Clock Face

[Irene C]

I am designing a clock face using roman numerals in Illustrator CS4. I am using Bodoni FLF font, which has a thin serif. I want to make the serifs follow the radius of the clock face. I tried using the Arch effect, which was not entirely successful, so I then added an Arc effect. This gave me the result I wanted in regards to the serif following the radius, but it also made the letters wider at the top than at the bottom, which my client does not want. If it helps at all, I am trying to replicate a large (abt 24" diameter) Seth Thomas wall clock from the early 1900s (or maybe somewhat earlier). I ultimately want to be able to cut this design on my Graphtec plotter, so the numbers/letters have to be outlined. Does anyone know an easier way to do this than to go back and manipulate each letter/number individually? Thanks!

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics

Can you post a photo of the dial you are trying to replicate?

[Irene C]

[Irene C]

I don't know if I did that first one right, but here are a couple more that show what I need to end up with.

[gwpriester]

I see what you are after. I am going to move your post to the Adobe forum where you should get more Adobe specific answers.

[mwenz]

I am designing a clock face using roman numerals in Illustrator CS4. I am using Bodoni FLF font, which has a thin serif. I want to make the serifs follow the radius of the clock face. I tried using the Arch effect, which was not entirely successful, so I then added an Arc effect. This gave me the result I wanted in regards to the serif following the radius, but it also made the letters wider at the top than at the bottom, which my client does not want. If it helps at all, I am trying to replicate a large (abt 24" diameter) Seth Thomas wall clock from the early 1900s (or maybe somewhat earlier). I ultimately want to be able to cut this design on my Graphtec plotter, so the numbers/letters have to be outlined. Does anyone know an easier way to do this than to go back and manipulate each letter/number individually? Thanks!

Hello Irene,

I used Bodini FLF as well in the illustrations below, but also squished it together a bit to sort of match one of your image's numerals.

Should be more or less self explanatory.

[gwpriester]

My man. I figured Mike would know how to do this.

[Irene C]

What does "Minus Front" mean? Also, will this give me something that can be cut on a plotter as it is, without any further work?

[mwenz]

I have attached a copy in CS4 format.

If you are going to be doing this type of work, it would behoove you to read the help file, take a basic course at lynda.com, or at least look up some specific tutorials on YouTube.

You will need to find out what your own equipment (or whoever is cutting this for you) expect for the cutting as regards the path thickness (weight) and whether the path needs to be using a named spot color (or just named color), etc.

The attached file is a single compound path, which is what the people who have done laser cutting for me want. The path thickness is thicker than my guy wants, but below the thickness it currently is it is difficult to see. The path is using a spot color named CutLine, which again is what my guy wants.

After you find out what the path thickness required is, and what the swatch color needs to be named (if at all), you will need to make those changes.

Mike

[Albacore]

Is that you throwing away work Mike. Thanks for all the work that you've done for Irene Mike I hope she appreciates it. Irene why not buy a book for CS4 that you can take your time over and learn the basics but make sure it comes with a disc so that you can take the tut. files to pieces to see how they do it.