WHAT WE’RE CREATING:

Hey there designers! Renee here with a tutorial for a typography-based magazine cover. We’ll use loads of interesting fonts along with supporting ornaments to create a bright collage of movie genres. This is a great tutorial for beginners to basic typography within Illustrator.

Here’s a look at what we’ll be creating:

Greatest Movies Cover

Greatest Movies Cover

Follow along with this tutorial: Download the freebie files

The freebie pack features a wide variety of font extras and ornaments from Latinotype, Kimmy Design, Laura Worthington, Callie Hegstrom, Greyscale_Type, Fenotype and Set Sail Studios.

This freebie pack is the tiniest taste of our collection of the most popular fonts from some of the world’s top foundries available in The Complete Font Lover’s Library for just $29 (that’s 99% off). Every style font you could possibly need is covered in this comprehensive collection. This is a library that will pay for itself many times over, for years to come.

Greatest Movies Cover

Step 1: Background

Open Illustrator and go to File > New. In the New Document dialog box, enter a document name, a width of 9 inches and a height of 12 inches.

Click OK to create the document.

Greatest Movies Cover

Save your file.

Select the Rectangle Tool (m) and draw a rectangle that covers the entire artboard.

Open the Color palette (Window > Color) and enter CMYK values of 40/40/40/100 for the fill color and None (the white box with a red slash) for the stroke color. This will give us a nice rich black base.

Greatest Movies Cover

Open the Layers palette (Window > Layers). Double click the layer name, Layer 1, and rename it Background.

In the Layers palette, lock the Background layer by clicking the empty space between the eye icon and the layer thumbnail.

Step 2: Magazine Name

At the bottom of the Layers palette, click the Create New Layer icon. Double click the new layer name and rename it Magazine Name.

Select the Type Tool (t). Click once at the top of the artboard and type: filmwise

In the toolbar, switch to the main Selection Tool.

Open the Swatches palette and change the fill color to White.

Open the Character palette (Window > Type > Character). Change the font to Rail Black at 152 pt and set the Kerning to Optical.

Greatest Movies Cover

Let’s tighten up the spaces between individual letters. With the Type Tool, select the m. In the Character palette, change the Tracking to -30.

Greatest Movies Cover

Now select the is in wise and change the Tracking to -20.

Greatest Movies Cover

Switch to the main Selection Tool.

Open the Align palette (Window > Align) and under Align Objects, select the icon for Horizontal Align Center.

Greatest Movies Cover

Change to the Type Tool (t) and click once at the top right of the artboard above the e in filmwise.

Type:
March 2017
Designcuts.com

Switch to the main Selection Tool.

Open the Swatches palette and change the fill color to White.

In the Character palette, change the font to Hogar Regular at 12 pt. Set Kerning to Optical and increase Tracking to 100.

Greatest Movies Cover

Switch back to the Type Tool (t) and select designcuts.com. In the Character palette, change the font size to 10 pt.

Switch to the main Selection Tool.

Open the Paragraph palette (Window > Type > Paragraph). Select Align Right.

Greatest Movies Cover

In the Layers palette, lock the Magazine Name layer.

Step 3: Issue Name and Guides

At the bottom of the Layers palette, click the Create New Layer icon. Name the new layer Issue Name.

Select the Type Tool (t) and click once in the middle of the artboard. Type:
100
greatest
movies

Switch to the Selection Tool.

Open the Character palette and change the font to Rail Black at 70 pt. Set the Kerning to Optical.

In the Paragraph palette, select Align Center.

Greatest Movies Cover

We’ll adjust the font sizes so each word is the same width.

Switch to the Type Tool. Select movies.

In the Character palette, change the font size to 82 pt and reduce the Leading (the space between lines) to 70 pt.

Greatest Movies Cover

Select 100.

This would look a little better with more classic numbers, so let’s change the font to Isabel Black at 189 pt.

Greatest Movies Cover

Now we’ll tighten the spacing in 100. Select the 1 and change the Tracking to -50. Select the first 0 and change the Tracking to -30.

Greatest Movies Cover

Now we’ll tighten the space between 100 and greatest. Select greatest. In the Character palette, change the Leading to 56 pt.

Greatest Movies Cover

In the Align palette, select Horizontal Align Center.

We’ll position this about halfway between the title and the bottom of the artboard. Open the Transform palette (Window > Transform). Select the center point on the Reference Point icon. Next to Y:, enter 6.36.

Greatest Movies Cover

Now we’ll add a square around the issue name to make sure it stands out from the other text we’ll be adding later.

Select the Rectangle Tool (m).

