Dan Sawatzky’s Blog

A friend of mine recently sent me a file they had created some time ago. It only needed a small modification to make it usable. They had someone make the file for them a few years ago.

Cam is a returning workshop attendee. Last time I made him a riveted ‘metal’ panel. Cam is an engineer (among many other things) and so I decided to make him something techy this go around. The panel is relatively simple but I used a couple of tricks to add more dimension. I drew the piece entirely in EnRoute

It’s both challenging and fun to come up with a different name plaque for every attendee of our workshops. While there are some that are somewhat similar there have been well over two hundred original name plaques created so far. creating the name plaques has been a great exercise that sharpens my skills as a designer and using EnRoute.

For the next name plaque I wanted to achieve the look of a cast manhole cover. EnRoute’s drawing tools made this effect very easy. I first drew a long vertical rectangle and then used the duplication tool to make copies and space them perfectly. I duplicated the multiple rectangles, rotated them 90 degrees and placed them over the vertical ones. Then I used the combine tool

Caitlyn’s name plaque was next up. The typestyle I picked had some pretty sharp and thin ends. If the letters are routed this way the letters become pretty fragile. The solution is to thicken the tips up. For me the quickest way to do it is to draw new ends and then merge these new shapes with the letter vectors.

Andy’s name plaque is relatively simple. I created a circle vector using the drawing tools and then did the type and created an outline around these vectors. I selected the circle vector and created the base relief using the dome tool. I then imported the log end texture (from the  TEXTURE MAGIC  collection) and applied it to the relief. I wanted the lettering border to follow a similar contour to the domed relief so I used the offset tool to create a new circle vector