Join Mike Rankin for an in-depth discussion in this video 101 Creating metallic text, part of InDesign FX.
Hi. I'm Mike ranking and welcome to InDesign effects. In this week's effect, we'll see how to create type with a metallic finish using several stacked copies of the text. Sometimes you can achieve a great look in InDesign by adding several transparency effects to the same object, but other times it might be easier to just work with several copies of an object, where each one contributes something to the overall look. And that's what we have here with this metallic type. It's actually made up of a stack of five text frames, each with just the word metallic in them and they all have something different about them, a different blending mode or different fill or different presition that contributes to the overall effect.
So, let's try making this. We'll go to the next page in the document, we'll have just a single text frame. I'll slide it over, open the effects dialogue box, and you can see I've added a little drop shadow here, with a distance of zero and a size of three pixels. And in the swatches panel, I can see that it's filled with a little metallic gradient. Just goes from a white to a light grey color. All right. So let's star building up an effect here. I'll copy this text frame and past it in place. I'll target the text and I'll change the fill from my gradient to paper.
I'll select formatting effects container. Go up to the effects panel, and reduce the opacity a bit. I'll take it down to 40%, and this is going to lighten the feel of that base object. Now I'm going to copy and paste in place. Now I have three objects. And this one I want to nudge up a little with my arrow key, so I'll just tap the up arrow key on my keyboard once, move it up. Now, the point of this one is to create a little edge down here, so I'm revealing that light copy of the text and creating sort of an alternative to the bevel and emboss effect. Now for this one, I want the Normal blending mode and opacity set to 100%.
And I'm going to go back to my gradient fill. So I'll switch from paper to metal gradient and I'll visit the gradient panel and set the angle to negative 90 degrees. Here we go. Copy and Paste and place again. And this time I want to add some more contrast. So in the Effects panel, I'll change the blending mode from Normal to Multiply, at 100% opacity. And then one more copy and paste in place. And I want to add a little bit of a bluish hue here. So I'll go to my Swatches panel, target the text, change the fill to RGB cyan, select formatting effects container, go back to effects, and I'll reduce the opacity.
I'll hold down the shift key on my keyboard and tap the down arrow key to reduce the opacity of that cyan until I get the look that I want. I just want this cool metallic finish, 10 maybe 20%. So in this video we saw how to make metallic type using a stack of several objects instead of applying a series of effects to a single object. There are two benefits to working this way. One, you can easily tweak the effect by altering or removing one of the objects. And two, each object is independent, so if you want to experiment and see how different fills or strokes or effects work together, just keep adding to the stack.
But one bit of advice, if you start making a large stack, visit the layers panel and give the items descriptive names, so you don't get confused about what's what. I'm Mike Rankin. I'll be back in two weeks. Thanks for watching.
Author
Updated
7/8/2014Released
8/4/2011Skill Level Intermediate
Duration
Views
Q: For some movies, why are there both INDD and IDML versions of the exercise files?
A: For CS4 and older versions of InDesign, please use the IDML exercise files.
Related Courses
-
InDesign Secrets
with David Blatner35h 9m Intermediate -
Deke's Techniques
with Deke McClelland140h 11m Intermediate -
InDesign CS6: Interactive Documents
with Mike Rankin5h 11m Intermediate
-
InDesign FX
-
005 Making Shiny Effects4m 46s
-
006 Producing Slime6m 22s
-
009 Building Better Bevels3m 16s
-
010 Punching Holes4m 26s
-
023 Exploring Satin Settings6m 56s
-
031 Drawing Star Bursts6m 7s
-
038 Drawing 3D Banners3m 23s
-
046 Creating Burnt Edges6m 26s
-
049 Simulating Liquid2m 48s
-
051 Making Peeling Stickers5m 42s
-
053 Creating 3D arrows3m 37s
-
060 Creating speech bubbles2m 41s
-
063 Creating picture frames3m 24s
-
065 Creating photo corners3m 44s
-
067 Making 3D type3m 15s
-
068 Making a 3D object5m 13s
-
070 Mocking up a film strip4m 53s
-
072 Simulating chalk3m 7s
-
077 Setting text vertically2m 51s
-
083 Building a puzzle2m 16s
-
090 Combining stroke styles2m 11s
-
091 Making a bottle cap1m 47s
-
093 Creating custom frames2m 11s
-
094 Making trading cards4m 43s
-
097 Creating a rust effect1m 44s
-
098 Creating sparkle1m 54s
-
099 Double beveling text2m 24s
-
102 Creating stained glass2m 53s
-
103 Bobbling a photograph4m 47s
-
105 Creating a blue ribbon12m 58s
-
106 Putting items on a shelf6m 11s
-
Welcome to InDesign FX2m 39s
- Mark as unwatched
- Mark all as unwatched
Are you sure you want to mark all the videos in this course as unwatched?
This will not affect your course history, your reports, or your certificates of completion for this course.
CancelTake notes with your new membership!
Type in the entry box, then click Enter to save your note.
1:30Press on any video thumbnail to jump immediately to the timecode shown.
Notes are saved with you account but can also be exported as plain text, MS Word, PDF, Google Doc, or Evernote.
Share this video
Embed this video
Video: 101 Creating metallic text