Click once on the artboard. In the pop-up dialog box, enter a Width of 4 inches and a Height of 3.8 inches. Click OK.

Center on the issue name.

In the Swatches palette, make the fill color None and the stroke color White.

Greatest Movies Cover

Open the Stroke palette (Window > Stroke) and change the Weight to .5 pt.

Greatest Movies Cover

Next, we’ll add some guides that will help us keep our art within a set area and give us some clean negative space around the edges of the cover.

Go to View > Rulers > Show Rulers.

Switch to the Selection Tool. Click in the ruler area on the far left of the artboard and drag to the right to pull out a new guide. Drag it to align with the left side of filmwise.

Note: If you can’t select your guides after dragging them in, go to View > Guides > Lock Guides to unlock them.

Greatest Movies Cover

Click again in the ruler on the far left of the artboard and drag to the right to pull out another guide. Drag it to align with the right side of filmwise.

Greatest Movies Cover

Now drag a new guide out from the top ruler. Align it with the bottom of filmwise.

Greatest Movies Cover

The guides on the left and right are a little less than a half inch from the edges, so we’ll set an equal border on all sides with our guides.

With the guide under filmwise still selected, open the Transform palette. To the right of the Y value, add + .45.

Greatest Movies Cover

Drag another guide out from the top ruler and align this one with the bottom edge of the artboard.

In the Transform palette next to the existing Y coordinate, enter -.45.

Greatest Movies Cover

Now we’ll do the same thing around the center piece, but we’ll want these much closer than the outside edges.

Drag a new guide down from the top ruler and align it with the top of the stroked square in the middle of the artboard.

In the Transform palette next to the existing Y coordinates, enter -.2.

Greatest Movies Cover

Drag another new guide down from the top ruler and align it with the bottom of the stroked square in the middle of the artboard.

In the Transform palette next to the existing Y coordinates, enter +.2.

Greatest Movies Cover

Drag a new guide out from the left ruler and align it with the left side of the square in the middle of the artboard.

In the Transform palette next to the existing X coordinates, enter -.2.

Greatest Movies Cover

Drag a new guide out from the left ruler and align it with the right side of the square in the middle of the artboard.

In the Transform palette next to the existing X coordinates, enter +.2.

Greatest Movies Cover

Here’s a final view of the guides you should have in place. The red area is where we’ll place all of our movie genre names in the next section (the red is for highlighting purposes only – yours should still be black).

Greatest Movies Cover

In the Layers palette, lock the Issue Name layer.

Step 4: Movie Genres

At the bottom of the Layers palette, click the Create New Layer icon. Name the new layer Movie Genres.

We’ll start by creating a color palette for our piece.

We’re going to have a fairly large color palette. For each color, we’ll enter the CMYK values in the Color palette, then add the swatch to the Swatches palette.

Open the Color palette (Window > Color). Enter CMYK values of 0/35/85/0.

Now open the Swatches palette and click the New Swatch icon at the bottom right of the palette. In the popup, name the swatch Medium Orange and click OK.

Greatest Movies Cover

Use the same technique to make swatches for the following colors.
Red 0/90/80/0
Purple 60/100/10/0
Teal 70/0/30/0
Pink 0/85/10/0
Green 65/0/100/0
Dark Orange 0/70/85/0
Yellow 5/5/90/0
Gray 0/0/0/60

Greatest Movies Cover

For the area with movie genres, it’s more like a puzzle than any particular technique. The key is to fill the area within the guides, but keep the space between words fairly consistent. We’ll also want to make sure we keep the colors balanced by mixing them randomly and not overusing one single color.

Let’s start with typing the word Thriller, aligned at the top left of the genre area inside the guides. In the Character palette, set the font to Five Boroughs Handwriting at 74 pt with Kerning set to Optical. In the Swatches palette, set the fill color to Yellow.

Greatest Movies Cover

To the right of that, type Romance in Antonietta Script Pro at 107 pt. Make sure Kerning is reset to Auto (optical kerning doesn’t usually work very well with script fonts). In the Swatches palette, select a fill color of Pink.

For this one, we’ll use some alternates for the first and last letters to make them more decorative. Open the Glyphs palette (Window > Type > Glyphs). On the artboard, use the Type Tool to select the R. At the top of the Glyphs palette next to Show, select Alternates for Current Selection. Double click the alternate R used below.

Greatest Movies Cover

Now select the e in Romance. In the Glyphs palette, double click the below alternate.

Greatest Movies Cover

At the top right of the genre area, type Animated. In the Character palette, change the font to Abrade Black at 40 pt. In the Swatches palette, change the fill color to Green.

We’ll add an element of whimsy to this word by setting some of the letters at random angles and adjusting them above or below the baseline.

