Spring has arrived! Let’s greet this amazing season with a
beautiful lettering illustration. Of course, we’ll add some floral
decorations, love, passion, and creativity!
Today, you’ll learn
how to create digital writing in Adobe Illustrator to make some elegant
lettering with floral elements for our gentle, ornamental composition.
Ideally, it would be great to have a pen tablet for this tutorial for
your convenience. We will also use the Width Tool, the Pen Tool, and the
Arc and Line Segment Tool.
If you’re looking for some decorative vectors, you can find many different elements and designs on GraphicRiver.
OK, let’s get started!
1. How to Create Digital Hand Lettering
Step 1
After
opening your Adobe Illustrator, create a new document with 850 x 850 px
Width and Height. Our illustration will be placed on a dark grey
background. So let’s create a dark-grey rectangle with the Rectangle
Tool (M).
Step 2
Now, let’s start writing. Remember that
it doesn’t have to be perfect because we just need to mark where the
real letters will appear.
So that we can write legibly, let’s
get some help: the Rulers. To make them appear, go to View > Rulers > Show Rulers (Control-R). Take
the upper ruler and drag it down to the place where you want to write.
Repeat this action to make another ruler appear, so that you have two
lines between which you can place your letters.
Now that
you’ve prepared where you want to write, let’s begin writing using the
Pencil Tool (N) with no fill color. If you make a mistake, you can
always erase it using the Eraser Tool (Shift-E). It’s easier if you can
see the whole artboard (Control-0), because the smaller the letters you
write, the less your hand will shake.
Step 3
Lower the
Opacity on the Transparency panel of this layer, close it, and create a
new layer.
On the new layer, take the Pen Tool (P) and outline the word
“Hello”. I recommend the Pen Tool because you won’t have a lot of anchor
points which make your file heavier, as you would with the Brush Tool (B).
Write each letter separately, since it will be easier for you to manipulate the letters later. Begin by writing simple letters and then
add some curly decorations later.
Now you can add some curls by
manipulating the handles of the anchor points. If you want to connect
two letters, select the anchor points that you want to connect using the
Direct Selection Tool (A), right-click the mouse, and select Join.
Step 4
Now it’s time for the next word, “Spring”.
Close
the upper layer, where you wrote using the Pen Tool (P), and unlock the
bottom one, where you will write the new text. Make sure that you’re in
the bottom layer and create another couple of rulers below the first two
rulers that you made, where you want the second word to be placed.
Simply take the upper ruler and drag it down. Do this action twice to
get a pair of rulers as boundaries for your letters. Using the Pencil
Tool (N) with no fill color, write the word “Spring”.
For better visibility, you can increase the bottom layer Opacity.
Step 5
Similar
to what we did before with the word “Hello”, lock this layer, lower the Opacity, and go to
the upper layer. Next, select the light-cream or yellowish stroke color, and by using the Pen Tool (P), outline the word “Spring”. When you are
finished, add some curls to the letters by manipulating the handles of the
anchor points.
This is my result. Feel free to do something similar to this.
Step 6
Look
at the Layers panel, take the layer where we drafted the letters (the
non-decorative letter layer), and drag it to the trash icon (Delete Selection). Press
Control-R to hide the Rulers. Select the lines on your artboard (you placed letters between them) and press Delete on the keyboard.
This is what our lettering now looks like:
2. How to Create Floral Details
Step 1
Now we’ll add some spring floral details. Let’s make the first type of leaves.
Set
the stroke color to green with no fill color. Using the Arc Tool, draw
the stem of our leaf. Add a few lines from both sides of the stem by
using the Line Segment Tool () or the Arc Tool, if you prefer. Make sure to check Round Cap on the Stroke panel.
We’ll transform these
lines into leaves by using the Width Tool (Shift-W).
Hit the Width Tool (Shift-W) and place your mouse/pen tablet over the
“prospective” leaf. Stretch where the leaf should be thicker. Repeat
with the rest of the leaves.
Make a few of these leaf branches.
Finally, we need to expand the lines which were transformed. Select
them and go to Object > Expand Appearance, and then Object >
Expand. (The first time you expanded just the leaves, and then the second time the stem).
Step 2
For the second type of leaves, we’ll use
the Arc Tool again to draw lines in two colors: lighter green on the back
and darker green over it. Change the width of these lighter lines with
the Width Tool (Shift-W). Expand all lines (Object > Expand
Appearance, Object > Expand) and make the leaf edges sharper by
moving the handles of the anchor points (use the Direct Selection Tool (A)).
Step 3
Now
we will create a rose. Add a pink circle with no stroke color and pink
fill color (feel free to choose any shade of pink). To make an even
circle, draw an oval using the Ellipse Tool (L) while holding down the
Shift key.
Now add some outer petals. Remove the fill color and make the
same stroke color (Shift-X) as used for the circle. On the Stroke
panel, increase the Weight of the stroke and check Round Cap. Grab the
Pencil Tool (N) and start drawing curly petals, which will be the
outside of the circle.
To make the inner petals, decrease the
Weight of the stroke, and make the stroke color slightly darker. Using
the Pencil Tool (N), create inner petals as shown in the image below. Add
some lighter petals as well.
Step 4
In this step, we will
create a flower bud. Add a pink circle with no stroke color and pink
fill color. Make two copies of this circle with slightly darker
color and place them behind the first circle (Control-X, Control-B).
Add the fourth copy of the circle behind and make it darkest. Add a few
black lines with the Pencil Tool (N) (just grey stroke color), behind
the first circle as stamens. And finally, create a green oval behind all
petals of the bud as a receptacle.
Expand the stamens. You can select the whole bud, go to Object > Expand, and in the new dialogue window select Stroke and press OK.
Step 5
For the third type
of flowers, let’s use the Line Segment Tool () again and draw a few
petals as lines. Use the Width Tool (Shift-W) to change the width of
these lines and create petals. Add a tiny circle inside the flower.
Yellow fill color with no stroke. Isn’t it easy? Finally, expand these
lines. Go to Object > Expand.
Step 6
Create a similar but
smaller, white colored flower using the steps we just took. Use the
Line Segment Tool () for the white petals, deform the lines with the Width
Tool (Shift-W), add the yellow circle inside, and finally, expand these
lines (Object > Expand).
Step 7
Here are all the floral
elements that we just created. Before moving on to the next step, make
sure that you have expanded all of them (Object > Expand Appearance,
Object > Expand).
3. How to Arrange the Floral Elements
Step 1
Make a few copies of the dark green leaves and spread them over and under the letters.
Step 2
Select the other leaves that we created, make a few copies, and place them also around the text.
Step 3
Now it is time to place a few copies of our beautiful rose.
Step 4
Add some of the flower buds.
Step 5
Scatter a few small red flowers.
Awesome Work, You’re Done!
And last but not least, let’s not forget to place our tiny white flowers. With this, we will finish our illustration.
Congratulations! Our spring lettering card is ready! Great job! I hope you’ve enjoyed following this inspirational tutorial and discovered some new tips and tricks that will help you to design more lettering designs and floral compositions. Enjoy the spring, and have fun!
