Create Your Own Custom Fonts Using CorelDRAW (Part I)

By Steve Bain   

The challenge of tackling your own font design can be daunting without the right tools. Fortunately, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite has everything you need to design your own custom logotype font or typeface design.

New Rules for the Pick Tool

by Steve Bain

If you’re a legacy CorelDRAW user peforming advanced design or illustration tasks or even basic vector drawing work, this may pique your interest. Since the release of version 12, there have been a couple of key changes to CorelDRAW’s Pick Tool default behavior. You can no longer manipulate object nodes using just the Pick Tool and you’ll need to pay closer attention when selecting unfilled objects.

Get the Most from CorelDRAW’s Enhanced Display

By Steve Bain

If you’ve used CorelDRAW in the past to create documents destined for a printing press, you likely already know how to apply overprint properties to objects. Overprinting is often used to reduce the likelihood of gaps between misaligned ink colors when printing with mutiple inks and occurs whenever two or more inks are printed onto the same surface area. Overprinting ink colors can create unintended colors depending on the opacity of the ink. In this tutorial, I’ll explain more on overprinting and explore a relatively new enhanced view mode that will help you see your overprinting results before the ink hits the paper.

Custom Sprayers Can Add Real Drawing Power

By Steve Bain

There’s nothing better than harnessing the power of your computer to create hundreds or even thousands of objects in the blink of an eye. CorelDRAW’s Artistic Media Tool sprayer enables you to do just that. You can ‘spray’ objects onto any open or closed path and for amazing technical and creative effects. In this short tutorial, I’ll show you how to create your own sprayer effect and set options to control its appearance.

Getting a Handle on Design Workflow

By Steve Bain

When approaching virtually any Web, graphic, or layout design project, there’s a common workflow you can use that will progressively and successfully steer you from the idea or concept stage through to delivering the final product.

Create Cool 3D Chiseled Graphics (part 2)

By Steve Bain

In part 1 of this 2-part tutorial, we learned how to create the illusion of chiseled effects in CorelDRAW using very basic shapes. Now we’ll explore how to work with more complex shapes. We’ll also reveal how to add realistic color schemes to simulate various lighting levels.

Create Cool 3D Chiseled Graphics (part 1)

By Steve Bain

In this visit to the CorelDRAW toolbox, you’ll discover a technique you can use to create perfectly chiseled shapes. It’s an effect that will enable you to create the 3D illusion of shapes which appear either recessed into – or raised above - a flat surface. Your success will depend on your object’s shape, your skill at node editing and path commands, and of course how closely you follow these tutorial steps.

Create Transparent Stylized Buttons using CorelDRAW

By Steve Bain

If you’ve found yourself wishing that you knew how to create those cool, glass-like transparent buttons popular in certain interface designs, your wish is granted. I’m talking about those pill-shaped buttons that appear to be made from colored glass or see-though plastic. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to use CorelDRAW to create glass objects like these:

Click to enlarge

Draw 3 Lighting Details using CorelDRAW

By Steve Bain

In these three mini tutorials, we’ll explore three basic types of transparent highlights you can quickly add to graphic scenes to simulate reflected light: The window reflection, the sunlight glare, and the star highlight. To demonstrate I’m using CorelDRAW 11, but these techniques can be used with any recent version of CorelDRAW up to and including X4.

How to Create a Neon Tubing Type Effect

By Steve Bain

The ability to create objects to appear as if they have been fashioned into Neon tube lighting is a popular technique sought after by many illustrators. In this tutorial, you’ll learn to select the most ideal font for achieving the best results and embellish your type with color lighting to add realism. Although this tutorial refers to interface command locations and interface illustrations specific to CorelDRAW X3, the basic technique can be used with any version of CorelDRAW as far back as version 5.

Click to enlarge