Use the Type Tool to select the first A. In the Character palette, set the Baseline Shift to 3 pt.

Greatest Movies Cover

Select the first n. In the Character palette, change the Character Rotation to 9 degrees. You’ll notice that letters will get very far apart when you start adding individual character rotation. To counteract this, reduce the Tracking. In this case, reduce the Tracking of the n to -120 and also reduce the Tracking of the A to -140.

Greatest Movies Cover

Here is the adjustments I made to the remaining letters:
i – Tracking -120, Baseline Shift 4 pt, Character Rotation -9 degrees
m – Tracking -120
a – Tracking -100, Character Rotation 7 degrees
t – Tracking -160
e – Tracking -400, Baseline Shift -5 pt, Character Rotation -36 degrees
d – Character Rotation -8 degrees

Greatest Movies Cover

Under Thriller and aligned to the left, type COSTUME DRAMA. Set the font to Isabel Regular at 35 pt with Kerning set to Optical. In the Swatches palette, change the fill color to Teal.

Starting under the M in COSTUME, type BLACK COMEDY. Set the font to Hogar Regular at 22 pt with Optical Kerning and Tracking at 200. In the Swatches palette, change the fill color to Gray.

In the big open space to the right of Costume Drama and Black Comedy, type Adventure. Set the font to Northwell Regular at 104 pt with Optical Kerning. Change the fill color to Red.

Greatest Movies Cover

We’ll fill in some of the larger negative spaces between words with ornaments later. Also, keep in mind that a big puzzle like this will most likely require constant adjustment to keep everything fitting together properly.

Below Costume Drama and aligned to the left, type Fantasy. Set the font to Renata Regular at 44 pt with Kerning set to Auto. Change the fill color to Purple.

Now type COMING-OF-AGE. Set the font to Bourton Medium at 84 pt with Optical Kerning and Tracking at -60. Change the fill color to Yellow.

With the main Selection Tool, hover over one of the corner handles until you see the curved rotation arrow. Hold Shift and rotate 90 degrees to the left (holding Shift ensures you can only move in 45 degree increments).

Greatest Movies Cover

Next, we’ll fill in the space between Coming-of-Age and the box in the middle with the issue name.

Just under Fantasy and to the right of Coming-of-Age, type SPY. Set the font to American Oak Serif at 65 pt with Optical Kerning. Change the fill color to Red.

Under Spy, type SAGA. Set the font to Hogar Bold at 36 pt with Optical Kerning. Change the fill color to Green.

Under Saga, type WAR. Set the font to Taberna Serif Regular at 46 pt with Optical Kerning. Change the fill color to Medium Orange.

Note: To keep an eye on how the finished product will look, it helps to turn off the guides occasionally. To easily toggle the guides on and off, press Cmd + ; (semicolon).

Greatest Movies Cover

Next up, we’ll create a path to type on. Select the Pen Tool (p). Click once to the right of the O in OF. Click again to create the second point up and to the right. This time, click and drag to the right to create a curved point. Lastly, click a little higher and just past the guide on the right side.

If you need to make adjustments to the points, you can use the Direct Selection Tool (a) to move points. If you need to adjust the curve of the middle point, select the Pen Tool and hold Option to access the Anchor Point Tool to edit curves.

Greatest Movies Cover

In the toolbar, click on the Type icon and hold down until you see the flyout menu. Select the Type on a Path Tool.

Click on the beginning of the path we’ve just created and type comedy. Set the font to Jazz Script 1 Bold at 33 pt and the fill color to Pink.

Greatest Movies Cover

Next, type the word Action. Set the font to Five Boroughs Regular at 120 pt. Change the fill color to Green. Rotate to the left 90 degrees while hold Shift and position below comedy.

Below Action, type Mystery. Set the font to Echo Soul at 48 pt with Optical Kerning. Change the fill color to Purple. We’ll use an alternate for the first y in Mystery. Select the first y. In the Glyphs palette, double click the only other y. This has a huge space before it, so we’ll need to select the M and change the Tracking to -320.

Greatest Movies Cover

Below Mystery, type satire. Set the font to Abrade Light at 66 pt. Set the fill color to Pink. On this one, we’ll adjust the Baseline Shift on a few letters. Select the t and set the Baseline Shift to 2 pt. On the i, set it to 6 pt and on the r, set it to 2 pt.

Under satire, type musical. Set the font to Isabel Unicase Black at 39 pt with Optical Kerning. Align with the bottom guide.

Greatest Movies Cover

Let’s fill in the right side between the box in the middle of the artboard and the far right guide.

