D2 Spears Tutorial #2 -Letters

Ok so we all have been making our own letters for our assignments and I thought it would be helpful to make a tutorial on making letters using tools instead of hand drawing them. Of course there are several ways you can make letters but I will show you two here. I will demonstrate how to make an "S" with on technique and an "e" with another.

1.You will want to make a circle with the elipse tool.

2. You can create a perfect circle by holding the alt/option key while you make the circle. (also make sure the stroke is some color other than transparent or white and the fill is transparent.)

3. Use the direct select tool (the white pointer) and select the bottom right line segment of the circle.

It should look like this.

4. You will need another partial circle like this one. An easy way to quickly get a copy of something is by selecting and holding it with the black selection tool while dragging it away from your original path. It will duplicate your selection.

5. To create the "S" shape we will need to rotate the second partial circle 180 degrees. 

Make sure the angle is at 180 degrees.

6. Drag the path you just edited to line up with the first one.(It will most likely snap to the other path.) It should already look like the letter "S"

I also set the stroke at 29 but this is for thick letters. If you want the "S" to match the "e" you might want to consider doing this.

Now we need to make an "e"

7. Make a circle once again, using the alt/option key to make it perfect. Try to make it about the same size as the lower half of the S so they look nice and uniform.

8. Now make another circle and place it in the center by matching the center points in both circles.

9. Select both of the circles with the black selection tool.

10. Group them together.

11. Outline the stroke.

12. Fill the ring (you created with the two circles) with the same color you used for the stroke.

Almost done!

Unselect your ring.

13. Select the rectangle tool and create a black rectangle about the same thickness and the same distance across as the ring you created and place it near the middle.

14. Now make a white rectangle about the same size and place it directly below the black rectangle

Now select all of you paths and group them together.

And if you duplicate this letter again, you will see the word "See".

See?

I hope this helps.