Inkie’s Ticket Invite Vector Tutorial

by Lindsay in Vector Tutorials

Using a range of vector tools in Inkpad, I created this fun ticket style invite.  This simple tutorial takes you through creating an invite, cutting out shapes and placing text on a path.  Whether you want to print off the invite, send it via email or share on social media, everyone is welcome to join in with Inkie’s Cake Party,

Lindsay

Our cat Inkie is having a cake party and she wants to invite some friends. Ticket style invites are a fun and simple way to tell people about your party or event. So, join me as I use Inkpad to make an invite for Inkie’s Cake Party.

The first thing I did was draw a rough sketch of the text I wanted in the invite. This stops me missing any important details when I come to create my invite and helped me plan my layout. My invite text is going to be housed in a rounded rectangle so that’s what I’m going to create first. To start off I’m going to turn on my ‘Grid’ in the ‘Settings’ menu, and I’m going to set my ‘Grid Spacing’ to ten pixels. While I’m in the ‘Settings’ menu I also want to turn on ‘Snap to Grid’, to help me with my layout.

For my rectangle I want a softly rounded corner, so, with the rectangle tool selected I’ll keep playing with the corner settings until I have something I like. Because I am going to create a ticket outline behind my rectangle, I want my fill to be ‘None’ and a simple black stroke. Once I’m happy I’ll copy the rectangle and create a new layer to paste it into.

The bottom layer will become the outer shape for the ticket later on. Right now I’m going to rename and lock both layers and hide the bottom layer. I need a third new layer, which I’m going to name ‘dividers’

In my ‘dividers’ layer I’m going to use the line tool to divide up the rectangle as planned in my sketch. With the line tool, you simply place your finger on the screen and pull it down in the direction of your line, adding a second finger to the screen constrains your line. (Don’t worry if your lines don’t meet up, you can zoom in and simply drag the anchor, again using a second finger once you’ve started dragging to constrain the line, and having ‘Snap to Grid’ on is helping my lines meet at the same point.) Rather than guessing, or counting, to get the vertical line central, I can select it and the line it intersects and use, ‘Arrange, Align Centre”.

That’s my outline complete, so I want to open my ‘Layers’ menu again, and lock the ‘dividers’ layer to stop me accidentally selecting them. Then I’ll create a new layer for my text. (You can add a new layer for every different piece of text you add, but I’m going to add them all to the same layer.)

With the text tool selected, drag a bounding box that’s roughly the width of the text area, and then I can type in my text (If you are using predictive text, remember to delete the space that is added to the last word, to help with your text alignment). Once I’ve dismissed the keyboard I can select a font and size to suit my design. I’m going to go for Helvetica Neue as it offers me plenty of font styles which I can use elsewhere on my invite. Centering the text and then dragging the bounding box to the width of the text area will align it nicely for me. (The grid will also help align the text, and you can turn ‘Snap to grid’ off if it hinders you.)

As this is Inkie’s Cake Party I’m creating the invite for, I want to pick a font that is slightly more decorative. A script font will make it more personal and fun. Again using the grid and dragging the bounding box to the edges of the space helps align my text for me.

Next I’m going to add when and where, plus what activities will be available at this party. For a clean look I’m going to use Helvetica Neue again, but rather than bold, I’ll go with regular, to reduce its emphasis. Turning on the ‘Dynamic Guides’, from the settings menu, will help me align these two text blocks to each other.

Finally for the text I want to add the date of Inkie’s Cake Party. This will run down the side of the ticket, to achieve this the text will need to be placed on a path. To start I will add my text as normal, using the text tool to drag a bounding box, and typing my text. I’m going to go with Helvetica Neue again. Next I need to add a line to place my text on, so again using the line tool I’ll just drag a line roughly the height of the rectangle shape (make sure your line is longer than your text, so be generous). Selecting both the new line and my text I’m going to open the ‘Path’ menu and tap ’Place Text on Path’. Okay, so my text is going the wrong way! To fix this I open the ‘Path’ menu again and use ‘Reverse Path Direction’, which flips it round for me. I can still edit my text so I can adjust it’s size and position, and there you go - perfect.

I have finished with the grid now, so I’m going to turn if off, but if you find it useful you can keep it on and change its size at any time to suit what you’re doing.

Now I want to work on my ticket shape, so back in the ‘Layers’ menu. I’m going to lock my text layer and unlock the bottom layer, where my duplicate rectangle is. Selecting the rectangle and using the ‘Resize’ tool, I’m going to drag my shape to increase it’s size. There, that has given me a border.

Time to cut out my corners. To do that I’m going to create a circle with the oval shape tool, and use a second finger to constrain my shape. Then with ‘Dynamic Guides’ turned on from the ‘Settings’ menu, align my circle with the corner of my rectangle (I will often deselect an object, then select it again, this makes sure I don’t accidentally drag any anchor points rather than the entire object). Duplicate the circle and drag to another corner aligning it in the same manner, using a second finger to help you move it straight down. Then duplicate the circle again, and bring this one to the middle.

Now I can ‘Duplicate in Place’ all three circles and move them across my ticket to the opposite side, constraining my movement with a second finger and using the dynamic guides to align with the edge of my ticket. Once I’m done I select all the shapes using ‘Edit - Select all’, because the other layers are locked this will only select the shapes I am working with, then from the ‘Path’ menu select ’Subtract Front’.

My ticket is taking shape, but I want to add a scalloped edge down both sides, for the torn-off effect. For this I’m going to add a new layer (because this can get fiddly) and using the oval tool, create a smaller circle, adding a second finger as I drag to constrain it like before. I’m using the dynamic guides to align the centre of the circle with the ticket outline. Then from the ‘Edit’ menu, select ‘Duplicate in Place’ and drag the new circle down slightly. You can use a second finger to help constrain your move to a straight line.

Now I’m happy with the position, I select ’Edit - Duplicate and Transform Again’ and a new circle appears in alignment with the two previous. I do this until there are enough circles. Now I’m going to adjust the position of the last circle created, (you can use the grid to help if you want) I’m going to turn off ‘Dynamic Guides’ and use a second finger to constrain my dragging so I don’t go off course. Now I can move the circle so it is a similar distance from the cutout corner than the top one. I want my circles to be evenly spaced so I can select them all using the ‘Multi selection’ tool and select ‘Distribute Vertically’ from the ‘Arrange’ menu.

Now, making sure all the new circles are still selected, I’m going to use ‘Duplicate in Place’ from the ‘Edit’ menu and drag them to down my shape, adding a second finger to constrain their movement. Once I’m happy, I’ll use ‘Select All in Layer’, from the ‘Edit’ menu, and ‘Duplicate in Place’ again, This time I’m going to drag them over to the left side of my artwork, using the ‘Dynamic Guides’ to help align them.

Once everything is all aligned, I’ll select them all with Edit, Select all. Then from the ‘Path’ menu select ‘Subtract Front’. That looks good, now I can add a colour using the hexadecimal keypad. And there you go a ticket invite for Inkie’s Cake Party. I can print the ticket off like this, or if I wish to share it as an image; give the ticket outline a drop shadow and place it on a suitable background.

Right that’s my drop shadow done. To move my ticket, I need to unlock all my layers, so I can select them using ‘Select All’ from the ‘Edit’ menu, and copy them. Then I’ll head to my gallery where I have a nice wood texture waiting for me. You can use any background image you want, it does not have to be a vector. I’m using a seamless pattern that was imported from my photo stream.

Pasting my ticket onto my background, I’ll adjust its position and using the rotate tool change it’s angle slightly. And there you go, a ticket invite you can share with your friends.