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- [Instructor] In this

movie, I will show you how



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to create letter-shaped

gradients in Illustrator.



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Now you may wonder what I'm talking about.



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Well, imagine that I want

to take this text right here



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and I want to fill it with

a gradient like the one



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that we created for our

emojis back in Chapter 22



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of the advanced course in order to create



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a cheerful effect like this one here.



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Well, the thing about the emoji is



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that its face is filled

with a radial gradient,



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which works great when

you're a filling a circle



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because after all, a

radial gradient is a bunch



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of concentric ellipses of color.



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Now the only other kind of

gradient available to us



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in Illustrator is a linear gradient,



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like the one across the emoji's forehead.



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We don't have anything like

letter-shaped gradients.



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Now, if this were a different program,



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we might be able to express

these guys as shape gradients,



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but we'd probably have limited success.



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So, what is the solution?



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Well, I'm about to tell

you, but first I need



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to share a note about this exercise file.



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Notice if I click on the text

with the black arrow tool



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that it is set in ITC American Typewriter.



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Now the reason for this is



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we need a font that has rounded contours



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in order to pull off this effect.



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So, something like Myriad Pro might work,



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but not nearly as well.



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Now this particular variety

of ITC American Typewriter



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is a commercial font that's

available from Adobe.



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You might have it, but there's

a good chance you don't.



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Now if you're working on the

Mac, you do have a version



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of American Typewriter available to you.



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It comes from Apple in which case



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you'd want to switch to that font.



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We're looking for the Condensed Style.



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You are going to end up

with slightly different



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character spacing however, and the letters



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will probably shrink a little bit.



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Now if you're working on a PC,



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you might be able to find a free variety



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of American Typewriter

Condensed out there,



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or you can go to the File menu



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and choose Browse in Bridge



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and then browse your

way to the path outline



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sub folder inside the 38 Logos folder,



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in which case, you will

find the same files



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in which the editable

text has been converted



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to path outlines, and so that way,



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you can follow along no matter what.



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All right, I'm going to click



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on the Boomerang icon to

return to Illustrator,



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and then, I'll switch over

to this plain soy file



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right here and I'll click on the text



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with the black arrow tool to select it.



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All right, now you want to

go up to the Window menu



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and choose the Appearance command



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to bring up the Appearance panel.



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Double click on the word

Characters right there



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in order to select the

characters with the type tool,



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and then, select that black fill



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and click the Trash Can icon

in order to get rid of it.



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And that way, we won't be building fills



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on top of each other.



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All right, next you want to click on



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Type No Appearance up here

at the top of the list,



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and then, you want to drop down to the



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Add New Fill icon in

the bottom left corner



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of the Appearance panel and click on it.



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All right, now let's go

ahead and change this fill



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to one of these shades of orange



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that I've created in advance,

specifically Orange Two



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is the one we're looking for.



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And in case you're wondering

how Orange Two is put together,



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I will double click on its

swatch here in the Swatches panel



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and you can see if I switch to HSB



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that it has a hue value of 20 degrees,



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saturation of 88%, and a

brightness value of 77%.



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All right, now I want

to create another fill,



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this time by clicking

on the little Page icon



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at the bottom of the Appearance panel,



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and I'll change it to Orange Three,



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which is a brighter shade of orange,



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and if you're curious

about its HSB values,



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it's 25 degrees for hue,



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90% for saturation, and

100% for brightness.



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All right, now I want to turn this fill



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into a kind of gradient

and I'm going to do that



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by first shrinking it, and so

with this new fill selected,



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you want to go up to the Effect menu,



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choose Path, and choose Offset Path.



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And so, if I were to turn

on the Preview checkbox,



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you can see that a

positive offset value is



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going to grow the fill.



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I want to make it smaller,

so I'm going to take



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that value down to negative six like so



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and just to be safe, you want

to set the Joins to Round,



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and then click Okay, and you

can see that we've now managed



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to shrink the brighter orange fill.



