From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

722 Spelling a word in computer keys

From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

722 Spelling a word in computer keys

- [Instructor] In this movie, I'll show you how to take your computer keys and use them to actually spell out a word, which isn't really all that complicated at this point, but there are a couple of tricks associated with scaling your art board, and scaling your letters. Alright, so you can choose your poison here as to what typeface you want to use. VAG is the old font for the MacBook Pro, and you can find a variation on that font at Typekit if you like, so here we're looking at VAG Rundschrift, I guess is how it's pronounced, I don't know German, so don't rely on me. Meanwhile, if you want to match modern MacBook keyboards, then you want to go with San Francisco right here, which Apple currently makes available for download for free, so you do have to go searching for it. In any event, I'm gonna start with VAG, because it's old school. And I'm gonna start things off by just reminding you that the size of this square is 360 points in either direction. Meanwhile, if I were to switch to the Artboard Tool, which you can get by pressing Shift-O, then you can see that our art board measures 400 by 400 points, so it's a square as well, which means that we have 400 minus 360, which is 40, divided by two all the way around. Because after all, those 40 points have to be distributed at the top and the bottom, as well as the left and right hand sides. Now, I make note of this because it's going to inform how we scale the art board. So I'm gonna go up here to the horizontal control panel, make sure that the top-left point is selected inside this tiny reference point matrix, and then select the width value right there and change it to 360 times three for starters, because I need a total of three keys. And then I'll press the Tab key in order to do that math, and that takes me up to 1,080 pixels. Now, I need to add 80 more, because I'm gonna have a total of four gaps. So one over here on the far-left side, another over here on the far-right, and then one between the A and R keys, and another between the R and T keys. And so what that means is I need to multiply 20 points, which is the thickness of the gaps, times four, that's pretty easy just to do it in my head, that's 80. And so I'll 80 to this value here, I can press the Tab key, which gets me a width value of 1160 points, which is exactly what I want. Alright now, I'll press the Enter key, or the Return key on the Mac in order to accept those values, and I'll press Control-zero, or Command-zero on the Mac to zoom out so that my illustration fits on screen. And I'll press the V key to switch back to my Black Arrow Tool. Alright, now I want to select this square right here, and I can't because the Shell layer is locked. And so I'll unlock it, and then I'll click on that square once again, and as you can see, it's a kind of warmish-gray. Alright now, I'll click on the word Shape, and I'll just go ahead and change that width value right there, assuming that the two values are not locked into alignment with each other. I'll change it to 1160, that same value that I signed to the art board. The problem is that this panel always scales shapes with respect to the centers, at least that's the way it works now. And that's not gonna get me the effect I'm looking for. So I'll go ahead and press Control-Z, or Command-Z on the Mac in order to undo that change, and I'll click on the word Transform. And depending on the width of your control panel, you may need to do that as well, or you may see the X, Y, W, and H values just available up here. Anyway, I'm gonna select the top-left point in the Reference Point Matrix to add my way over to the width value and change it to 1160, like so. Make sure the width and height are not linked together, and then I'll press the Enter key or the Return key on the Mac to apply that change. Alright now, I'll go ahead and lock that guy back down by clicking in the Lock column here inside the Layers panel. And I'll go ahead and marquee these guys in order to select the two rounded squares, along with the letter A, and then with my Black Arrow Tool selected, I'll press the Enter key or the Return Key on the Mac to bring up the Move dialog box, I want the vertical value to be zero, but I want the horizontal value to be 360, which is the size of the largest square, plus 20, because that's the size of the gap, and then I'll press the Tab key. And assuming the Preview checkbox is turned on, I can see the shape move, I cannot see the position of the original, however, so I have to cross my fingers and hope I've done the right thing, at which point, I'll click the Copy button in order to create a copy of that key, and it looks great. And now I'll press Control-D, or Command-D on the Mac in order to create another duplicate that is spaced evenly apart. Alright, now I'll switch to my Type Tool, and I'll go ahead and select that middle A and change it to a capital R, and I'll select this guy and change him to a capital T. And then I'll press the Escape key in order to accept that change. Alright now, I'll Shift-click on these other two characters in order to add them to the selection, and I'm gonna hide my right side panels by pressing Shift-tab, and that way I can zoom a little bit farther in. Now let's say I want to scale these letters. And of course, I could change the type size up here in the Control Panel, but let's say I want to scale my letters by a percent. Well, I wouldn't want to use the Scale Tool, because after all, that would scale the letters with respect to a common origin point, meaning that I would move all the letters outward. And to show you what I mean, I'll go ahead and select the tool, press the Enter key or the Return key on the Mac to bring up the Scale dialog box, and notice as I increase that uniform value, that I am spreading the letters apart, which is not what I want. So instead, I'll cancel out, and I'll go up to the Object menu, choose Transform, and choose Transform Each. And I'll make sure the center point is selected inside that tiny reference point matrix. And notice that both my horizontal and vertical values are set to 140%. And so, with the Preview checkbox turned on, you can see that each letter scales independently. At which point, I'll click OK, and that leaves the letters a little bit high, so I'm gonna press the V key to switch back to my Black Arrow Tool. Press the Enter key or the Return key on the Mac to bring up the Move dialog box. Change the horizontal value to zero, and then tap to the vertical value and press the up arrow key until the letters look like they're vertically centered, which to my eye, happens at a value of about five points. So when you increase the vertical value to five points, we're actually moving the selection five points downward. At which point, I'll click OK to accept that change, and then I'll click off the letters to deselect them. And that's at least one possible way to spell out a word using a bunch of stylish computer keys here inside Illustrator.

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