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Heady304

: Tapering spiral text - tried text on path, art brush, and envelope distort Using Illustrator CC 2014: I'm trying to create a spiraled text in which the text size decreases as it spirals inward.

@Heady304

Posted in: #FontSize #IllustratorScripting #Path #Text

Using Illustrator CC 2014:

I'm trying to create a spiraled text in which the text size decreases as it spirals inward. I've tried putting the text on a path created using the spiral tool and executing a script to decrease the size of each character, but I couldn't figure out how to access my text selection correctly.

This is the kind of spiral I'm looking for.



I've also put the text on a straight path, expanded, and used the free transform tool to make it a tapered art brush. This achieves what I want with straight lines, but the spiral doesn't render the brush in an acceptable way.

Using brush shape on spiral path.



I also tried applying a triangular brush to the spiral path, typing and expanding my text on a straight path, and making an envelope distort using the spiral as the top object. The results were kind of awesome, but not even close to what I was looking for.

I think the best way would be to figure out how to execute a script on the text selection.

I already have the basic logic of it solved (using JS):

function ChangeSize(){
var myDoc = app.activeDocument;

//Here's where I need to make a proper selection
var selection = activeDocument.selection;

//begin resize function
for (var i=0; i<characters.length; i++){
characters[i].characterstyle.textheight -= i * .05;

}
}


This is the only thing holding me up from an otherwise very simple and straightforward design. I've spent several hours trying and I've got nothing. Does anyone have a simple solution for making my spiral look pretty much exactly like the Pi spiral in the sample t-shirt picture?.

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@Angie364

There are two ways I would tackle this (I work in Freehand but should be similar). First would be to taper the point sizes of the letters (assuming block caps, monospace) which requires manual entry to 2 decimal places per letter. That can take a while.

The second is to generate two spirals, one baseline one cap line, and assign to the text in half to almost full circle sections. This requires the making of closed shapes and won't allow further text edits, but it's faster.

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