Illustrator tutorials: Envelope distort for Illustrator

In this Adobe Illustrator How To, we demonstrate the use of the Envelope Distort tool for Illustrator. We will use a female wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt to create a cool marketing gimmick.  Let’s get started.

Place the gal

Begin by opening Adobe Illustrator CS5 and creating a new document. Click File and then Place to place it on the canvas. Go ahead and lock it

Place an image to begin the Envelope Distort for Illustrator.

Next, open the Layers window and lock the layer containing the image.

Lock the layer using the Layers window.

Drawing Paths

Make a new layer for Illustrator using the Layers window. Use the Pen tool to outline the clothes we will use for our marketing message. We’ll use her shirt.

Create an outline of the area we will distort.

The next step of this Illustrator how to tutorial fills the area with blue (0623F9) and then copy the layer (you should now have 3 layers.

Adobe Illustrator How To: Creating layers for Envelope Distort

Use the scissors tool to cut the shirt off above the hands and then connect the two lower points to close the path.

Use the scisors tool and then close the path above the hands.

Now, create text and send it behind the top layer.

Adobe Illustrator How To: Create text and send it behind the top section of shirt.

Now, select the top section of shirt and the text. Click Object, then click Envelope Distort and then Make with Top Object.

Select Envelope Distort from the Object menu

Now, you have your marketing gimmick ready to go. Delete the placed image and clean up any stray points. Note: We cut off the shirt above the hands to do this because the path in between the fingers distorts the distortion. There are ways around this that are beyond the scope of this Adobe Illustrator tutorial.

The Evelope Distort for Illustrator is finished.