Trying to create a logo 1

[BlueMonkey]

Hi.

I'm trying to create a logo for a football team and am new to Illustrator. Can someone please tell me how, in non-jargon english!, to get text to run around a circle.

Cheers

BM

B.M.

 

[dimoj]

Hi, I wouldn’t normally answer this sort of question as you could look up how to do this in your help files in about two minutes, but since I’m bored at the moment…

Instructions for Ill 10 (probably the same for at least 8 and 9)

Create the circle with the elipse tool (L). Fill and stroke do not matter as they will disappear after you create your text. Click and hold on the type tool button on your Tools Palette until the flyout menu appears. The third and sixth tools in that flyout are for text on a path (regular and vertical text respectively). Choose either of those. You will now see you text cursor has a little dotted line running through it. Go over to your circle and carefully click on the outline (stroke) of the circle. (Illustrator will let you know with an error message if you miss). You can now type your text and edit it as per normal text. If you want to adjust the position of the text then choose your Direct Selection tool and click on the text and an ‘I-bar’ will appear at the start of the text. Still using the selection tool you can drag that I-bar around the perimeter of the circle to adjust the starting position of the text. Also you can drag the I-bar across the perimeter of the circle to invert the text and place it on the inside of the circle. In either position you can use the ‘Baseline Shift’ options in the character palette to adjust the distance of the text from the outline of the circle.

All these instructions will work for text on any sort of path i.e. ellipse, rectangle, arc, freehand pencil line etc etc

 

[BlueMonkey]

Your help was very much appreciated dimoj. However, the text always appears to flow in a clockwise direction - is it possible to flow anti-clockwise for the bottom of the circle?

Cheers - may a star for your efforts

B.M.

 

[dimoj]

Thanks and yes. When you have dragged the text to the bottom of the circle and it is backwards and upside down, you then drag the I-bar across the outline to the INSIDE of the circle. The text will now be facing the correct way on the bottom of the circle, but on the inside of the circle. If you want to move it back to the outside of the circle but still reading correctly left to right you then use the BASELINE SHIFT function in the character pallet. Enter a negative value in the box or just keep clicking on the down arrow until the text is back in the position you want. Good luck.

 

[BlueMonkey]

OK thanks - I'll try that this evening.

Cheers again

B.M.

 

[BlueMonkey]

Dimoj

Everything you've said has worked fantastically so far. One final question (hopefully!) - Can you attach two pieces of text to a shape (eg circle).

Cheers

B.M.

 

[dimoj]

Hi BM

If it was this you were trying to achieve I would say yes:

Just type the first bit then throw in a few spaces and type your second bit (adjust the distance between text by adding or deleting spaces).

But that would be too easy. I suspect what you really want to do is probably more like this:

In this case, no, the two pieces of text are not on the same path. If you want to know how I did the example above it is very easy:
Start with your first piece of text on a circle. When you are happy with that select it and copy it and then goto Edit>Paste in front. A duplicate of the text on a circle will be placed directly on top of the other one so you are now free to tweak the new copy to how you want it while the other one will remain snugly in place directly underneath.

Just a tip: to make it easier to ensure you are working on the top path...in your layers palette expand the layer you are working on by clicking on the little arrow, there you will see nested layers that contain the two seperate text on a path objects. You can lock the bottom one by clicking on the empty box next to the layers name to reveal the padlock. That way you know when you click on the path you will only be selecting the top object. If you want to go back and edit the bottom path then swap the locked position from the bottom to the top one, so then you know when selecting you will only get the bottom path selected. Apologies if you already knew all this!