Tutorial Typography by Six

[Six]

Typography
A TEXT TUTORIAL BY SIX.​

Placing text on a graphic piece is what a lot of graphic artists despise. It can either break – ruin your signature, or any other graphic piece, making your hard work look cheap and rushed, while you've spent hours on it. Or, it can make your graphic piece. It will compliment whatever design you made, and it will click on to your graphics, making it seem like it was supposed to be there. Looking naturally. ​

Having text on a signature that looks blend in, is the look most artists go for. There's different styles of text, like there are different styles for anything, with this Typography tutorial, I'm going to take three of my pieces, and I'll take 3 of the most common typography styles, explaining each style individually. ​

Basically, pick a style you want to practice, and have fun. ​

Complimentary | Highlighted | Focused​

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1. Complimentary text on a Signature.​

Text doesn't always have to be small like the second signature to compliment graphics. As you can see in the 1st example, the text is a pretty decent size, and it's not exactly in the background either. It blends in with the rest of the image, is why we would call it complimentary text. Your eyes follow the light source that's on the focal. With complimentary text, the focal is always the picture, or design you have in your signature, after your eyes adjust and take in the focal point of the signature, they'll run over the text afterwards. It shouldn't distract you while looking at the focal first. ​

This text type is easy on the eyes, and it's a fun way of putting some of your favourite quotes in a signature. It fuels the mood that you want the signature to give off. If you have a happy signature with a happy quote of text, it adds that extra spark, it would be the same for a moody signature, that has a serious or depressing quote on it, it gives the signature personality. ​

Complimentary can consist out of one line, or two lines, and if that's not enough you could also add decorative text to your second line, though this is often a lot already. Having one line with decorative text also helps making it look less slapped on.​

Note: Decorative text is a small, usually extremely cursive font, downsized to where it's unreadable, placed right under the actual signature text. *see the Cloud Strife signature.​

* Complimentary Placement:​

The best thing to do with text to compliment your signature, is basically to not make it stand out. As the above examples show you, the text is pretty close to the focal, it doesn't have a clashing colour, and it's not pure white.​

On a dark coloured signature, your best bet is to avoid a pure white text. This will not compliment it, it might look nice, but it will stand out way too much. If your focal stands out along with the pure white text, check out the second tagline for Highlighted text. If you're looking for something that compliments your signature, try going with a colour that's already in your current signature, and place it on a lighter spot. You can even use effects like Stroke, or Outer Glow – though these effects make it look slapped on, and highlighted before you know it.​

* How I use my Complimentary Text:​

Complimentary text is the hardest one to pull off, in my opinion. In the end, it will always come down to people's preferences, but one thing is certain; if the text compliments the signature, it compliments it. This basically has nothing to do with preferences, some signatures just aren't meant to have Focused, Highlighted or Complimentary text.​

When I start on a signature, the first thing I always do, with any text styled signature, is think of what quote I want on it. I base my signature size, and colours on what my quote will say, (unless it's a name). I realize a lot of artists do it the other way around, they start making a signature, let whatever their inspiration tells them our on canvas, and after that they will look for a quote that suits their piece. ​

Personally, I tried, and it ruined the signature for me. I think it's best to know how long your quote will be, so you will have the space for it. Have the room to put that ridiculous long quote you want in your signature, and having to work your way around that will already make it look so much more natural, than having to cramp it into a signature you designed without having thought ahead of it being complete with a piece of text. ​

Try thinking of the quote/text first, before making the signature, or do it along your way, instead of last.
Having your text hidden under a few opacity lowered layers, also makes it blend in more, then if you were to put it on last, and have it stand out too much. ​

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2. Highlighted text on a Signature.​

Highlighted text, is when the text stands out enough to 'almost' be considered a second focal. Once again, it should never take away the actual focal of the stock you're using. Highlighted text is mainly used for specific styled signatures, or the more 'out there' graphic artists. ​

Most of the time, and I say most because it's not adviced to use plain white text on a signature because of how much it stands out, however... Most of the time Highlighted text is bold, white, but subtle. It's a hard style to pull off because you can easily over do it, and have the text take away the focal. Your best bet is to use this type of text on Signatures that aren't too crowded. For example...​

Bold text that stands out, but doesn't take away the original focal point. There's other ways to use this style, but it's best to just experiment it to your likings. Just remember it shouldn't take away the focal point.​

