Need Design Help

Community Support
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I’ve googled just about every which way I can think of and have come up short. I don’t know if I’m not naming something correctly, or what, but I bought a file that has a “sold” cut out of a key for buying houses, etc. I got in contact with a real estate agent and she wants to personalize the key. I set up the new key to look better for what she’s asked, but I’m totally blanking on how best to cut out the “sold” piece from the key. Obviously if I just try and cut out the “o” it makes a big circle, as opposed to the way they’re supposed to look.
I work out of Illustrator and will attach some photos as well.

Screenshot (1)
Screenshot (1)569×878 16.1 KB

That’s the “sold” cut out. I was hoping to do basically the same thing but on the key teeth part.

2

What you have right now will cout out the “SOLD” and the key.
Then engrave or score (will be faster) the “Home Sweet Home”. Just convert to outline and remove the overlaps.

3

If you use a stencil font, you don’t have to do anything other than writing the text on top of the key shape somewhere. The letters will be cut out but the middles of the “O” and “D” will remain attached; that’s what makes a font a stencil font.

4

If you bought this file, I am not sure you should be sharing it here in an open forum. The seller probably wants to retain their rights.

5

Fair enough, I couldn’t think of how to appropriately show it. I edited it to show just the piece I need.

6

Is that what this looks like though? Just a stencil font? I want to know if there is a technique, beside font choice, what that is, so I can better develop future projects. But the stencil font should be a great hold over!

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I know that’s what it is now, because this is the finished file I bought previously. I need to know how to replicate it for the design I created… any advice would be great!

8

Gotcha!

For Illustrator you will want to search for Type > Create Outlines and Window > Pathfinder

I would imagine there are a lot of videos explain the process better than I could.

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  1. Draw the key in Illustrator. Filled shape, no stroke.

  2. Place a rounded rectangle (filled shape, no stroke) on top of the key shape, then subtract it from the key shape using Pathfinder > Minus Front. This will create the correct type of Compound Path to use as a base key-shaped frame for future iterations. Save a copy.

  3. Use whatever text you want in whatever font you like to create your word. Change size, spacing, etc. until it fits the way you want it to in the hole in the frame. Make sure it overlaps slightly at the top and bottom of each letter.

  4. Right click on the text and Convert to Outline. Then Select all and use the Pathfinder > Unite tool to join them into one unit.

  5. Set the fill to none and give it a stroke color to check for how it will cut out.

That’s it. :slightly_smiling_face:

3 Likes
10

It looks like you’re getting some excellent help here in the forum!

Would you let us know if @jules steps resolve the trouble?

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