Getting Started

You’re probably familiar with the Shape, Type and Pen tools by now. If not, that’s OK. We’ll have quick refreshers for you along the way in this tutorial.

This Tutorial will Teach You how to create type that follows a custom path, or fills a custom shape in Photoshop. We’ll start with paths, and move our way up to filling and typing along shapes.

Type on Paths

Type on a path works very similar to your typical type tool in Photoshop. Once you get a handle on how to work with it, it’s very easy.

Step 1: Create a Path

Instead of just clicking to start typing, we need to create a path to act as our types baseline. Select the Pen Tool (Pen Tool), and make sure that Paths (Paths) is selected in the Options Bar.

Draw a S-Curve path just to see how it works. When satisfied, hover over the path with the Horizontal Type Tool and click to start typing along the path.

Step 2: Adjust as Needed

From here, you can use the direct selection tool to modify the type along the path as well as the path itself.

Hover over the type along the path and take note to the various cursor states. You can adjust the start point for the path by dragging the starting point inwards, and you can do the same for the end point. You can also determine what side of the path the text can begin on (just remember that the path will always act as the baseline of the text).

When you’re finished with a path, Click the check mark in the right side of the Options Bar (Still using Direct Selection Tool).

Type in Shapes

Typing within shapes is just as simple as typing on a path. After creating a custom shape in photoshop, just click inside of the shape to start typing. The path creating the shape will act as a constraint for the type.

After placing type within a shape path, the path can be readjusted (ie: reshaped using the pen tools), and the type will automatically update to fill the new shape.

It’s also worth noting that you can type along the path of the shape as shown in the first part of this tutorial.

Type Following Shape Path


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