Playing around with fonts and texts is really fun, and perhaps one of the coolest functions of Adobe Illustrator is being able to take text and have it reflect an image, texture, or other pattern as its so-called color “swatch.” While the program comes with many swatches and patterns of its own, sometimes there may be a really cool photo, woodgrain, plaid, or other pattern you’d like for your text to adopt. This can be very easily accomplished by using clipping masks.
What will this tutorial show you?
Playing around with fonts and texts is really fun, and perhaps one of the coolest functions of Adobe Illustrator is being able to take text and have it reflect an image, texture, or other pattern as its so-called color “swatch.” While the program comes with many swatches and patterns of its own, sometimes there may be a really cool photo, woodgrain, plaid, or other pattern you’d like for your text to adopt. This can be very easily accomplished by using clipping masks.
This is what we’ll be making today:
What is a clipping mask?
As defined by Adobe, a clipping mask “is an object whose shape masks other artwork so that only areas that lie within the shape are visible – in effect, clipping the artwork to the shape of the mask.” In other words, for our purposes, the text would be the “mask” that hides the image behind it.
You can find the clipping mask function under the “Object” menu, as demonstrated by the screenshot below:
Step 1: Import the image you’d like to use into your .ai document.
You can do this by copying and pasting an image you already have on your computer into your document. Additionally, for mac users, you can click and drag an image you found on the internet into your .ai document you are working with.
In the screenshot below, you can see the background image I’ll be using was taken from a website. I’m operating off of a mac, so I clicked on that image, and dragged it directly into my .ai document.
Step 2: Make a clipping mask.
Once you have your image, you can adjust it to about the size of the text you’ll be making.
Next, type out your text, and then place it over your image. At this point, you’ll have created a layer where the text is above the image background. Select all (Command A), go to the object menu, and then select “Clipping Mask – Make.”
Step 3: Make adjustments as you like.
Even though you’ve made a clipping mask, this is “live text,” meaning you can still edit the text. To edit, use the white or black selection tool, and click somewhere directly on the text. This will activate the type tool and allow you to edit as needed.
You can also continue adjusting the text around the background image. For instance, in the example I have provided, let’s say I preferred to use the purple part of the background instead of the yellow/orange part. To make that adjustment, select just the text (I used the white selection tool) to move it around to the part of the background image you preferred to use.
At this point, my text is now at the bottom of the page (where the red areas of the background image were). But, what if I wanted the text to be positioned at the top of the artboard? I can still adjust where the text appears on the artboard by using the selection tool to move around the “clipping set” together (the text and the background image).
Thanks for reading!
~ WCB
