Inkscape can make letterpress effects by drop shadow and masking manipulations. It is a short basic tutorial so you can develop it yourself then. Prepare yourself, because Inkscape drop shadow eats many computer resources. I will show you how to create it.
Requirements
- Inkscape 0.48
- FreeSans font
- Drop shadow
- Radial and linear gradation
1. Background
First, create a grey rectangle with the dimension 744 x 450. This is the background. We should give it a linear gradation vertically.
2. Foreground Masking
Create a smaller rectangle on top of your background. Fill it red. Write a text with FreeSans bold font on top of red rectangle. Select the text and the red rectangle > menu Path > Difference. Now, we have a red rectangle mask.
3. Drop Shadow
4. Foreground Radial Gradation
Create radial gradation for the red rectangle. Press G (Gradation) and select radial from gradation tool options on the toolbar.
5. Soft Edge Outline
Create soft edge outline for the foreground. Give it 1 px thickness, white color, and 20% opacity.
6. Finishing
To finish your work, resize your background until it is smaller than your foreground. Read bonus below to make this process quicker on slow computers.
5. Exporting
Select foreground > Ctrl+Shift+E > name it > press Export.
Our final result will be like this.
Bonus
- Use menu View > Display Mode > No Filters so all drop shadows and another effects will be temporarily disabled. It is very effective to improve Inkscape speed when you are using drop shadow.
- Use Snap to Page Border so you can easily create the first background above.
- Give drop shadow effect more than once until you can get thicker shadow you want.