I'm trying to color the arms of a capital T in Georgia font on Illustrator for a project, but I can't do it. Can someone explain to me how to accomplish this?
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2 Answers
One method would be utilize the Shape Builder tool and Pathfinder..
- Convert the T to outlines via
Type > Convert to Outlines - Draw colored rectangles to cover the areas you want colored
- Select All this
- Grab the Shape Builder Tool, hold down the Option/Alt key and click the areas you don't want to remove them
- Lastly, select all again and click the Merge button on the Pathfinder Panel
(This step won't appear as though it does much. However, it removes the black areas behind the colored areas)
Note that my rectangles weren't aligned well to the center stroke of the T. This results in a sliver of color running down the sides of the center strokes. Just be certain to align the rectangles well with the center stroke. I didn't want to zoom in for the animation.
If you wish to do this on live type, this won't work. But there are other, more complex, methods which will. I can detail those if more information is added to the question.
I don't know why you can't do it, but I guess you might not be aware of difference between text and shapes in Illustrator. With shapes, you have more control and you can cut shapes into multiple parts, so you can fill different colors in each of them.
You can easily convert text into outlines (using Object > Expand or Type > Create Outlines feature) easily and proceed accordingly.
You can also try a gradient fill for a text if you don't want to create outlines and fill color, but that would take some time and result wouldn't be so perfect. You'll need to adjust the gradient sliders a lot to give sharp look at right places.
Note that once you create text into shapes, you won't be able to edit the text, because the text is actually gone and what you see is only the shapes. So one should usually outline/expand text once its typeface and weight has been finalized.