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All right now I want to

nudge it down a little bit



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and I'm going to do that by

selecting that orange fill



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once again and then I'll

return to the Effect menu,



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choose Distort and Transform,



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and choose the Transform command,



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or if you loaded D keys,



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you've got a short cut of Control

E or Command E on the Mac.



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Then you want to click in

the Vertical Move Value



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and take it up to three points



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and then turn on the Preview checkbox,



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and you can see that scoots the fill down



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ever so slightly, and now click Okay.



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All right now we want to blur this fill



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by once again, clicking on it,



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so you have to keep selecting the fill



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and then go to the Effect menu,



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drop all the way down to blur

and choose Gaussian Blur,



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and I came up with a

radius value of 10 pixels,



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which if I turn on the Preview

checkbox, it looks like this.



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And so notice that we now

have a kind of gradient fill



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in the shape of each

one of the letter forms.



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All right now, I'll go

ahead and click on that fill



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once again to select it

and then I'll drop down



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to the little Page icon

at the bottom of the panel



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and click on it and that will

duplicate that entire fill,



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including all of its effects.



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Now I will go ahead and

change the color of that fill



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to Orange Four, and to

see what that looks like,



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I'll double click on that

color in the Swatches panel.



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This time, we have a

hue value of 30 degrees,



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a saturation of 80%, and

a brightness value of 100.



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All right, so I'll cancel out of there.



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Now we need to modify some of our effects.



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Now we're going to leave

Gaussian Blur set to 10,



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but we're going to modify

that offset path value,



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so I'll click on the words Offset Path,



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and I'll take the offset value

down to negative 12 this time



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and I'll turn on the Preview checkbox,



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and that goes ahead and

shrinks that new brighter fill.



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At which point, I'll click Okay.



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Then I'll click on the word Transform



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and I'll take the vertical

value up to six points



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and turn on the Preview checkbox,



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and that goes ahead and

nudges that fill downward,



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at which point, I'll click Okay again.



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And so again, just so you

can see the contribution made



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by Gaussian Blur, this

is without the blur,



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and so we've got a very

harsh transition right there,



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and that's true if we were turn off the



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other Gaussian Blur as well,



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so notice we're getting

a kind of stair-stepping.



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So it's as if we're blending

between these various fills,



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but we don't have many steps.



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Whereas, if I turn Gaussian Blur back on,



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that goes ahead and

distributes the oranges



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so we have smoother transitions.



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All right, now I want to add one more,



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so I'll click on the fill once again



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and I'll drop down to the little Page icon



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and click on it, and this time,



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I will set the fill to Yellow One,



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is the name of this color,

and it's mostly just yellow,



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but notice that it has a

hue value of 50 degrees,



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saturation and brightness values of 100%,



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and I'll click on the

word Offset right there,



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and I'll take it down

to negative 20 this time



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and click Okay, and that's

going to shrink that



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ribbon of yellow right there.



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So this is before and this is after.



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Then I will click on the word Transform



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and I'll take the vertical

value up to nine points



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and turn on the Preview checkbox,



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so you can see how that

yellow fill shifts downward,



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and I'll click Okay.



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We're going to leave

Gaussian Blur set to 10,



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but this is what things look like



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without the Gaussian Blur



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and this is how things look with the blur.



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All right now, finally for

the smoothest transitions,



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you want to go up to the Effect menu



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and choose Document

Raster Effects Settings,



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which affects the entire

document by the way.



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I've already done this in advance.



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I changed the resolution from

its default of screen 72 ppi,



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which is going to make the effects



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operate more quickly incidentally,



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but it's also going to give

us choppier transitions.



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If you want super smooth

results at the expense of speed,



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then you would set resolution to high,



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but for our purposes, a

resolution of medium is just fine,



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at which point, I'll click Okay.



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And that is how you create

letter-shaped gradients



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by amassing a bunch of

different solid color fills



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and setting them to the

Gaussian Blur effect



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here inside Illustrator.