Retro Text Effects with Illustrator’s Appearance Panel

In today’s Adobe Illustrator tutorial I’m going to show you some techniques for creating cool retro style text effects using Illustrator’s Appearance panel, which preserves the live text so you can still edit the wording and change the font. Since we’re working with retro type effects, the artwork we’ll produce is based on those old “Come in, we’re open” signs.

► Sign Painter Font – No longer on Adobe Fonts. Try Corner Store instead! – https://spoon.graphics/3SFj1WK
► Cervo Font Family – https://spoon.graphics/41AEchD
► 20 Free Realistic Rusty Metal Logo Mockup Textures – http://spoon.graphics/2t8abJU

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12 Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing. That knocks a good bit of time off of how I was doing shadowed text before.

  2. U’re Great! THX very much for all ur website,tutorials ana other taste stuff!

  3. Without a doubt one of your best video tutorials. Excellent demonstration of the power of the Appearance panel and then working it up in Photoshop. I love how well Photoshop and Illustrator play so well together. It’s a key piece of knowledge that many lack. Nicely done again

  4. Hello Chris, always enjoy your tutorials! Inspirational!
    It’s a nifty panel, the appearance panel,
    makes adjusting your work so much easier and flexibel.
    Thanks a lot!

  5. Great stuff Chris, big fan of your tutorials. My appearance pallette only gives me swatches as an options for fills and not the eyedropper any ideas?

  6. I am not sure if you can help me with this but I have been searching for ways to add texture to my repeat patterns. The problem is I need the texture that I apply to have the same exact edges on the left and right side as well as the top and bottom side so when the pattern is repeated you cannot tell where the seams are. How would I go about doing that?

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