February 2015 Video Tutorial -- Creating a Casino Poster Part 1

[Gare]

My Bad, Larry. Two things: In never covered putting a white circle inside the roulette border, but I will, plus a bonus effect this March middel to late in the month (as usual!). All you do is draw a white circle (hold Shift+Ctrl while uning the Ellipse tool to constrain the ellipse to a perfect circle, and start from the inside point outward, instead of going diagonall from corner to corner. Color it wjite, Press Ctrl+B to put it to absolute back, and then press Ctrl+Shift+F to move it front by one object and do this key combo until the white circle is behind the roulette circle.

Folks, I'll mention it in next months tutorial, but if you want to get a leg up, the text I used was Johnny Lunchpail and Automatic, both fonts I paid for at Stu's Font Diner, which speciaizes in exquisite Retro fonts, nothing even close to them and I used them a lot. However, most of us, and certsinly this tutorial is on a budget, and Stu is kind enough to offer us some dynamite Retor fonts for free.

First, go to The County Fair (no idea why Stu calls i this!) and there are 12 free typefaces, I'd say six of them are invaluable.

Then go to Stu'd archive where there are still mode free fonts. download as many as you like, if you use these fonts extensively, I'm sure Stu would appreciate a sale or two(!), and definitely download Featured Item for the headline in our composition (instead of the $$$ Automatic), and then download either FD Swanky, or Motel King on [url=http://www.fontdiner.com/menu_cfp.html]this page. Oh, and get Dairyland, too, because it might look better than Featured Item in ytour final layout.

Why did Gary chose Retro fonts? Because people who go to Casino Nights at churches, fire houses and other community places here in the US are older people, so they can related better to vintage text. Also, it takes some of the edge, it adds contrast to the slick poster you're making. If you make the design slick and the text a little dorky, you've set up a dynamic poster that resonates and people will take a look at it longer.

Once you download and try out the Font Diner fonts, I think you'll agree that they are captivating in a non-threatening way. They suggest in no way you have to dress up or lose a lot of money. They say "Fun. Come on in."

Fonts say tons about your work, and hopefully this summer I can devot a chapter of the page layout series to just Typography.

In the meantime, just experiment with different phrases with the fonts, and see what you discover. I'll guide you this month (crap, it's March already!), and provide advice at that time on video. I'll just have to rush over to the drug store and get the video developed.

They say one hour, but I think that's horse hockey.

My Best,