Under Adventure, type Foreign. Set the font to Fairwater Script Regular at 42 pt. In the Glyphs palette, double click the alternate capital F. Set the fill color to Teal. The top of the capital F should just barely miss the bottom of the t in Adventure.

Under Foreign, type Film noiR. Set the font to Taberna Serif Regular at 33 pt with Optical Kerning and Tracking of -10. Change the fill color to Medium Orange.

Below Film noiR, type Cult. Set the font to Tooth & Nail Regular at 98 pt. Align the C with the guide on the left side. The swash at the end of the t will stick out past the guide on the right, but it’s balanced, so it’s ok.

Under Cult and aligned with the right guide, type:
SCI
-FI

Set the font to Bourton Drop Stripes A at 64 pt with Optical Kerning and Leading set to 58 pt. Change the fill color to Green. In the Paragraph palette, select Align Right.

To the left of SCI-FI, type anime. Set the font to Fourth Bold at 45 pt. Rotate to the left 90 degrees and position along the left guide to the left of SCI-FI.

Greatest Movies Cover

To the right of Action and below the middle square, type HORROR. Set the font to Tooth & Nail at 91 pt with Optical Kerning. Change the fill color to Red. Align the top of the word with the guide below the middle square.

To the right of Horror, type DRAMA. Set the font to Cocogoose Light at 52 pt with Optical Kerning. Change the fill color to Yellow. Align the top with the guide below the middle square and also the align the right side with the far right guide.

Below Drama, type DOCUMENTARY. Set the font to Hogar Regular at 23 pt with Optical Kerning and Tracking set to 200. Align the right side of the last letter with the far right guide.

Greatest Movies Cover

At the far bottom right of the genre area within the guides, type MOCKUMENTARY. Set the font to Fairwater Sans Bold at 32 pt with Optical Kerning and Tracking set to 200. Change the fill color to Gray. Align with the bottom and right guides.

To the right of satire and above Mockumentary, type HISTORICAL FICTION. Set the font to Mercenary Regular at 30 pt with Optical Kerning and Tracking at 40. Change the color to Yellow. The right side should line up against the far right guide.

To the right of Mockumentary and Historical Fiction, type ART HOUSE. Change the font to Cocogoose Inline at 25 pt with Optical Kerning. Change the color to Pink. Use the rotation arrow on the corner handle while holding Shift to rotate to the right 90 degrees. Align the bottom of the word with the far right guide and the first letter (a) with the bottom guide.

Greatest Movies Cover

Above Historical in Historical Fiction, type INDEPENDENT. Set the font to Five Boroughs Handwriting Regular at 42 pt. Change the color to Dark Orange.

Above Independent, type Political. Set the font to Hogar Script Semibold at 46 pt. Change the color to Green.

To the right of Political, type CRIME. Set the font to Fairwater Solid Serif Regular at 39 pt with Optical Kerning and Tracking at -10.

Below Crime, type Western. Set the font to American Oak Inline at 37 pt with Optical Kerning.

This leaves a few somewhat awkward spaces, but we’ll fill them in with ornaments in our next section.

Greatest Movies Cover

Here’s where we are before ornaments.

Greatest Movies Cover

In the Layers palette, lock the Movie Genres layer.

Step 5: Finishing Touches

Create a new layer and name it Ornaments.

This is a lot like the rest of the movie genre section in that it has mostly to do with fitting together puzzle pieces for a finished look.

For each ornament, I’ll reference the type foundry, font name and font size. If you’re working from the freebies files, you’ll find the ornaments labeled under each foundry’s name and already sized for the tutorial.

Use the Type Tool to click somewhere off the artboard near Thriller. Type an exclamation point (!). Set the font to Callie Hegstrom’s Five Boroughs Extras at 52 pt. Change the fill color to Yellow.

Position the splatter over the lower left side of Thriller. Press Cmd + C to Copy, then Cmd + V to Paste. Position the copy in the top middle of the word. Press Cmd + V again to paste another copy. Drag this one over the end of Thriller.

Press Cmd + V again. Use the Type Tool to select the splatter and type a capital E. This will give you a swash. In the Character palette, change the font size to 100 pt. Position under the middle section of Thriller.

Greatest Movies Cover

Click once in the empty area above the first A in Costume Drama. Type a lowercase c in Greyscale_Type’s Fourth Extras. Set the size to 42 pt and the fill color to Teal.

Use the Type Tool to click to the left of Black Comedy. Type: o222222h. Set the font to Laura Worthington’s Fairwater DIY Lines Regular at 26 pt. Set the fill color to Gray.

