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Tutorial : "Hacking Typography in Satori."

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

By Michael Hirsh.

Part Three. Page 1 of 3

 

The Letter "R"

This third section of the tutorial will guide you through the creation of the letter "R".
In the Introduction, this was described as a letter that contains curves and a counter (hole). Although the letter contains some straight construction lines, you will mostly be using the Bezier Spline tool, which is traditionally associated with drawing curves.

Incidentally, a Spline is the name of a thin whippy wooden lath used for drawing "sweet" curves when laying out the frames of a boat. The lath is held in place by weights to control its curvature, not unlike the control handles you will become so familiar with while building the letter "R". The word has the same root as "splinter", indicating its woody origins.

• The first control point that you click down will not display any control handles, so think hard about where you place this first point. Place it on a right angled corner if possible.

• Some of the functions of the right click menus are only available in Edit mode. In practice, this means that you must first render an object, and then fine tune it by editing.
  The Sync Handles toggle allows great subtlety of control in the shaping of curves, especially when used with Horizontal and Vertical constraints.

• Control Handles can seem to operate in strange ways, until you get the hang of them.
  If you insert control points by clicking round a shape clockwise, for example, you must drag the control handle backwards to produce a curve. I.E. opposite to the direction in which the control points were laid down. (Dragging it forwards will produce a loop.) This is easier to explain in practice than in words.
  You will discover this property while constructing the large curve of the letter "R"

  TIP. Try to insert control points as near to the mid point of curve as possible.

   

Use The same yellow as before, and choose the Closed Bezier Spline button

Step One: Get clicking!

Make sure you have Grid Snap turned ON, and place your first control point on one of the right angles of the upright.
I started at bottom left.
Click round clockwise, and try to place a control point where the curve will "spring" from (third point along the top row), and the next one roughly in the mid point of the curve.

Click Join from the right -click menu, and do the first rough tweak of the curve.

Pull one of the Control Handles backwards (upwards in this case) to shape the curve.

In drawing mode, Control Points move in equal and opposite directions.

Click Finish to render the shape.

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Step Two: Tweak the shape.

Select the shape using the Edit toolbar, and move the centres of the Control Points until you have the shape you desire.

You will frequently need to move Control Handles away from their Control Points in order to move the Points themselves. Don't be too annoyed by this, just separate the Handles, move the Control Point and slide the Handles back into place after the move. Occasionally you might need to use Zoom to get all three precisely lined up again.
Use the Grid Constraints to your advantage.

This still needs some work to prevent that big curve from sagging at the bottom.

Toggle the Sync Handles ON and OFF to gain fine control over the shape of the curve.

Move the two circled control points slightly upwards, to improve the profile of the curved section.

Step Three: Punch the hole

Press the Cut button on the Geometry > Shape tab, and turn Grid Snap ON to place the Control Points for the counter.

This will cut a hole in the shape

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Again, click round the shape clockwise, and be sure to put a Control Point at the spring points of the curve, to anchor it at both ends.

Turn the Grid Snap OFF when placing the Control Point for the mid-curve, and turn it ON again to accurately place the remaining points.

In Edit mode, move the Control Handles for the mid-curve Point, and then move the entire Cut object upwards to keep the thickness of the stroke regular.

You will soon be expert at combining the Sync Handles and the Grid Constraints to achieve a fine degree of control over curves.

To continue with the letter "R", go to the next page.

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LOCAL NAVIGATION BAR FOR THIS MULTIPART TUTORIAL "Hacking Typography in Satori"
Part 1 Introduction	Part 2 The Letter "A"	Part 3 The Letter "R"	Part 4 The Letter "C"	Part 5 The Letter "H"
	P1 | P2 | P3 | P4 | P5	P1 | P2 | P3	P1 | P2	P1
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