Creating Ancient Type in Illustrator

One secret of top digital designers is to use the worst features of a program and make them work. This idea may seem illogical, but part of good design is to think of things that others don’t. Most people never waste time deliberately using the worst part of a program! Well, you heard it here first: This technique for creating ancient-looking type combines the Auto Trace tool (arguably, one of Illustrator’s worst tools) with the Rasterize command (a command that you normally want to avoid) to create a happy accident! Just follow these steps:

1. Create some large text.
Any text will do, but fonts with big serifs, such as Adobe Garamond, work best, as shown in Figure 2-15. You also get better results if you use large text (60 pt or more).

Well, it’s a start — but the Auto Trace tool only works with pixel data. Before we can use the text, we need to convert it to pixels by using the Rasterize command. That’s next.

2. Select the text with the Selection tool and choose Object➪Rasterize.
The Rasterize dialog box appears. Select a Resolution of 72 ppi, set the Background to White, and select the Art Optimized (Supersampling) for Anti-Aliasing. Leave the rest of the settings at their defaults and then click OK. Your text converts automatically to pixels. (Pretty neat, eh?)

3. Choose the colors for the Auto Trace tool to use.
The Auto Trace tool detects only the shapes of what it traces — not the color — so you have to determine in advance what colors to use. Click the Auto Trace tool, set its Stroke to Black and its Fill to None. Because you do this before you start using the tool, the objects that the Auto Trace tool creates are set to these colors.

4. Click the Auto Trace tool and trace the letters.
The Auto Trace tool creates paths around highly contrasting areas (such as between the black text and its white background). You have the best luck with this tool if you remember the following:
• To Auto Trace a solid letter (such as H or T), click anywhere in the dark area of the letter.
• To Auto Trace a letter with a hole in it (such as A, O, or P) first click the inside edge of the hole, where the dark meets the white. If you click the outside of the letter first, the whole thing fills in with black, hiding the inner hole!

By and large, the poor old Auto Trace tool isn’t very consistent. Whenever you click a dark solid, Auto Trace traces the whole thing properly; but to trace a white area, you have to click its edge. Don’t worry that the white holes fill with black when you Auto Trace them. You can take care of this later by using the Compound Path command.

5. After you trace all the letters, click the rasterized type with the Selection tool and delete it.
Not to worry; the project doesn’t use the rasterized type anyway (except as something to trace). It just gets in your way, so get rid of it! You’re now ready to add the finishing touches by using the Compound Path command to poke holes in your text (in letters such as P, O, and B).

6. Click and drag over those letters (by using the Direct Selection tool), and then choose Object➪Compound Path➪Make.
Make sure that you select the hole and the main part of the letter. This makes the holes completely see-through, as any hole should be. Repeat this step for each letter, one letter at a time.

7. Fill your text with black and set the stroke to None.