Tutorial: Scribble Text Effect Illustrator

Today I will show you how to do a scribble effect on text in Illustrator that would also be useful for a sketch effect or a black marker effect. So here is what the finished product will look like:

I used the Britannic Bold font, you do not have to use this but I would suggest picking a chunky font for the best effect.

1. Firstly, open Adobe Illustrator, go to "file", "new" and select your page size.

2. Then select the "Type tool" (T), choose your font and start typing your desired text.

3. Select all text and deselect the "fill colour" and "stroke" so that there is no colour on any on the text.

4. Open the appearance window on your page and with "type" selected on the Appearance panel click the top right button and select "Add New Fill". Make sure the default colour is set at black.

5. Select "Fill" in the Appearance window, click Effect - Stylize - Scribble. Edit the "Scribble Options", change the "Angle"to 45, the "Path Overlap" to 0 pt, "Path Overlap Variation" to 2 pt, "Stroke Width" to 1 px, "Curviness" to 0%, "Curviness Variation" to 50%, the Spacing to 2 pt and Spacing Variation to 1.5 pt.

Result from Scribble Options

6. Now to add a stroke to define the edges. Add a stroke of 1pt for black pen effect, 2pt for a nice solid edge or 3pt for the black marker edge effect. I am going to use a stroke of 2pt.

Now you have a nice Scribble effect on text that has a lot of uses.

I chose the "Back to School" wording as it reminds me of posters I used to see when school books where on sale and it was that time of year again!!! Thankfully, I do not have to worry about that anymore :) but if you ever need to do up a poster for this type of thing you have one element to start with. I hope your enjoyed my Tutorial.