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Bevel and Emboss Layer Effects in PhotoShop brings the font to life
(Roughworks, "F"). "Construction" lines are extended
and will be "borrowed" for navigation lines through the site.
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Creating the graphics for a project is probably the most fun and rewarding
for me, but if I am going to break my time budget, it will almost always
be in this area. I have had many discussions about this with other designers—
I am not alone. It seems, though, that the secret for many of us lies
in gathering a wealth of shapes, concepts and outlines as reference
and inspiration. Dingbats can be a useful tool for prompting creativity
and reducing creation time.
Dingbat shapes offer a partially formed canvas for designers to experiment
with layout and graphic concepts. They are perfect for navigation bar
outlines or components, section identifying visual marks, page dividers
and texture backgrounds. Some designers use dingbats often in logo design.
Dingbats are low priced, easy to access and versatile. Any graphic
designer already has the software to create graphics from a dingbat
font. Design elements to go! Need I say more?
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CorelDraw Dingbat variations
Adobe Illustrator variations
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General Techniques
There are two program types for working with dingbats as graphics:
Paint programs like PhotoShop, Corel PhotoPaint or PaintShop Pro and
vector programs like CorelDraw, Illustrator and Freehand. Any program
that will take a symbol and convert it to curves or render it from text
will work. In all programs your starting point is to select the dingbat
font and type the chosen character.
In vector programs, you must convert the font to curves. In this CorelDraw
sample (Zone 23, Foopy 4, character "d") the upper left image
is still in text form. Note the cursor behind the character. In the
lower left image, the text has been converted to curves as indicated
by the nodes along the curves. Finally, the right image has been converted
to curves and then separated. Note how each separate piece has a different
color, and has been rotated and repositioned. The selection handles
indicate that only a portion of the image is selected. This is a very
simple example of what you can do with one character. What was a design
element now takes on a loose human form.
The Illustrator sample here (Zone 23, Foopy1, character "m")
shows the dingbat first as text at the left, with "Create Outlines"
applied on the right and with portions of the image removed in the lower
sample.
In PhotoShop, you must convert the text in order to use filters. Type
your character (Wingdings, character "v") and render the layer.
The illustration shows the upper image on the Diamond layer, still in
text form. The lower image is on Diamond copy  which
has been rendered. The glass filter provided the rough edges and I added
noise for texture - options not available for text. You should set approximate
desired size and color before rendering the text layer.
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