White Text On A Light/ Variable Background

1

Hello All,
This may seem like a first day at school question, but it’s always been something I’ve wanted to do correctly.

I’m designing a few promotional cards for a local museum. I intend to make 4 designs using a variety of photographic backgrounds. I really want to use some photograph that are light to dark with text overlaid. I’ve mostly tried to stay away from this for legibility reasons, but have used drop shadow in the past.

I have attached a PNG for one of the designs, do you think it’s unreadable? Is there a better way to improve it?

I’m using Illustrator CS…

Thanks for listening

Capt,

2

hmm , its seems ok, personally i stay away from text over images (especially for body copy) like you have here, try decreasing or moving the image to the left a touch and then have the text wrap the image (as in, follow the right edge of the image).

3

I know what you mean soulty, but i don’t really have the room or want to lose 50% more of the image. The other images don’t allow for wrapping.I would go with a stroke, but I’m new to Illustrator, and can’t get it to stroke outside, any tips dude?

4

what do you mean by stroke?

5

I could put a thin black stroke on outside of the text, this will make the text clear on a light background, and be invisable on the black one. Only problem is that I can’t figure out how to stop Illustratopr stroking on the inside of the text. I’m a photoshoper not not an Illustrator. Am I making sense?

6

Scratch that, Illustrator is stroking centre not inside.

7

yep yep, got ya… ok what you do is go to window / appearance.

click on your text and in your appearance pallete you will see stroke and fill, drag the stroke layer under the fill. (this is off the top of my head so might be exact)

edit: just opened up illustrator, you need to outline your text before you can do that (ctl-shift-o) but make sure your text is final because outlining converts it to vector so you cannot edit the text content after that.)

8

Thats’ it! Magic…

Nothing wrong with your memory soulty…

Wish I could return the favour, but sadly i doubt it. Unless you drive/repair a Mini that is…

Thanks

9

lol, no probs dude, thats what im here for.

if you have any more illustrator questions feel free to ask.
:wink:

10

I know you already have your answer. But even with your solution I believe your text becomes washed out by the skull. I would move the skull over (not make it smaller) then have the body text follow the contour of the skull head. Bring more symmetry and impact that way. The title text may be okay to do with you new found technique. That is just my .02

11

i agree DDD, move skull then text wrap body copy like i mentioned before, title should be fine.