The contoured black: as Bobby already wrote: Offset path.
But then you need to draw it, because otherwise it would look ugly. So just use the left and the right part of those offset letters and then draw two arcs (top and bottom) to get clean adges. And combine those using any kind of editing you feel comfortable with.
You might want to get acquainted with editing paths by cutting them, grouping and ungrouping, reading the layers panel so you know what kind of object you have, compound paths and releasing them, Pathfinder panel. Live paint.
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