How to create an isometric graphic style for type in Illustrator
4 minute readIf you’ve used graphic styles before, you’ll know how you can build up the appearance of an object and save it to use later on in your document. Graphic styles are easy to save, can include multiple fills/strokes and live effects, and are applied to new objects with one-click.
We’re going to look at how you can use AG Shear (part of the VectorScribe Building Block live effects) to save an isometric projection which you can then apply to Live type.
Shearing is not currently possible with the native Adobe Illustrator live effects. But AG Shear is available in the Astute Graphics suite that contains 100+ other creative and time-saving tools and features. You can read more about the Astute Graphics benefits here.
To save AG Shear as a graphic style, open both the Appearance panel (Window > Appearance) and the Graphic Styles panel (Window > Graphic Styles) in your document.
Now create a Point Type text block and type out your text. Then add a shear to your type using a live effect by selecting your object, navigating to the Appearance panel and using the “FX” dropdown to locate AG Utilities > AG Shear. Remember this is part of the VectorScribe plugin available from Astute Graphics which you can try for free, no card details required.
The AG Shear dialog window will open, and in order to create an isometric projection to the right-hand side we will use the value -30° on the vertical axis. By default the “Prefer Point Text Anchor” option is enabled, this will use the type’s anchor point as the origin reference for the transformation.
Click OK to confirm, and with the object still selected in the Graphic Style panel click the “+” icon. This will add a new Graphic Style which you can double-click to edit the name.
To create a left-hand isometric projection, use the value 30° on the vertical axis.
When you want to create isometric type as seen from the top view, you will need to use two live effects stacked. First use AG Shear (as shown above) either to the left (30°) or the right (-30°). Then go back to the Effects library in the Appearance panel and select Distort & Transform > Transform. The latter is a native Illustrator live effect and you can use it to rotate your type.
To create a left-hand top view AG Shear = 30° + Rotate = 60°.
To create a right-handed top view AG Shear = -30° + Rotate = -60°.
If you want to save the fill and stroke appearances as well as the shear live effect to your Graphic Style, when you create the Point Type text block, turn off any fill or stroke colors. The reason for this is that instead of the fill color being applied at the “Characters” level (which it does by default), in this situation you need to apply the fill to the “Type” level. When you select the object, you can see in the Appearance panel whether you have the styles applied to the overall object, or to the individual characters. Now you can add multiple fills, strokes and other live effects. Saving this as the graphic style will apply all the same appearances to your new object.
