need to make words take the shape of a letter

[psnarula]

ok i'm brand new to illustrator. i downloaded a 30 day trial of illustrator 10 from adobe's website (i chose illustrator 10 because the entire illustrator 10 classroom in a book is available online in PDF format). i have not yet started working through the CIB lessons (mostly because i don't have the sample files that come on the companion cd). anyway, here is what i'm trying to do:

i want to type on a path (i've seen the section of the CIB that covers how to do this). what i don't know how to do is make the path look like a letter. Basically i want to make an image that is a large representation of the word "Be" and I want letters "B" and "e" to be composed of words like "be dependable * be kind * be brave * be helpful" and so forth.

so how do i make a path that represents the letter "B"? I know I can type the letter B and then convert it to an outline with Type > Create Outlines. But whenever I do this, the conversion is overly complicated. For instance, the vertical bar in the letter "B" is always rendered as having a horizontal thickness whereas I just want it to be a vertical line.

here's a picture of what I want to make in illustrator:

 

[blueark]

Try using the pen tool to draw the letters without any horizontal thickness. Alternatively, you can create outlines as you have done, and delete points you don't need.

 

[moriaorc]

You may actually need to make several paths for your type. I notice on both letters that the direction and baseline of your type changes. This may be a little tricky to do, but no too difficult. Practice first by trying to put type on a fairly simple path (like an oval) and the trying lots of things to manipulate it (shift the baseline, make the type go both inside and outside the path, change the origin of the type, etc.) before you try the final illustration.

Good luck!

 

[psnarula]

yes, i want to change the "direction" of the text so that it is always readable. what do you mean by baseline?

 

[moriaorc]

The baseline of a piece of text is the line that the letters seems to "sit" on - like the blue lines on a piece of ruled writing paper. So if you did not shift the baseline of a piece of text that goes in the opposite direction of the rest of your text, the letters would appear to be "under" the baseline, while the rest of the text would be "above" the baseline. This shift of baseline is very easy to do with the Character pallette. I beleive Baseline shift is the fourth box on the left of the pallette (I only have Illy 10 to look at). Don't confuse it with Leading which is the first box on the right of the pallette (the symbols they used look kind of similar, so I think they are easy to confuse).