Wrapping Text in a Shape

In this vector tutorial I'm going to show you how to wrap text inside a shape. We will mainly be using Envelope Distort feature in Illustrator to accomplish this task. I will also show a few new techniques while creating this heart shape. I'll be using a heart shape in this tutorial indeed, and the text will be "Happy Life", what else?! :-)

1. Drawing the Shape:

Select the Pen tool from the Tools panel and draw a heart shape using any color, but keep the stroke OFF.

We have to keep a copy of this original heart shape in a separate layer for future use. Hide that layer for now.

2. Dividing the Shape:

We have two words to be wrapped in the shape. Let's divide the heart shape into two parts. Keep the fill OFF and stroke weight 5 (You can open the Stroke window by pressing Ctrl/Command + F10 OR Window: Stroke) draw a line as shown in the image below. Just be sure that the line completely divides the heart shape into two parts.

To actually divide the heart in two parts, we'll need to convert this line into a shape. From Object menu select Outline Stroke under Path sub menu.

You will notice that the line is converted into a shape. Subtract this newly created shape from the heart to divide it. Select both the shapes and open the Pathfinder window from Window menu or press Shift + Ctrl/Command + F9. Hold down the Alt/Option key and press the button ‘Subtract from shape area’ in Pathfinder window.

The heart shape is now divided. It’s a Group so lets ungroup it from Object menu OR by pressing Shift + Ctrl/Command + G.

3. Typing Text:

Here comes the text part. Select the Type tool from the Tools Panel (Window: Tools) and type ‘HAPPY’. Similarly type another word ‘LIFE’. These should be two different words as we are going to wrap these two words separately in two different shapes. Choose any font you like (I've used ‘Haettenschweiler’ font here) and the dark red color should be great. Have a look at the picture below.

4. Wrapping Text:

Now I'm going to wrap these two words in the two shapes (The upper half and the lower half of the heart shape). Select the first word (HAPPY) and send it back to the upper half shape (heart). You can do this by pressing Shift + Ctrl/Command + [ OR by Right Click: Arrange: Send to Back. Check the image below.

While the text is still selected, hold down the Shift key and select the shape (upper half heart) and go to the Object menu and select 'Make with Top Object' under 'Envelope Distort' sub menu. Or you can press Alt/Option + Ctrl/Command + C instead.

Your result should be similar to mine below.

Now this looks much better! Repeat the same process for wrapping the second word ‘LIFE’ in the second shape (lower half heart). This is how it should look now.

5. Editing the wrapped text:

In case you'd like to change the color or font of the wrapped text, it's easy to do so. Select the wrapped text and go to Object menu and select ‘Edit Contents’ from ‘Envelope Distort’ sub menu OR you can do it by pressing Shift + Ctrl/Command + V.

I have changed the color to a bit darker red.

6. Final Round:

I'm going to make a slight change on the design now. Unhide the layer in which we have a copy of the heart shape in the Layers panel and give it a stroke color same as that of the text.

Voila! It's the end of the text wrapping tutorial, now feel free to play around and try it with different shapes, texts and colors!