Now I can see all of the points along the shape of the letter.

I’ve selected the Edit Path by Nodes tool (where my tealarrow is pointing), then selected the letter S. I don’t like the way the S and H meet – there’s a little triangular gap where the letters don’t quite meet up. Now’s the time to fix any spacing issues, or any other problems you may see with your lettering. This makes every letter (and each of the two parentheses) into separate vector objects. Those parentheses can serve as the building blocks for a thousand and one cool swashes.Īs we usually do when manipulating text, first I’m going to convert the typed-in letters to vector objects by selecting the text and going to Path > Object to Path…Īnd then ungrouping everything by going to Object > Ungroup. I wasn’t sure at the time if I was going to need both of them or just one, so I grabbed them both. Lots of you probably already have this font installed – I think I’ve had a licensed copy bundled in with some software or other on every new computer I’ve purchased over the last 15+ years.įirst off, I’ve typed out my word, and added in the two parentheses. I’m going to use Brush Script MT as my font, because I see it used often in designs of this style. But we’ll be getting into some more in-depth manipulation of points and curves. If you’ve followed along with my previous Inkscape tutorials, I think you’re ready. By building your own, they're yours to use for any purpose: personal, commercial, logos, you name it!īear in mind, this is edging into slightly more advanced Inkscape territory. And while yes, you can find fonts with sets of these kinds of swashes, most of those are only free for personal use. Others refer to it as a “pilsner” swash, because of their use in beer logos.Įither way, they’re totes cool-looking.

Some refer to this as a “baseball” swash, because it’s often used for baseball team logos.

In this tutorial, we’ll be creating the exact “Swashes” design that you see up above. So today I’m going to show you how to use Inkscape to make and add decorative swashes to ANY font. Or if they do, they might not be exactly what you want. Adding swashes and flourishes to the beginning and end of words can really up their level of fanciness! But not every font comes with swashes built in.

Curving text in inkscape