pick the value that looks best, but stick to it. Again, you can't put leading up and down simply to make text fit a balloon or caption.

I have yet to come across a font that doesn't have at least one ugly kerning pair, so keep an eye open for these -- you may need to manually close up the space between some pairs of letters:


(Credit: Wikipedia)

Many people then simply select the Type Tool:



... And then they click on the document and start typing (or paste in the text if you're lucky enough to have the script in an electronic format).

I prefer to create a text box, by clicking and dragging with the type tool to make a box that looks roughly the right size to fit on the artwork:



Type or paste the text in:



(Apply bolds if you need to at this point, since it will marginally affect the line lengths.)

You then need to make the text into an attractive looking block. Assuming that the balloon is free-floating and not cropped to one of the panel borders, then the text will be centred and you will need to manually insert line breaks (returns) to make the text go:

Short Line
Longer Line
Longest Line
Shorter Line
Short Line

Like this:



If the balloon is going to be cropped to the top border, then it can go:

Long Line
Longer Line
Longest Line
Shorter Line
Short Line

If the balloon is cropped to the left or right border, the text should be aligned accordingly:



Narrative captions can be aligned left or centred -- there seems to be no hard or fast rule on this. I favour left-aligning to make them absolutely distinct from dialogue, but I appear to be very much in the minority on this one!

You may have to try two or three different attempts to get a text block that looks attractive and fits the space available. You should fit the caption box or balloon to a well-shaped block of text, and never force the text to fit a balloon or caption box.

You may find that a free-floating balloon doesn't give enough space, where one cropped to the panel border does, which will require reshaping the text block, but we're going to deal with balloons next, so I'll leave that for now.

I have a nagging feeling that I've forgotten something, but feel free to ask if you think I've left something out. Tomorrow: the balloons to put your beautifully formatted text inside.

Cheers!

Jim

[uncle fester]

Oh how I came to hate kerning... Or the sudden lack of it when dumping text into Illustrator from other programs...

Excellent thread Jim. Really useful stuff 

[Bolt-01]

Heh, I'm loving this. It was Jims original version of this that I used as a base when I began learning, and I see I've still got stuff to learn...

btw- I agree with Jim on the left aligned captions.

One thing I've been working on lately is a set of custom balloon shapes- much better than a simple ellipse.

[uncle fester]

Tomorrow: the balloons to put your beautifully formatted text inside.

This will be the section where I find I've been doing everything the hard way. Hopefully? 

[Jim_Campbell]

One thing I've been working on lately is a set of custom balloon shapes- much better than a simple ellipse.

I agree. Even when I use balloons that look circular or elliptical at first glance, they aren't. For me, it's all about eliminating enough of the visual cues that say "computer" and to try and put back enough irregularity to at least suggest a human hand.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves!

Cheers

Jim

[Jim_Campbell]

Oh ... not really bumping my own thread, but I meant to mention at the top:

I spend more time than is really healthy looking at other peoples' lettering and trying to work out how they did various cool stuff. When we get to the end of the step-by-step, if I've missed out any effects or other techniques that you haven't been able to suss out yourself, please feel free to post an example -- it's entirely possible I've already wasted an afternoon working it out, so there's no reason why should, too!

Likewise, going forward, anything you come across that you'd like to replicate but can't figure out ... post it here.

Cheers!

Jim

[Dog Deever]

I just got Illustrator and I'm keen to learn a bit about lettering, so I've been following this guide step by step. I know nothing about Illustrator/ lettering and I can be thick as mince wi' new things, so I'm really appreciating and enjoying this guide. Thanks for taking the time, Jim.

[Jim_Campbell]

Step Three: Balloons and Captions

Once you've created a nice looking block of text that looks like it will fit in the space provided, you need a balloon to put it in.

Make sure that you are on your Balloon layer:



(NOTE: It's not essential that you use layers in the way I describe, but it does make your life a lot, lot easier!)

Select the Ellipse tool (Shortcut: L)



In Photoshop, the two elements on the palette below are the foreground and background colours, but in AI, these are the Stroke and Fill colours. Whichever one is at the front is the one whose colour you are editing in the colour palette.



You can swap between having the Fill and the Stroke active by hitting X, and you can swap the two colours over with SHIFT-X.

For the most part, you're going to want a white Fill and a black Stroke. The weight of the stroke is up to you, but around 1 point is a good start. I've come to favour 0.75pt:



Now draw yourself an ellipse:



At this point, it's worth explaining the difference between AI's two selection tools. I've met people who've used the programme for years and never understood the difference, but getting to grips with them will save you a lot of time.



The black arrow is the Selection Tool and the white is the Direct Selection Tool - you can toggle between them using the V and A keys.

Put simply, the Selection Tool is for selecting whole objects (including groups) and moving or scaling them, whilst the Direct Selection Tool is for selecting and moving individual points within a path, or component objects within a group. You'll see an illustration of why this is useful a little further down.

There's no reason why you can't leave your balloon as a perfect ellipse, or even a circle, but this does look a bit mechanical. Probably the easiest thing to do is flatten the balloon slightly -- note that this method is not the same as simply squashing it with the scale tool, which would still result in a perfect ellipse.

