[revboyjames]

Creating Athletic Text with a Tail: A Walkthrough From Start To Finish

This article is an overview of one of my CorelDraw video tutorials- How to Create Athletic Text with a Tail in CorelDraw. You can view the relevant tutorial here:

This video tutorial is hands down the most popular tutorial I’ve created, so I thought it would be good to write an article for it. This article will give a quick summary, but be sure to watch the tutorial for more specifics. I hope this article/video tutorial can help both beginner & veteran CorelDraw users learn a fast & easy way to create custom text with a tail.

Here’s the image we will be creating. Feel free to type out any wording that you want.

The first thing you need to do is to type the main text/wording. You can find your text tool on the left toolbar. *Note: just click once on the screen and start typing, you do not need to have a text bounding box or anything like that.

The next thing is to choose a nice athletic-looking cursive font. (I’ve highlighted the font editing options area in red). The font I used is a pretty standard CorelDraw font called Brush Script. dafont.com is a great resource to find fonts, if you are looking for something in particular. Also, I should note, if you are planning to print this, you’ll want to apply a Pantone color to your text.

Now I skewed the text just a little bit, to give it a bit nicer of a feel, like you might see on a baseball jersey or tee. To skew an object or text, just make sure you have it selected, then click once on the small “x” in the center of the selection. This will change your transformation options to these skewing and rotating arrows that you see here.

The fastest way I know of to draw your tail is by using the Freehand Tool, highlighted in the picture here. You can also use the Bezier Tool right next to it if you prefer. In this case though, I’ll be using the Freeland Tool.

Using the Freehand Tool, simply click and drag to draw your shape. Make sure to connect the end point to the beginning point, where you first started drawing your shape. (this step is explained more in detail in the video). And don’t worry about being super accurate with your shape, because we’ll be editing it anyway.

So now you can use the Shape Tool (2nd one on the left toolbar) to edit and tweak the nodes of your tail, to make it just right.

Most people aren’t that familiar with editing nodes. I’ve highlighted a key area in red that should help you when tweaking these nodes. The red area is your node editing options. Here you can change how the node reacts, whether both it’s sides move independently, or if it’s more smooth, etc… (this process is explained more in detail in the video).

Once you have made the tail the shape you want, then you can color it the same as your wording and remove the outline. You can continue to tweak it after you have colored and positioned it, if you want.

Next, we want to add some additional text/wording into the tail itself. Again, simply click once on the screen with your Text Tool to start typing the word. Then, like before, edit the font to your liking and this time make the text a color that is easy to see on top of your existing tail color.

After you have typed out your text, and sized it basically to the size that will fit well in the tail, you are ready to distort the text to fit in the tail nicely. Now, you can just place straight text in the tail, but I find it look nicer if it follows the curve of the tail itself. To do this, make sure you have your text selected, then click on the Interactive Envelope Tool (Highlighted on the left toolbar- which it might be hidden within another toolset). Once you have clicked on that tool, it should put a dashed-line box around your wording. Next, look to the top tool properties (key area highlighted in red) and choose a curve option that you think will work best for your wording. At this point you can start using that dashed-line box to distort and curve your text. When you are satisfied, change your text color to the color you want.

After that, you can add an outline to both your main text and tail. (I recommend to check the boxes for “Behind Fill” and “Scale with Image” in your outlines options window). Now, in your design and the image above, you will notice that the spot where your tail and the end of your word meet, that the outlines overlap and don’t look good. We’ll fix that…

To merge your main wording and the tail together, start by selecting both objects (click on one, and then hold down shift and click on the other). When you have both objects selected, you should notice some weld, trim, etc. options showing up on your top properties area- Click the Weld button (see red arrow in the image). This will weld your 2 objects into 1, thus eliminating that odd outline overlap.

And that’s it, you’re done. Again, the video tutorial does a much better job explaining these techniques. I hope this helps you save time and effort when creating custom wording in CorelDraw!

Best of luck and feel free to ask questions and I will try my best to answer them.

Thanks for reading!

James Koenig is a freelance graphic designer that specializes in illustrations, screenprint art, t-shirt designs, logos and more.

If you would like to learn more, visit his CorelDraw tutorials on Youtube: ‪FreelanceFridge's Channel‬‏ - YouTube or have any other questions, feel free to him through his website: Welcome to James Koenig's Freelance Fridge: Artwork, Design, and Illustration​

 

[SherriM68]

I am hoping you can help me with Corel Draw. I am very new to the program and just bought a vinyl cutter GCC Expert 24 and one of the programs is Corel. So instead of making the swoosh like you I am using the Brannboll Fet Font from here Brannboll Fet font by Måns Grebäck - FontSpace the numbers you use at the end of your word to create the swish. The larger the number the bigger the swish. Well when I type in my word Softball Diva there are breaks in the word that will cut in my software. I can see the lines when I see the nodes but I have struggled trying to get these to disapppear and can't seem to figure it out. I am hoping you may have some suggestions for a newbie with Corel. Between the F and the T the line that connects them have a break and for the life of me I can't make it go away. Thanks in advance for any feedback you can provide.
Sherri

 

[dazzabling]

I am hoping you can help me with Corel Draw. I am very new to the program and just bought a vinyl cutter GCC Expert 24 and one of the programs is Corel. So instead of making the swoosh like you I am using the Brannboll Fet Font from here Brannboll Fet font by Måns Grebäck - FontSpace the numbers you use at the end of your word to create the swish. The larger the number the bigger the swish. Well when I type in my word Softball Diva there are breaks in the word that will cut in my software. I can see the lines when I see the nodes but I have struggled trying to get these to disapppear and can't seem to figure it out. I am hoping you may have some suggestions for a newbie with Corel. Between the F and the T the line that connects them have a break and for the life of me I can't make it go away. Thanks in advance for any feedback you can provide.
Sherri

If you look closely at the lettering in first few images there are breaks. He has them filled in so you can really see them unless you know what you are looking for.

Here he explains what you need to do:

To merge your main wording and the tail together, start by selecting both objects (click on one, and then hold down shift and click on the other). When you have both objects selected, you should notice some weld, trim, etc. options showing up on your top properties area- Click the Weld button (see red arrow in the image). This will weld your 2 objects into 1, thus eliminating that odd outline overlap.

Its the same concept with the lettering, you must weld the letters together in order to make them one, if they are overlapping. This usually occurs in script fonts.

 

[dazzabling]

Click the Weld button (see red arrow in the image). This will weld your 2 objects into 1, thus eliminating that odd outline overlap.

Its the same concept with the lettering, you must weld the letters together in order to make them one, if they are overlapping. This usually occurs in script fonts.

Here is Diva welded in your font. If you are using Great Cut with Corel sometimes I have had better luck using the weld tool in Great Cut.

 

[SherriM68]

Thank you for the feedback. I was able to finally figure it out between the video and your additional input. I am slowly getting the hang of Corel and it's amazing one node can change so much of the outcome of an image.

 

[syndeez]

Thanks for sharing this. It helped me out a lot in placing the tail. I also had the Brannboll Fet Font.

 

[racinlm]

Thanks for sharing