Make Floral text in Inkscape

Today we are going to make a floral text effect in Inkscape - a vector graphics editor like Illustrator, so this will also apply for Illusrator. The desired outcome will be something like this:

Result of the Floral Tutorial

Okay, here goes. The font I used in this tutorial was Savings Bond available at: http://www.dafont.com/savings-bond.font

1. Open a new document in Inkscape or Illustrator. Add your desired text and size, we will change colors and other things later. Then draw a simple Beizer path, like this:

1. Beizer Curve

2. Then draw a long triangle, as this will provide the slowly "fading out" effect on the lines. Make sure to remove the stroke (Shift+Ctrl+F to open Fill and Stroke panel) and add a solid fill of any color, otherwise it will convert to path correctly. To convert to path go to Path -> Object to Path or Shift+Ctrl+C. Some people may find it easier to change back to Stroke, No fill after the change, so I did. The result is this:

2. Triangle

3. Use the path tool and select all the nodes. In the toolbar click the button with the big + over it (It says 'Insert new nodes into selected elements') around 20 times or Until there is about 300 nodes. The result is this:

3. Insert Extra Nodes in Triangle

4. Hit Home or go to Object -> Raise to top to make it top of the lot. Then select and your Beizer curve normally and go to Extensions -> Generate From Path -> Pattern along Path. The settings are default, they should be, top to bottom: 1. Single, stretched; 2. Snake; 3. 0; 4. 0; 5. 0; 6. Unchecked; 7. Checked. 3 - 5 don't make any difference in this instance. I suggest you put on Live preview. If your line looks a bit 'fat' you will need to make you triangle more narrow, the opposite if it is too thin. With the spirals it may look like they are too thin at the end, we will fix this later. Click 'Apply' and close the window. You will need to get the line out of the middle, I do it by selecting the 'morphed triangle' and hitting 'End' then selecting it and dragging. Change the Fill to Solid Black and Stroke to None - Ctrl-Shift-F or at the bottom if you forgot. Repeat the above a couple of times, remember you don't need to make a new triangle every time and don't forget to hit End every time you make a new line. The result should be like this:

4. Nearly Finished!

5. After that select all the 'lines' and hit Ctrl+L to simplify. Then select everthing and copy into a new document. Duplicate then flip and postiton with arrow keys, switch colors around a bit until you find what you like. If you think the spirals are too thin then set the Stroke to 0.1 and it will be good.

6. Finished! Enjoy.

Fred

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