Switch to the main Selection Tool. Hold Option, then click on the arrow and drag up and to the left to make a copy. If you’re using the full font, you can extend the length of the top arrow by clicking somewhere in the middle with the Type Tool and typing an extra few 2s.

Greatest Movies Cover

At the top left of comedy, type a lowercase e. Change the font to Five Boroughs Extras at 37 pt. Change the fill color to Pink.

Switch to the main Selection Tool and use the rotation arrow (do not hold Shift this time) to rotate the ornament to the right until it looks like it’s coming up from the m in comedy.

Greatest Movies Cover

Use the Type Tool to click to the left of the on in Action. Type a lowercase z. Change the font to Five Boroughs Extras at 56 pt. Change the fill color to Green. Hold Shift and rotate 180 degrees.

Greatest Movies Cover

Above the first part of Mystery, type 2. Change the font to Fourth Extras at 46 pt and the fill color to Purple.

Greatest Movies Cover

Press Cmd + C to copy the key. Press Cmd + V. Use the Type Tool to select the key and type a lowercase n. Change the font size to 82 pt and the fill color to Red. Position above the ven in Adventure.

We’ll also add a few stars to give an overall night sky look with the mountains. The single star is available in the Greyscale_Type freebies file or also in the Illustrator files that came as extras with the Fourth font. Select the star and press Cmd + C to Copy then paste it into the main layout file using Cmd + V. Press Cmd + V to paste as many copies as you fancy. Adjust them by adding slight rotation (don’t hold Shift for these) or scaling smaller or larger (hold Shift while doing this to maintain aspect ratio). These should all be Red.

Greatest Movies Cover

Use the Type Tool to click once under the end of Animated and type ghghghghi. Change the font to Fairwater Nautical Regular at 29 pt. Change the fill color to Green.

Hold Option + Shift, then click on the water/sailboat and drag down to create a copy. Press Cmd + D three times to duplicate the action and make multiple copies. Use the Type Tool to select the sailboat and delete it from the bottom 4 copies. Add or delete any of “gh” areas to lengthen or shorten the lines.

Greatest Movies Cover

With the Type Tool, click above the right side of the word Foreign. Type a lowercase l (el). Change the font to Kimmy Designs’ Bourton Extras Flourishes at 68 pt. Change the fill color to Teal.

Below the m in Film Noir, type a lowercase y. Change the font to Latinotype’s Taberna Extras at 80 pt. Change the fill color to Medium Orange.

With the Type Tool, click below the word Cult. Type a lowercase l (el). Change the font to Set Sail Studios’ Northwell Swash at 30 pt. Change the fill color to Purple. Use the rotation arrow at the corner handles to rotate slightly to the right and mimic the shape of the bottom of the word Cult.

Greatest Movies Cover

To the right of anime, type an uppercase S. Change the font to Fenotype’s Jazz Script 1 Extras at 64 pt. Change the fill color to Teal. Use the rotation arrow on the corner handles while holding Shift to rotate 90 degrees to the left. Position to the right of the ime in anime.

To the left of Sci-Fi, type a lowercase l (el). Change the font to Taberna Extras at 41 pt. Change the fill color to Green. Hold Shift and use the corner handles to rotate 180 degrees. Position at the top left side of the F.

Above the M in Drama, type a capital K. Change the font to Latinotype’s Antonietta Ornaments at 38 pt. Change the fill color to Yellow. Use the corner handles to rotate slightly to the right until it appears to connect to the right leg of the M.

Press Cmd + C to Copy, then Cmd + V to Paste. Use the Type Tool to select the copy, then type at uppercase E. Change the font size to 25 pt. Rotate more to the right and position at the top of the A.

Greatest Movies Cover

To the top left of Political, type a capital K. Change the font to Bourton Extras at 80 pt. Change the fill color to Green. Hold Shift and use the rotation arrow on the corner handles to rotate 180 degrees.

Above the second ENT in Entertainment, type a lowercase k. Set the font to Latinotype’s Taberna Extras at 100 pt. Set the fill color to Medium Orange.

Greatest Movies Cover

Under Western, type :22222z22222:

Change the font to Laura Worthington’s Fairwater DIY Lines at 28 pt. Change the fill color to Medium Orange. Center below Western.

Greatest Movies Cover

And we’re done! We’ve created an eye-catching cover using beautiful fonts while learning tons of type basics in Illustrator.

Greatest Movies Cover

Greatest Movies Cover

Remember that whether it’s your outcome for this tutorial or something new you’ve made, we’d love to see your designs on our Facebook page.

Please leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions. I always look forward to hearing from you!

There’s still time to check out The Complete Font Lover’s Library– the first time these fonts have been available at anywhere close to this kind of discount!