Type in the round

[marlene]

I need to update a graphic that has two concentric circles, with text on a curve between the circles.

There will be text curved from left to right around the top, and from left to right around the bottom. (Does that make sense?)

I've always used Freehand to do text on a path, but always had trouble figuring out how to make it work. I have FH 10.

Is it any easier in Illustrator? I've got AI CS2.

mxh

[annc]

I need to update a graphic that has two concentric circles, with text on a curve between the circles.
This is how I've always done it in FreeHand:

1. Type the text for the top, press Return, and type the text for the bottom.
2. Draw a circle larger than the size of the inside circle you will be using.
3. Select both text and circle.
4. Select 'Attach to path' from the Text menu. The circle you attached the text to becomes an invisible path, the Return tells FreeHand to put the second lot of text on the bottom, and you just draw your two circles afterwards.

Sounds like an old-fashioned logo. Is it?

[marlene]

Oooh, I can't wait to try that! I have two fires to put out first, which will take most of the day, but will play with Freehand tonight.

My problem is that I could never get that text at the bottom to work correctly -- it would flip upside down, or reverse itself, or hang from the bottom of the path like wet laundry.

It's more or less a logo -- at the moment they want embossed seals done, so I also need to come up with a graphic (gotta be simple and vector format so it's embossable) that represents the landscape industry. The challenge is that it needs to incorporate representations of both grass (for the turf industry) and plants (for the landscapers). But no trees.

mxh

[annc]

Oooh, I can't wait to try that! I have two fires to put out first, which will take most of the day, but will play with Freehand tonight.

My problem is that I could never get that text at the bottom to work correctly -- it would flip upside down, or reverse itself, or hang from the bottom of the path like wet laundry.That's wher this method works well - the circle you connect it to doesn't show, so you just put the inner and outer circles where you want them.

The FreeHand method is so easy, that I have terrible difficulty doing the same thing in InDesign, which makes the whole thing so much more complex. Of course, the type itself looks a lot better in InDesign, but the spacing and such is already mucked up by the curve.

My town, Caboolture, is particularly difficult to do on a tight curve, and whenever I have to do it, i go looking for a typeface with a large x-height to limit the ugly gaps as much as possible.

It's more or less a logo -- at the moment they want embossed seals done, so I also need to come up with a graphic (gotta be simple and vector format so it's embossable) that represents the landscape industry. The challenge is that it needs to incorporate representations of both grass (for the turf industry) and plants (for the landscapers). But no trees.Hmm, good luck with that!

[donmcc]

That method will not work with Adobe programs. In those, you can't get the type on both the top and bottom of the circle. You need to make two separate circles, identical in size, one for the top type, one for the bottom type.

The trick is, that the bottom type will have its baseline on the circle, when really it should have the caps height line there. The trick is to use Baseline shift the move the type down.

If the circles are exactly the same size, and they are placed one above the other, it will work perfectly.


Don McCahill

[Robin Springall]

I have two fires to put out first, which will take most of the day That's an unusual mix to have with DTP - would you care to explain to us all? <gg>

[marlene]

The FreeHand method is so easy...

You're right -- it was easy. But the type at the bottom had to be baseline-shifted (or whatever it's called in FreeHand) a little. No big deal. But the type at the bottom does look awkward -- letters seem a little distorted. The text is all upper-case, FWIW.

Oh, well. I'm still trying to come up with a graphic for the center of the logo. I tried to do some geometric grass across the bottom, but it looks like a picket fence. <g>

mxh

[marlene]

I'm not violently opposed to drawing two circles. But I'm still not real comfortable in AI, so it was easier for me to retreat to the comfort of my beloved Freehand. <g>

mxh

[marlene]

It seems that lately I wake up every day to discover that one client or another (or both) has some sort of emergency that needs immediate attention. Sometimes I have to work for a few hours in my bathrobe (dressing gown to you <g>) before I get a chance to get properly dressed in my normal business attire (boxer shorts and t-shirt).

This is traditionally my busiest season, emergency rush jobs notwithstanding. And my clients starting e-mailing me as early as 7:30 a.m. I'm not awake to read the e-mails, but they send them anyway.

mxh

[annc]

I'm still trying to come up with a graphic for the center of the logo. I tried to do some geometric grass across the bottom, but it looks like a picket fence. <g>
Don't look to me for inspiration on that! I'm hopeless at it.

[Robin Springall]

I'm not awake to read the e-mails, but they send them anyway. That's what I like about emails: clients can send stuff to you, and you don't have to deal with it immediately. Well, not quite immediately, at any rate!

R.

[marlene]

That's what I like about emails: clients can send stuff to you, and you don't have to deal with it immediately. Well, not quite immediately, at any rate!

Sometimes not until almost noon, on days like today when a truck knocked down a transformer and we lost our electricity. <g>

I pretended I didn't have the laptop, a phone line for a dial-up connection, and a cell phone, and went back to sleep!

mxh

[marlene]

Do you know if type on a curve is less distorted in AI than it is in Freehand?

So far my client hasn't said anything about it, but when I look at the text on the curves, I see obvious distortion in the character shapes, and not in a good way. The "N" is particular bad.

Maybe I'll change the typeface to a different sans and see if the characters look better. The client probably won't notice if the font changes halfway through the project, as long as it's still a sans. <g>

mxh

[donmcc]

It depends what you mean by distorted. AI's type on a path or curve keeps the letters in their original shape. That means that the A will have a straight baseline, not curving the legs of the A to fit to the path. This works fine unless big type is on a small curve.

Spacing sometimes looks bad as well. Type on circles is not a problem, but if type is placed on another path, it can look terrible if letters bounce to odd angles because of the direction of the path. Type will normally be 90 percent above or below the path, determined by the control point of the letter (dead center of the character if the text is centered ... I haven't tried it with left or right aligns)

Don McCahill

[Norman Hathaway]

as a rule i think you should ALWAYS baseline shift any type set onto a curve. i dunk mine down 50%, so the baseline cuts directly through the center of the characters. this way you avoid the not so hot 'pie slice' effect that appears in the spaces between the letters.

[donmcc]

Works for me, although I would want to make sure that the bases don't touch. Normally I leave the baseline at the bottom of the top of the circle, and for the text at the bottom I would shift the baseline to the caps height line. But 50% on both would also work. I will have to try it out. (The trick would be to determine what 50% is, as it should be 50% of the cap height, not the font size.)

Don McCahill

[Norman Hathaway]

depends on your setting
if all caps than 50 is fine
If u&l then you have to adjust accordingly

[marlene]

It depends what you mean by distorted.

It was mainly the upper-case N, which looked oddly splayed out.

I ended up adjusting it manually (after converting text to paths) by tweaking its little feet, although I would bet money that my client would not have noticed the splaying in the first place.

Spacing sometimes looks bad as well.

Letterspacing was a little funky, although this was type on a circle (and the font is pretty well kerned). I adjusted that with Freehand's manual kerning thing before converting to paths.

All in all, it was relatively painless.

And I only had to produce about a dozen versions of the logo before my client picked one. <g>

mxh

[marlene]

ALWAYS baseline shift any type set onto a curve.

Ooooh, I wish I had tried that. Too late now, the logo's done and dusted, but next time ...

mxh