* Highlighted Placement:​

This is most likely the easiest text style to place. You can make it stand out, or put it at a ridiculous angle that doesn't work. After all, this isn't a complimentary style, it's supposed to be 'rebelious' / 'out there'. However, do not place it in a corner. Placing your text in a corner ruins the text and it will always take away the focal on the stock. My advice is to use even Highlighted text carefully, because it, once again, is a make or break style. Most people are better of with Complimentary text, unless highlighted text really works. ​

Note: Highlighted text isn't meant for just ANY signature. There's pieces it really does not work on and it ruins the tag. So make sure that before you make your tag, you decide on what text you want on it. That way you can tweak it little by little to a style that matches the text. ​

* How I use my Highlighted Text:​

Well, I'm an 'out there' graphic style lover. I'm mostly a fan of everything that isn't 'over used'. Whether it be colours, text, stocks. I just like originality in works. Highlighted text is basically what I began with when I first started out. It's how it made me realize it didn't work on just anything. I used to be a fan of let's say three of four lyric lines on a signature that was 345 by 145, yeah... Not working. I always tried to make it so it didn't stand out, so I think I had the focal going, but too much text is never good, (it breaks my heart saying that), unless it's a Typography piece. ​

I do as how I already stated, I always, with any signature think about what text, how much text, and what style I want to go with before I make my signature, this way it's much easier to leave spots open for the text, and have the text compliment what the tag portrays. So I start of with that. Say I want to make a Highlighted text signature, I go with most likely renders, or stocks that aren't crowded, most likely just a person. Make sure the tag isn't overly crowded, sure, it might work even then, but it's extremely hard to pull off. Practice before you get too much on your plate, 'cause nothing is more demotivating than a tag you worked on really long, which comes out shitty.​

Before I mess with the stock, adding textures or anything, I place the text on to the cropped picture I want it on, to decide placement. I then remove the layer of text and start on my tag, after I'm done with that, I place the text layer back, and make it so it stands out, but it's looking for attention – that is the best way I can put it. ​

After you've done that you can always lower the opacity a little. As far as colour goes, white does this job insanely well, but you gotta be careful because white on a darker signature also screams for attenion. I'd take a colour that's in the signature, and lighten in, so that it complents as Highlighted text. Two birds, one stone. ​

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3. Focused Text on a Signature.​

The focus style is my favourite. There's nothing better than giving your complete attention to text, and making a text based signature in my opinion. While it seems easy to do it's a B* to pull off. Placing text on a signature isn't just gonna do the trick either. You gotta find a complimentary background, or you gotta work with a plain background and make the text interesting. I haven't decided on which is my favourite to do yet, but above are two examples. Music is the one with the complimentory background, the text blends in, but stays the focus as there is not stock used. Little bits and pieces to spicen it up, but not too much aside the background and sparkles.​

The second one is a plain background, where the text spicens up the piece. You can use brushes, stocks, renders, to add to your Signature. In this case, I've used sparkles, phonewires, butterflies, and dotted lines, (which you can easily make yourself, like how I did in that signature) however, there's also brushes you can find.​

* Focused Placement: ​

This one is very easy. All you have to do, is think of your text as your stock. You can however, place the text in the middle. Perfect focal created when you darken out the sides, not only does it give a text signature depth, but it also makes the text pop if you use a colour for your text instead of white, or black.​

Even though white and black can be used, I suggest using more colours to make them stand out then, although the way you're doing this, by the time you're done, you can also make it a black and white signature, by adding a black and white gradient map, or applying the image, and setting the saturation all the way down. You can also do the latter, and use an eraser brush on the applied black and white image, to give the tag some dashed colours from the coloured tag underneath. It's very fun to play with, so I suggest you try it out.​

* How I use my Focused Text:​

I've basically explained this above. I usually place the text in the middle and work around it. I haven't found a favourite style yet from the given examples above, however, I think I had more fun making the complimentary background one that says 'Music'. This is all about preferences, so I suggest that if you love text, you try all of these out to see which result you like better. Focus text is just like working with a stock, all you gotta do is replace the stock with the main text, prefereably one word, or a name, unless you're making a Large Piece, or something bigger than a standard signature size of 500 by 200.​

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So that's my tutorial... I am not going to explain one signature step by step in this Typography piece, but if you're really stuck with your text, shoot a PM my way and I'll be willing to help you out if needed. ​

I hope everyone enjoyed reading this, or at the least were able to get some information out of it. ​

For any other questions you can find me at:​

Six @ FinalFantasyForums.net
seventoSix @ DeviantArt.com
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Thank you. ​

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Tutorial and Graphics by Six.
Credit for the resources used goes to the original creators.
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