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Tutorial : "Hacking Typography in Satori."

A Five Part, Step-by-Step guide to Creating Letterforms.

By Michael Hirsh.

Part 1 of 5

Introduction

The deeper you get into Satori, the more you discover what vectors can do. It's natural to think that if you need to do some type design, you should turn to a specialist typography package. No blame. But what is scalable type but a collection of vectors?

Satori does vectors for breakfast. So if you need to knock up some lettering, pour yourself some orange juice, and follow this rough guide to hacking type in Satori.

Class Divisions

This tutorial concerns itself with creating four uppercase headline letters in a Looney-Tunes style. Each of the letters needs slightly different combinations of geometry tools to create it. I have classified all 26 letters of the alphabet into four classes, as follows:

Class 1

Letters that contain straight strokes only, and no Curves or Counters. E,F,H,I,K,L,M,N,T,V,W,X,Y,Z.
(Counters are the "holes" in letters that you fill in with your pen while waiting for tech support to answer the phone.)
These letters use the Geometry/ Irregular Polygon tool.

Class 2

Letters that contain Curves, but no Counters: C,G,J,S,U.
These letters use Geometry/ Closed Bezier Splines.

Class 3

Letters that contain Curves and Counters: B,D,O,P,Q,R.
These letters also use Geometry/ Closed Bezier Splines.

Class 4

There is only one letter in class 4, It contains a Counter, but no Curves. It's the letter A.
Use the Geometry/ Irregular Polygon tool.

 

Tools

You'll be using the following tools a lot in this tutorial: Grid Constraints, Geometry Tools ( Irregular Polygon, Closed Bezier Splines, Cut objects and Outline objects ), The Object List, and the Edit Toolbar.

We'll walk through the main tools needed for each class of letters as we meet them, but after that, it will be presumed that you have a working familiarity with them all.

Pick Four Letters

I've chosen four letters to construct, one from each of the four classes above. They spell out the word: ARCH

Class 4	Class 3	Class 2	Class 1

 

You'll notice that these classes are in reverse order, but this is only because it's hard to come up with any meaningful words ending in "A".

When you have created these four letters, you can use them to follow the next tutorial†, in which you place the letters on a curved path. So the word ARCH has a seemly relevance. So there.

TIP: If you want to start with the easiest letter (H) then jump straight to the end of the tutorial, and come back here later. You will miss out on some of the more detailed instructions, though.

Click to download the entire tutorial (1.49 Mb.)

 

†(You'll have to wait a bit for this one!)

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Part 1 Introduction	Part 2 The Letter "A"	Part 3 The Letter "R"	Part 4 The Letter "C"	Part 5 The Letter "H"
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