Designer Challenge - WORD ART

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Designer Challenge - WORD ART

Today we are going to do something different.

I want you to make a pack of generic word art in black or neutrals (here is an example from my own store). These will be perfect for scrappers because the words are generic and can be used for any kind of layout, they can be recolored to match the kit used on the page. If you decide to make paper strips, tags or anything that kind, neutrals are a great choice because they go with all most everything. Your word art doesn't have to be limited to one word, those can be phrases or sentences. Also, get creative and mix and match fonts to make them unique. Also, check out this thread for our patron requests. You can find more inspiration by searching word art templates here at DigitalScrapbook.com.

For this challenge make a pack of 15 generic word art pieces.

This is an open challenge which means no due date.

Would it be greedy to try and accomplish all of those thread requests?! Haha! I struggle so much with wordart but I wont ever learn if I always avoid it!

I don't think it'd be greedy at all--even if all of us try to do things on that list for this one, we'll all do them a little differently, either in the fonts we choose or in whether we add some swirls or lines to them.

Suggestions for starting to make word art:
-Make your first ones using one font. Add emphasis with size, bold or italics only. Really good for quotes and word strips/word bits. Try using several grayscale layers repeating the same text at different opacities and angles.
-Once you're comfortable with that, add a second contrasting font. You don't want ones that are too similar in shape and weight, but they shouldn't clash either. You've got a pretty good eye for what elements will look good together on a page; it's not that different with fonts. Google typography pairing rules and you'll find lots of things to help you learn what's more likely to look good so you spend less time selecting fonts that go well together. Usually you'll pair a sans serif with a serif, or either with a script, though sometimes you'll do sans/sans or serif/serif; script/script rarely looks good.
-Add some simple rectangles, arrow doodles, scrolls or swashes for interest if you want, or to fill in a line with a single short word between two longer words if you're doing subway art. Maybe arrange a quote with a stamp or doodle that goes with it; you can either leave that grayscale in the word art PNG, clip a neutral paper/pattern to it and flatten into the PNG, or as a separate layer to clip a kit paper to in the finished piece. Maybe adding a flower or button is appropriate, either a neutral or grayscale. There are almost as many options as in making a page layout template.
-Sometimes it looks neat to put words on top of each other in different fonts rather than in reading order.
-Three fonts is the usual limit in most word art, unless you're doing a big statement piece like a wordle or a rectangle of subway art. You can get away with 8-10 then, but they still need to look harmonious.

You make so much other beautiful stuff, Kayl, so I'm confident you'll do great with word art once you get into it. I hope the tips help give you the confidence to jump in and try it; for me it's easier than making elements!

That was a lot of great info! Thanks! I usually stick to 1 or 2 fonts. And I usually just stick to black/white word strips because that's easiest but hopefully for this I can push myself beyond that. Your tips are a great start smiley Also I never thought to look at typography sites or rules. Great idea!

I've decided to do pretty basic black/white word strips for the request thread, but as you said I'm sure anyone who does this challenge will do so differently smiley

I'm a little more inspired to push myself with this one, thank you!

No worries, Kayl...I know you've seen at least some of the word art I've done for different things. Some of my responses to that request thread are IN the thread, after all. smiley The first one was done in Photoshop, but it illustrates how to get away with mixing 3 fonts and a few little shapes for texture. The second set, the ones for the November blog train, were done in Illustrator using fonts and a variety of swashes which I merged into the script outlines to make it look like custom calligraphy. I like Illustrator better than Photoshop now for simple word art, as it's easy to create vector shape outlines from the letters after you've kerned the text, and even modify them if the font has a couple of letters that are bumping together.

I recently got illustrator! I opened it once and proceeded to close it! Hahaha. I'm sure it has a lot of similarities to PS but it all seemed overwhelming at the time and I just really haven't been mentally up to trying to learn a new program. Not to mention it sorta freaks me out when my interface changes or things move. It will happen some day though!

I enjoy your word art! You have pro-status in my head! I appreciate you taking the time to give tips and share practices! smiley

I really recommend taking a couple of classes on Illustrator. I had it for about a year before I actually learned to use it, because it was so different from Photoshop that it was overwhelming!
Here's a Youtube video that's 43 minutes long that has a lot of the basics covered. It starts with how to make a new document. Go with Basic RGB for what we do, and make sure you set it for the raster effects at 300dpi.

Thank you! I will check that out!

This was a bit out of my comfort zone but I plan to make more and push a little more smiley

Anyway, I made these:

Google Drive - Generic Word Art - 5MB

i'm gonna take a go at this....what i have learned to make something like this super easy is to:: create one file, put a new word on each layer, name the layers, make only the one you are working on visible, (also helps make things look cohesive by duplicating layers and merging down the final then going to the next word), after you are done make all layers visible and then file>export>save layers as files ..i chose png and then run it. afterwards i can use the bulk rename utility for rename them all if needed (including removing the first 5 _001_ that the export inputs onto the file names...it saves me TREMENDOUS time vs saving each individual one. (hope this helps)

ok so here's what I just did...I gotta get back to my homework...lol. Enjoy!

ok, one more...bc i don't know how to do small things..lol Especially when I'm learning how to do all this stuff I didn't know before and getting to combine different things I've learned! smiley Bonus: these are all in my own handwriting font that I created with fontpainter about a week ago! smiley

Kyle and Amy you did such a great job. I love all the word art you made. they are perfect.

thank you! It's still a little surreal seeing my own handwriting as a font....learned how to do that from another forum post here....i just modified what i learned from Marisa's tutorials. It took about an hour to make all 70+...on the plus side, i can change the font and do them again any time. i basically followed her Intro to alpha's tut which relies on a folder of individually saved psd files as well as my knowledge that i can save each layer as an individual file using export...

I had fun with this one. smiley






Download everything here.

awesome!!

Great job Amanda

Thanks!