Choose the type

For our interpretation we chose Clarendon URW, partly because we love it, but also because its solid slab serifs made it easier to connect the letters. When we tightened up the spacing, horizontally and vertically, we liked the shapes that were created by the trapped areas of interior space. It would be these that we would fill with color.

Some stream of consciousness led us to Robert Indiana’s Love image (and later sculpture) from 1965. This pop art icon so effectively uses Clarendon-like lettering that Clarendon seems like the natural choice for any similar treatment. We did manage to resist tilting the Os at a jaunty angle.

Clarendon URW comes in a range of widths, making it easier to combine a five-letter word with two four-letter words and ensure that, visually, it had equal billing. Over is Extra Wide Extra Bold, and Think is Extra Narrow Extra Bold. They are both at the same point size so that their slab serifs are proportional, which made it easier to meld the shapes of the different lines. To assess how the letters overlapped, we applied a fill of None to the type.

As well as overlapping the lines vertically, the letters also needed to overlap. As a starting point, we switched the automatic kerning method to Optical for an overall tightening of the letter spacing. We then kerned individual letter pairs so that their serifs ever-so-slightly overlapped. Make sure that in Preferences > Type Tracking (it’s kerning really, Illustrator gets its terms mixed up) is set to 1, for fine control. Zoom in to an enlarged view size and use the shortcut Option/Alt+Left Arrow to reduce the space between letter pairs. We aimed to make the letters touch and then go slightly beyond this to make them overlap, knowing that our goal was to fuse the letters into a single shape. It’s worth taking the time to get this just right, because the next step will go much smoother if you do.

This was the end of the line for adjusting the text while it is still editable type. We took a deep breath and stepped off the precipice into the unknown and converted the type to outlines (Type > Create Outlines or Cmd+Shift+O/Ctrl+Shift+O). We also saved a copy of the type on the pasteboard. Just in case.

Combine the shapes

Next, we used the Shape Builder tool to combine the overlapping shapes into a single shape. This step is immensely satisfying — like you’re converting multiple subdivided apartments into one luxurious, open-plan living area.

Along with all the combining there was also inevitably some subtracting so that we didn’t end up with awkward-looking shapes. To subtract with the Shape Builder, hold Option/Alt.

Despite our best efforts in the previous step, we had to make a few modifications to the paths using the Direct Selection tool to make sure that the shapes overlapped everywhere we wanted them to. Some minor surgery was also needed to remove a few bumps caused by extra anchor points. With the Pen tool we got in close, hovered over the offending anchor points until the minus symbol appeared, and clicked them to remove them.

Convert to a Live Paint Group

This project is every bit as much about the spaces between the letters as it is about the letters themselves. After we closed up and defined the spaces between the letters, we wanted to apply color to them. Before we could do so, we needed to put an enclosing rectangle around the letters, so that the negative space didn’t leak out of the sides. We found this worked best if you crop tight around the letters, especially at the top.

Select everything, set the stroke color to remove any stroke, and then click the artwork with the Live Paint Bucket to convert it to a Live Paint Group. This is the fun part where you get to fill the segments with color. As you hover over each segment it will become outlined with a red highlight. Click to fill the segment with the active color of your Live Paint Bucket. In theory, you can press Left Arrow/Right Arrow to cycle through the colors of your color group; we find this rarely works as smoothly as we’d like and end up selecting the colors from the Swatches panel, so keep this close at hand.

We’d like to tell you about a compelling backstory to our choice of colors, but the reality is we were just idling browsing color themes uploaded by other Creative Cloud users and found one we liked. (Sometimes it just works that way.) It’s called Honey Pot; we clicked the three dots below the theme to add it to our Swatches. This is not to say that other colors won’t work, so experiment to find a color scheme you like.

We made the type white, reversing out of the background, so that the letter shapes recede, and the colored negative shapes come to the fore.

Also, while it hadn’t been our original intent, we found that we liked how the composition looked framed by generous page margins. With the corners not defined, the space flows freely through the letters, the letter shapes spill out onto the background, with their shapes implied rather than explicit.