Illuminated texts, long used in documents from Medieval manuscripts up to present times as an added design element. I love using text as a design element and there is no better design element to choose from than an Illuminated Letter.

Illuminated manuscripts, as they were first seen in Medieval times, were often in Church manuscripts. Many of these “illuminations”, or drawings, were adorned with leaves, animals and figures from the stories that the manuscript sought to tell. These drawings twined around the page in various colored inks and gold paint. Today, however, we very often only use the first letter illumination, called a “Drop Cap”, or a large first letter – either with adornment or without – as a design element.

There are already “Drop cap” fonts to download, such as Burton Illuminated Letters. Check out this Web site to download Burton. But it’s way more fun to build your own!

To make your own illuminated letters in Adobe Illustrator. I recommend using classic styling – I’ve chosen a burgundy background with gold embossed letters with leaf details.

First, start with a good font. I’ve chosen Bergamo Standard, a classic-looking serif with slightly elongated lines and a rounder look. You want a font size large enough to take the place of an image, somewhere between 60-100 point is good in this case. You can make the background size based on that. I would leave a good cushion on all sides for embellishment!

For the gold embossed letters. I always make my palette first. Make a box and then fill it with a gradient you can use as an inkdropper for later – saves a ton of time. To make the gradient, choose a 45° linear gradient and fill it with varying hues of orange yellow and brown to get the gold effect. A good combination is light yellow #FFF42E; mid-orange #FFA300; and dark orange-brown D88000. Make two of your first letters. Color one white and bring to the front. The second one, put a 2 pixel stroke on and then under the ‘Text’ menu, choose ‘outline stroke’, this will turn your letter into a shape. Inkdropper your gold palette and now you have a gold letter. Place your white letter on top of this so that you have a gold outline and voià, you have a gold-embossed letter!

Next, start building your Illumination! You can choose Celtic braid or filigree and leaves or make your own design. Me, I started with a series of simple swirls that I then inkdroppered gold and embellished with leaves. But, feel free to invent your own! I’ve included some vector graphics below to get you started. Happy designing!

Download Illustrator and EPS Zip file