Dateline: April 11, 2007
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Based in London, England, Kapitza is a design partnership formed in 2004 between sisters Petra and Nicole Kapitza, focusing on book design and illustration, as well as art and exhibition work. Their first pictographic font, Blossomy, consisted of 72 flower and plant illustrations, and was followed up by such releases as Brick Lane, Architekt and Furry. Their most recent release is Pop, an OpenType pattern font containing 320 graphic elements in 4 weights, available for purchase on the Kapitza site.

With a pattern font like this the fun begins when you start layering the elements, since the weights are designed to fit on top of each other. This tutorial demonstrates the versatility of symbol fonts in general and the Pop font in particular. Begin by downloading the free Pop sample font (please read the Kapitza licence agreement carefully before installing the Pop Sample font to your system), installing it and then opening Adobe Illustrator or a similar application.

Open Illustrator. Create a new document of 200x200 mm. Open the Character window (Window > Type > Character) and select the font Pop Sample from the Font menu. Select a weight of 40 in the font style pop-up, a font size of 140pt, and leading of 140pt. Select magenta as your Fill color, and transparent as your Stroke color.

Now you’re ready to create your first pattern. Select the Type tool and start typing at the top-left corner of your work area. Type the letter ‘O’ four times, then press Return. Repeat this three time so you end up with four lines of flowers. You’ve now created a simple pattern using one character. Save this pattern with the file name pattern_1.ai. (Note: Mouse over the images at left to enlarge them.)

You can easily change the pattern by playing around with the settings in the Character window. Try, for example, changing the font size to 70 points and the tracking to 1,000.

This provides a simple yet effective way of livening up your pattern. Open your saved pattern (pattern_1.ai) and change the color to yellow. Then, in the Weight pop-up in the Character palette, change the settings of the individual characters in row one to the following: first character weight 40, second character weight 30, third character weight 20, fourth character weight 10.

In row two, use the following settings: first character weight 30, second character weight 20, third character weight 10, fourth character weight 40.

Continue this process into row three. Make the first character weight 20, second character weight 10, third character weight 40, and fourth character weight 30.

In row four, make the first character weight 10, second character weight 40, third character weight 20, fourth character weight 20. When you’ve set all the different weights, your pattern should look like the screenshot on the left. Save the file as pattern_2.ai.

Duplicate your pattern so it covers a larger work area. Open pattern_2.ai and change the color of all the characters to cyan. Change the type size to 70 points and the leading to 70 points, and then position the characters at the top left corner of your work area.

Copy the top row and paste it after the last character of the first row. Then repeat this step for the three remaining rows until you have four rows of eight characters, as shown in the screenshot at left.

Then copy all the characters, press Return and paste them into the next row. You have now created a simple repeat pattern with one character in different weights. This pattern can be repeated endlessly. Save the file as pattern_3.ai

Layering your symbol font can give you quick and colorful results in a flash. Open your first saved pattern file, pattern_1.ai. Lock Layer 1 and then duplicate it, renaming the duplicate as Layer 2. Then unlock Layer 2.2.

Using the Type tool, select all the characters in Layer 2 and change the color to yellow and the font weight to 30 in the Character palette pop-up menu. Lock Layer 2. Repeat this twice, naming the new layers Layer 3 and Layer 4.3.

On Layer 3 change the font weight to 20 and the font color to magenta. You’ll now see your font developing into a multi-layered pattern.

On Layer 4 change the font weight to 10 and the font color to cyan. You’ve now created a pattern with one character and all its different weights. Play around with the layers, switching them on and off to see the possible combinations. Save the file as pattern_4.ai.

Zoom in on one of the elements in pattern 4 so you can see how the four weights of one character fit perfectly on top of each other.

Experiment with different characters and different weights on two layers. Create a new document of 200x200 mm. Open the Character palette (Window > Type > Character or Ctrl/Cmnd+T) and select the Pop Sample font in the Font menu. Select a weight of 40 in the font style pop-up, and set the font size and leading to 140 points. Select yellow as your Fill color, and transparent as your Stroke color.

Select the Type tool and type the following letters: ‘E’, ‘O’, ‘E’, ‘O’. Then press Return. Then type the letters ‘O’, ‘E’, ‘O’, ‘E’ and press Return. Type ‘E’, ‘O’, ‘E’, ‘O’ and press Return again. And, finally, type the letters ‘O’, ‘E’, ‘O’, ‘E’ and lock this layer. Duplicate it and name the new layer ‘Layer 2’. Deselect Layer 1.

Now for the same sort of thing again. Select Layer 2 and unlock it. Using the Type tool, set the font weight to 10. Then change the foreground color to cyan. Select the type, delete and type the letters ‘E’, ‘O’, ‘E’, ‘O’. Press Return. Type ‘O’, ‘E’, ‘O’, ‘E’ and press Return again. Type ‘E’, ‘O’, ‘E’, ‘O’ and press Return. Finish up by again typing ‘O’, ‘E’, ‘O’, ‘E’.

Now switch Layer 1 back on and you’ll see that you’ve created a pattern using two different characters in different weights. Save the file as pattern_5.ai.

Make 16 possible combinations of two characters and various weights. Open the pattern_2.ai and change the color to cyan. Lock Layer 1, duplicate it and name the new layer ‘Layer 2’, then switch off Layer 1.2.

Select the Type tool and change the color of all the characters to magenta. Delete all the characters and type ‘E’ four times. Press Return and repeat this for the four rows.

Now you need to change the weight of the individual characters in Layer 2 as follows: in row two change the characters to 30, in row three change the characters to 20, and in row four change the characters to 10. Then switch Layer 1 back on.

Now select your type box in Layer 2. Choose Multiply for the layer blending mode in the Transparency palette. You’ve now created a pattern that shows 16 possible combinations of the two characters. Save this file as pattern_6.ai.