Hey Dazey Ladies! So as many of you know I do mini design tutorials on the @dazey_la Instagram story all the time. I've been getting a lot of people asking to save them or put them on the blog since they disappear after 24 hours. When I started one yesterday I took some screen shots and decided to save and re-upload it. I know the video is super choppy and portrait style, so I decided to go more in depth below. I hope you find this helpful and never hesitate to ask questions. Previous knowledge of adobe illustrator is helpful.

This will be for my "march on" collection based on signage I saw at the women's march. I'll be working on designs all week and should be released in the next month or so!

Xx-Dani Dazey

1) Open a fresh adobe illustrator file. I always find 3-4 images that inspire me. Weather it's the colors, fonts, or design elements. I keep them on the side of the frame to reference. The goal is not to copy any of them, but take bits and pieces you like to create something new! 

Start with a base font, something you like that has a similar vibe to the end goal. This will however be totally changed so don't fuss too much :) 

2) Separate the font as a new text box on each line. Then select the first and apply the "warp" effect like shown below. There is a lot of fun options to re-shape the text! Some of my favorites are arc and flag. Here I have applied a different warp to each line as you can see. I like to adjust the fonts to blend in with each other. 

3) From here you select the font, go to "object" and click expand. This will make the font editable. Once it is outlined you can use the pen tool to re-trace these lines. Make sure you have the letters selected when editing. 

4) Here I am about halfway through. Just take it nice and slow one letter at a time. Keep the edit stokes close to the original or it will create a new line instead of re-shaping the current one. Here you can see I'm going for a more funky text and almost melting the letters into one another!

5) Now that I'm finished with the letters I am going to add a text shadow. Not your average "drop shadow", this trick works better :) Duplicate the font and add a thick "stroke" to the bottom one, I have it at 10 points here. Then I took the top layer and made the "fill" white and added a 2 point stroke. Then you just place the top font on the bottom one.

6) As you can see Below I decided to take the bottom shadow and expand it, merged using pathfinder, and then added a black stroke with yellow fill. Then I took the pen tool (better at making straight lines then the pencil tool) and I used to to create the background "beams" by just clicking at each point. All I needed to do was 1/4th of the background and then duplicate it. Then I grouped the background and used the warp tool again to add the "twist"!

7) I then selected the whole design and change the stroke to have a "rough" line by using the "brush definition" tool (you can see it next to where it says "uniform"). This particular stroke option is very thick so I have changed the stoke to 0.25. I have also changed the colors, which I will do 10 more time before print I'm sure haha. 

8) To add a distress I bring my files into photoshop by copy and pasting to a new design file. Then I paste a downloaded "distress" layer on top. This layer is literally just a speckled transparent .tiff file that matches the background. You can download them off of the internet! I usually go in using the pattern stamp tool to define and add even more distress.

9) To get a preview on a tee all you do is find a semi large photo of a blank tee and place the graphic on top. On the right side above layers you can select where it says "normal" and change it to "multiply" on a light tee, or "screen" on a darker tee. This takes away the white box and makes it look like it's printed on the tee.

And here you have it! The finished product :) Hope you enjoyed my first little tutorial post. I do them a lot on the Insta story but this is the first time I've done a big blog tutorial! I plan on doing more along with more legit videos and not the quick phone story ones haha.