Veerle's blog

A reader told me she used my command shape technique on a logo she was creating, but asked me if I knew a way where she could apply the lines inside the shape of the letters instead of applying them as a brush stroke. If you have no idea what I’m talking about. Let me explain 3 different technique on how you can apply a line pattern effect on text in Illustrator.

A line pattern brush stroke

This technique works with letters that have a prefect equal weight. Because the lines are applied on a stroke you'll have to draw the shapes of the letters first so the lines can be applied as a stroke which represents the weight of the letters. Here are the steps to follow

• Draw the brush using 4 squares each with a different color
• Group the 4 squares (command/control + g)
• Drag grouped object into Brushes palette
• Choose Art Brush and click OK
• Change the orientation of the brush to vertical (upwards arrow)

• Draw the letters using the Ellipse, Line and Pen tool

• Apply a Stroke to the letters
• Select the Brush from the Brushes palette to apply it on the Stroke
• Adjust the Stroke weight if needed

Text as a mask

This is a totally different outcome, but also a way to apply a line pattern on text.

• Select the text using the black arrow
• Create outlines/paths of the text: hit command/control + shift + o
• Ungroup the letters: command/control + shift + g

• Draw the 4 lines
• Select the 4 lines and group the lines: command/control + g
• Cut the lines: command/control + x
• Paste behind the 1st letter: command/control + b

• Select both lines and letter
• Apply the letter as a mask: command/control + 7
• Paste the lines again behind: command/control + b
• Select both lines and letter
• Apply the letter as a mask: command/control + 7
• Repeat the steps to apply the mask for the other letters

For some reason I couldn't get the text masked all in once.

The hard way

The most complex of all 3 is to apply the lines inside the outlines of the letters and have the lines adjusted to the weight and curves of the letters. As an example we use the same typeface as we used in previous version, Helvetica Neue Black Condensed. This is another story, one that doesn't end perfectly. At least that's my opinion...

First I copied the letter 'o' I created in version 1 and I expanded the stroke into a fill: Object > Expand Appearance

I moved my text in a separate layer on top of the lines, I adjusted the transparency of the layer to 50% and I locked the layer. Then I resized the circle with lines to match the letter '0' as best as I could using the Selection tool.

Next step is most difficult and time consuming. I tweaked the nodes on the path so the lines follow the weight and curves of the letter 'o'.

As for the letters 'l' and 'a' I draw a line following the lines and curves of the letter. I applied the brush stroke, expanded it into a fill and tweaked the nodes one by one. All very time consuming, except for the letter 'l' of course. I'm not sure I like the result, because I have the feeling that these kind of typefaces aren't well suited for this technique. This is of course my personal opinion.

The result is not 100% to my liking but it's the best I could do... Actually no. The 'a' has imperfections. I gave up on it. I simply just didn't want to spend any more time on this. It makes me wonder if there isn't any other way to achieve this result? Maybe the Make with Mesh technique could work, but it would mean a lot of work and node handle tweaking just like the technique I just used. If you have any ideas, please don't hesitate to share them in the comments. Thank you.

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