Use the Direct Selection Tool to select the top point of the ellipse:



If you use the arrow key to nudge this point down, you can count the number of times you do this, then repeat the process on the bottom point, and nudge it up by the same amount, giving you a flattened ellipse:



I know this sounds like a faff, but you can re-use this balloon as many times as you want, now that you've created it.

Put your balloon on the artwork, and then your text on top of the balloon. One of the advantages of putting your text in a text box, as described yesterday, is that you can now position the left and right edges of the box so that it is the same width as the balloon, and your text will be perfectly centred:



Note that having centred your text, if you want to change the size of the balloon, you can use the Selection (V) tool to resize it, whilst holding the ALT key which will scale it from the centre rather than the corner.

Then you need to add a tail. Balloon tails should, wherever possible, point at the speaker's mouth. It's not necessary for the tail to end particularly near the mouth, but it should point in the general direction.

Whether you want to create a straight tail -- basically a triangle -- or a curved one, you'll need to use the Pen tool (Shortcut P):



A straight tail is simply four clicks to create a triangle (you should close shapes by joining the last point to the first where possible -- it makes PathFinder operations more reliable), whereas a curved tail is slightly more involved:

Click to start the tail, here I've started inside the balloon. Click again to form a second point where the end of the tail will be. Hold and drag to make a curve.



The bezier curve will be reflexive and will affect the next section of the shape, so hold down the ALT key and click on the point, at which point one half of the bezier handle will disappear:



Click back inside the balloon and again hold and drag to create another curve:



Then close the path by clicking on the first point:



Using the Selection tool (V), select both the balloon and tail by SHIFT-clicking



Go to the Pathfinder palette and click on 'Add Shape To Area':



Your balloon and tail will now appear merged, but will actually be two separate elements that can be selected individually with the Direct Selection (white) tool, or as a group with the Selection (black) tool.



(NOTE: CS4 changes the default behaviour of this operation and expands the group into one, non-editable shape - hold down the ALT key in CS4 when using Add Shape to create an editable group.)

Note that CMD-4 will apply the most recently used Pathfinder operation to the current selection, so you don't have to use the Pathfinder palette every time.

One of the easiest ways to create extra space for lettering is to crop the balloon to one of the panel borders. I favour top and bottom over left and right, but all four borders are acceptable. There are two methods of cropping balloons.

The first uses a  different Pathfinder operation.

Create your balloon as usual, allowing the unused portion to fall outside the panel border:



Using the Rectangle tool (M), draw a box completely covering the part of the balloon you want to remove:



Select the balloon and the rectangle with the Selection (black) arrow using SHIFT-click:



Now select Minus Front from the Pathfinder palette:



And the rectangle, along with the unwanted part of the balloon will disappear:



Note that -- as with the 'Add Shape' operation -- you can select and edit individual elements within this group using the Direct Selection (white) arrow. The same CS4 proviso applies.

The alternative method uses a Clipping Mask. I've recently come to favour this method, but have been told that DC in particular actively discourages the use of Clipping Masks. At the time of writing, this is sadly not an issue for me ...!

The Clipping Mask is a similar operation, except that you use the Pen tool to create a shape and only objects or parts of objects inside the shape remain visible.

Create your balloon as usual and then draw a shape around it with the Pen tool:



The shape only needs to be accurate where it intersects with the balloon - in this case, along the top edge.

Select both the Pen shape and the balloon with the Selection (black) tool using SHIFT-click and then, using the Objects menu, choose Clipping Mask -> Make



Once again, the unwanted part of the balloon will disappear:



Using a Clipping Mask is slightly more involved, but has two advantages:

1) It means that you only use 'Add Shape' from the Pathfinder palette, so that operation will always be CMD-4, whereas Make Clipping Mask will always be CMD-7

2) It works for irregular and non-right-angle panel borders.

And that's pretty much everything you need to know about standard speech balloons.

Caption boxes, by contrast, really are just rectangles. Unless you can exactly match the stroke weight of the panel border, I think it looks untidy to butt the boxes flush to the border, so I always try to indent them:



Beyond that, however, there isn't much more to them!

Since this has turned out a lot longer than I intended (and I've been working on it for the last hour and a half!) we'll stop here, and tomorrow I'll deal with non-standard balloons: radio, burst, whisper, thought, and so on ...

Cheers!

Jim

[Kev Levell]

Yet more brilliant master-class how-to tutorials! Thanks for the obvious time and effort you've spent on this, Jim, really looking forward to tomorrow!

[Jim_Campbell]

Oops! Too late for the Edit -- all artwork in this tutorial is by Kev Walker and is from Dæmonifuge - (c) Games Workshop

Sorry!

Jim

[uncle fester]

Cheers Jim! As I thought, a few time-saving tricks there that I wasn't aware of. Award yourself a congratulatory tipple for a job well done.

[Bolt-01]

Well, I've just updated my templates with Guidelines and Crop marks....

Shows there's loads to learn, even when you've been doing things for a while.