On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 08:37 -0400, John R. Culleton wrote:
This is an interestng problem that was posed on another list. It involves text enclosed in a rectangle which is altered with a shallow arc across the base instead of a straight line. Therefore the text becomes progressively smaller toward the center and then increases in size again toward the right side. The text remains vertical. The serifs follow the arc. This url points to an example:
http://www.saylesdesign.com/portfolio/corpident/project4zoom.htm
Further the designer wants the two characters at each end to remain unchanged. The arc takes up 1/3 of the rectangle's width. The text has spaces in it, such as "Joe's Bar and Grill."
What tools would you suggest to use in Inkscape for a problem like this?
The first thing to come to mind is to use node-sculpting... but this is not accurate enough. Looking at the example more closely, one notices that the font was carefully chosen... look at how the 'C' is thick at the base so one can nip a bit out of it without needing to change the rest of the shape. Also notice that the two characters at the end have a very high 'x' height. My guess is that they are not unchanged but have been stretched down... which reduces the amount that one needs to cut out of the middle characters. Thus, my solution is: find a "bold" font with a naturally large 'x' height. Convert to a path. Draw a large ellipse centered below the text and extending up to overlap the bases of the center letters. Use the ellipse to cut the text (Path->Difference). Stretch the bottom of the end characters down. I've attached a PNG of my attempt. The font is Impact. The original text is shown with a red outline.
Tav
