Hello all,
I am a long time lurker here, and have only posted a few times.
I've been trying to find a good source for custom headstock decals for a long time, and finally just decided to bite the bullet and make my own.
I'm fairly computer literate, but not terribly creative. Thankfully, my objective design is fairly simple. Just my last name, in a font similar to the Fender spaghetti logo, with either gold or silver text with a black outline.
I don't have photoshop, and wasn't willing to fork over the cash to acquire it. Gimp is a popular free graphics program, but I had problems with the fonts coming out blurry with it (probably entirely my fault).
This evening I was searching around looking for tips on making the outline around the text, and stumbled on a different free program, similar to Gimp, that makes creating the outlined text MUCH simpler (at least for me).
It's called "InkScape", and it's free (Gnu public license).
http://inkscape.org/
It took me a few minutes watching some youtube videos to figure out how to create the outline text, but now that I know how, it literally takes only a minute or two to create them (see the attached fictionaly example).
Start by creating a new 'default' document, then follow these steps.
1. Add text using whatever font you like (Brush Script is the closest font to the Fender logo), and set it to the size you want. I make mine about 40 points to start with. Make this text solid black.
2. Duplicate this black text "Press CTRL-D", or right-click the text, then click "Duplicate". This creates a second version of your text directly on top of the original (the original is completely hidden behind, but still on the same 'layer').
3. Click on top of the new text to select it, and then change it to whatever you want for your main color (I used "Olive Green" in my example).
4. Now, make sure you still have the new colored text selected, then click the "Path" menu, then click "Inset". This shrinks the top text slightly, exposing the black text behind it forming a border.
This is the basic process for making the outline. You can do lots of other creative things, including adding textures (i.e. brushed metal, liquid/wet, etc...) or effects like droplets, etc...
See the attached example below. I made this in about 3 minutes.. then just exported it to a .png file.
I am a long time lurker here, and have only posted a few times.
I've been trying to find a good source for custom headstock decals for a long time, and finally just decided to bite the bullet and make my own.
I'm fairly computer literate, but not terribly creative. Thankfully, my objective design is fairly simple. Just my last name, in a font similar to the Fender spaghetti logo, with either gold or silver text with a black outline.
I don't have photoshop, and wasn't willing to fork over the cash to acquire it. Gimp is a popular free graphics program, but I had problems with the fonts coming out blurry with it (probably entirely my fault).
This evening I was searching around looking for tips on making the outline around the text, and stumbled on a different free program, similar to Gimp, that makes creating the outlined text MUCH simpler (at least for me).
It's called "InkScape", and it's free (Gnu public license).
http://inkscape.org/
It took me a few minutes watching some youtube videos to figure out how to create the outline text, but now that I know how, it literally takes only a minute or two to create them (see the attached fictionaly example).
Start by creating a new 'default' document, then follow these steps.
1. Add text using whatever font you like (Brush Script is the closest font to the Fender logo), and set it to the size you want. I make mine about 40 points to start with. Make this text solid black.
2. Duplicate this black text "Press CTRL-D", or right-click the text, then click "Duplicate". This creates a second version of your text directly on top of the original (the original is completely hidden behind, but still on the same 'layer').
3. Click on top of the new text to select it, and then change it to whatever you want for your main color (I used "Olive Green" in my example).
4. Now, make sure you still have the new colored text selected, then click the "Path" menu, then click "Inset". This shrinks the top text slightly, exposing the black text behind it forming a border.
This is the basic process for making the outline. You can do lots of other creative things, including adding textures (i.e. brushed metal, liquid/wet, etc...) or effects like droplets, etc...
See the attached example below. I made this in about 3 minutes.. then just exported it to a .png file.
