In a lot of the logos that I design, I’ll start with outlined lettering of the corporation name and then, in some way, alter the lettering. Sometimes this involves stealing a curved piece of one letter and combining it with another. In this case, “stealing” is not a crime, but the end results could be if care is not taken in joining the curved shapes.
The trick is to get the endpoints of the two paths that you’d like to combine lined up as close as you can by eye. Then allow Illustrator to do the rest perfectly. Using the Direct Selection tool, marquee across the first two anchor points. Then go to Object > Path > Average and for axis choose both. When you click OK, both points are positioned perfectly on top of each other. Then go to Object > Path > Join and choose Smooth to join the two curved segments. Repeat the same process with the second point and you’re done. Now when your logo is reproduced the size of a billboard, you’ll get nothing but raves.
Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Certified Adobe® Training Provider.
Author: jeff witchel
Jeff Witchel graduated from Pratt Institute in 1973 with a B.F.A. (Cum Laude) in Advertising Design and Visual Communications. He has been an award-winning advertising art director, writer, designer, illustrator, and TV producer ever since.
Before starting his own advertising agency in New Jersey, Jeff built his career at top New York ad agencies such as Young & Rubicam, Grey Advertising, and Wells, Rich, Greene. Over the years, he has created award-winning work for many clients including AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Jell-O Pudding, The Plaza Hotel, and Pfizer. His many prestigious awards include N.Y. Art Directors Club Gold Award, One Show Gold Award, N.J. Art Directors Club Award, multiple Andy Awards, Graphis Annual, numerous readership awards, plus an Emmy Award nomination.
Jeff is a self-taught computer artist with over 19 years of experience. His initial introduction to the computer was with PageMaker, but he switched to Quark 1.0 when it was first introduced in 1987. Having arrived on the desktop publishing scene so early, Jeff became the “go to” guy for answers when others started getting into computer graphics.
As an Adobe Certified Expert, he’s provided online support for Adobe and is now an Adobe Certified Training Provider for both Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Adobe InDesign CS2. Jeff is one of just a handful of Adobe Certified Instructors in the New York metropolitan area. He also is a Quark Certified Expert in QuarkXPress 6 as well as a master of Adobe Photoshop and related applications. He counts among his training clients ad agencies, design studios, magazines, illustrators, and photographers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
