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  • By Design Bundles
  • 14 Dec 2017
  • 2 Mins
  • Illustrator Tutorials

Distressed/Grunge Text in Illustrator

For this tutorial, we are using the font “Sugar Hut” from Font Bundles.
1 – In Illustrator, create a New Document. Make sure your “Raster Effects” resolution is 300 dpi.


2 - You can change this setting by going to Effect > Document Raster Effects Settings.


3 – Using the “Type Tool” type your text and choose your font, size, and color.


4 – With your text selected, go to your “Appearance Panel”, click on the “Effects” button at the bottom and use Distort > Glass with the following values:



5 – Then go to Object > Rasterize with the default settings, but choose “Use Document Raster Effects Resolution” if it is not chosen. (This will turn the text into an image, so make sure the you are happy with it before applying it).


6 – Whit the resulting image selected, go to Window > Control Panel > Image Trace to open the dialog and use the following options:


7 – You can use the “Save Preset” in the “Tracing Options” so you can invoke it in the future.


8 – Click the “Expand” button on the top menu to convert your image into a vector.

9 – This technique can be used on objects other than text and you can play a bit with the overlapping and the usage of different “Transparency” modes.



10 – Check out your text:

by @lornacane


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