How to recreate typography blend effect

[cshuck]

I found some great examples of typography that has a blend going from one letter to the next.  I have been playing with it and can't rigure it out.  I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right direction.

The best example of it that I can find is from the "2010 Tokyo Art Directors Club Exhibition"

Here's a link: https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2010/B7BD.en

I'm assuming this can be done in Illustrator, but not sure.  

Thanks for any help!

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

That looks like it's been done using the blend tool.

Did you try it? I would not expect that it works when youjust type the letters, outline them and then blend them. I'd rather guess you might need special versions of the shapes, release compound paths, maybe use duplicate paths, maybe just blend parts of the shapes.

[cshuck]

I've done all the things you mentioned.  I use 1/2 of an O, or 1 side of an N.  I can do the blends and get some pretty simplistic effects.  They are interesting, but nothing as interesting as the TOKYO poster.  Maybe I just need to fake it out with different curved lines that blend together.

I was hoping there would be something I was missing, or somebody could point me towards a nice tutorial 🙂

I'll keep playing with it and see what happens.

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

You could search for Youtube recordings by Ana Gómez Bernaus. She has done some "Adobe Live" presentations on how to use the blend function with typography. Maybe this inspires you for stuff you haven't tried yet.

[cshuck]

I think I've got it figured out... finally!  

 It's a combination of techniques starting with minimizing the structure of each letter, then experimenting with blending 2 letters together using the entire letter form or just a portion of the letter.  

The missing step for me was doing an Envelope Distort.  This allowed me to manipulate the shape of the blend into a flowing form.

Still a lot of practice to do but knowing the steps goes a long way.

Thanks for your suggestions!

[Monika Gause]

You're welcome!

And thank you for the added information.