Expert: Tom Rouze - 3/17/2009

Question
Hi. I need to distort a line of text for some promo printing our company is doing to present to a prospective customer. It is only one line which I need to distort so the tops of the letters stay straight, but the bottoms form an arch with the beginning and ending letters stretched downward the lowest. (It will look like the bottom half of a bow tie.) If you go to Jim Beam's website you can see the shape I'm after in the copy at the bottom of the bourbon bottle on their home page. I've tried object-envelope distort-warp, but it doesn't offer the right shape template. The transform tool doesn't seem get it either--no curves. How can I pull the bottoms of the letters down to make this arching shape?
Marianne

Answer
Hi Marianne,

You were very close. Here's an easy way to do it.
1. Create the exact shape (this must be a closed shape) of what you want the distorted type to look like and place below the type .
2. Next select both the shape and the type.
3. Go to Object>envelop distort>make with top object.

I think this is what you were looking for.
Hope it helped.

Thank you,

Tom