Illustrator Trick #10: Stitched Text Effect

By Tony Soh

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Here is a very quick trick to create a stitched text effect using strokes in the Appearance Palette. First, type your text and go to the appearance window. Set the Fill to white and Stoke to green. Drag your Stroke properties below the Fill. Open up your Stroke Palette and set weight to 2pt and remember to tick Dashed Line to create the dotted effect. Next, set the dash to 2.

Now, we will add another thick stroke around the dotted lines. Click the options in the Appearance window (the triangle at top right corner). Select Add Stroke. Drag it under the dashed stroke you have created just now. Set the Stroke to 8 and change it to grey color. And now you will get the stitched text effect as shown above. Have fun!

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About The Author: Tony Soh

Hi. I'm the founder of Vector Diary. Illustrator is my passion and I have written numerous tutorials on illustrator helping people learn illustrator. My most popular tutorial on learn illustrator has been a hit. It makes learning illustrator so easy and has benefited more than 20,000 people worldwide. Also, I've revealed some of my secret techniques in the premium tutorials. So don't forget to check it out!

Read all articles writen by this author

• Illustrator Tutorial: Bling Bling Text Effect
• Illustrator Tip #1: Dotted Lines in Illustrator
• Illustrator Tutorial: Rusty Metal Text Effect
• Illustrator Trick #6: Copying Text Styles with Eyedropper
• Illustrator Tutorial: 3D Cubic Text Effect

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+Add Comment10 Comments

1. 
   krishna December 12th

   Thanks for this cool tip. Tweeted this one

2. 
   dn06se December 19th

   yeah, this is a very cool trick. i never thought of this before. thanks for ur effort. love it…

3. 
   Nicole December 28th

   Another great Tutorial, I was trying it with Brushes, but only got a messy result. Thanks a lot!

4. 
   Omair Rais December 31st

   Thanks for the tutorials.

   Thanks.
   Omair Rais.
   http://www.omairarts.com

5. 
   joyoge designers' bookmark April 20th

   nice effect I like.. thanks

6. 
   Abstract Backpack April 23rd

   Cool.

   Thank you for the tutorials.

7. 
   Illustrator Training June 19th

   Just stumbled across your site, and love your work.

8. 
   mommaroodles October 11th

   Thanks for the tuts – really helping me a lot My CS3 version though is not letting me drag the the stroke properties below the fill not sure what I’m doing wrong. I type the text went to the appearance window. At this stage the all the text is still selected. In the Appearance pallete it shows Characters and Default Transparencey, the minute I click on the characters the text is no longer selected, it shows the stroke first then the fill beneath it and it wont let me drag the stroke below the fill

9. 
   Sofia November 14th

   to mommaroodles: “My CS3 version though is not letting me drag the the stroke properties below the fill ”

   Oh, i know this problem! My CS4 don’t let me do this too.
   I so have solved this problem. Has selected (V) this text and from panel Appearence has selected on the right a dark triangle and has selected “Add New Stroke”. Have appeared Stroke and Fill which can be moved. And those Stroke and Fill which were by default at me don’t move. Having made all that is necessary with “good” Stroke and Fill, I have once again made “Add New Stroke” for thick grey Stroke.

   Good luck!

10. 
    ajay September 12th

    really, awesome,,,,such small tutorial and a log of learning….really good..man…keep it up.