Gather references
Before we start to count step after step, there are certain phases that are very important inside any design process that should be always considered. One of this phases is the reference grabbing, which is the period where the designers stare at some similar designs and begin solving his own design.
Step 1: Make the document
Once you have decided the look that your typewriter will have, open your Illustrator and create a new document with the following properties:
Step 2: Place the typewriter's shadow
We're going to start with the shadow in order to define the area that our illustration will occupy in terms of width. To make this shadow you only have to make a white shape, then duplicate it and while reducing its size a little bit you also have to switch its tone to gray. Finally, using the Blend Tool (W), combine these two in order to obtain something like this:
Step 3: Make the release lever
We will try to classify each step according to the different parts of our typewriter; we will begin with the release lever. As if we were making an actual typewriter, we'll have to make each part at a time, so this one is the first object that you must construct:
After this, make the next object that will later be part of our typewriter's lever.
Now the next object, this one is filled with a more complex gradient that the one used on the previous two objects.
And now we place a subtle highlight object.
After doing this, we proceed with the next piece of our typewriter, so grab your pen tool.
We won't make you waste time reading this short lines, so instead of that, just pay attention to each one of the following screenshots and you will be able to make this next part of our machine with ease.
Duplicate this object and then adjust its fill parameters for the following:
Finally, add another duplicate of the object we did a couple of steps ago and adjust its fill values.
And with that, our lever is ready, check it out.
Now we move to the other side of our typewriter to create the next component.
And now just pay attention to the following screenshots so you can understand how these parts were actually done.
As we did previously, duplicate this element and switch its fill properties.
Finally, add another duplicate of the top element and change its fill parameters.
So far this second component is going well, let's take a look to it.
Now we need to add a couple of shapes next to it.
And now the second component of our typewriter is ready, let's see how it looks.
Step 4: First part of the housing
To continue with our tutorial, we're going to make the first part of our typewriter's housing. We will make a 3D-like object with a fancy texture on top of it, so pay attention to the upcoming screenshots:
We duplicate this object and then switch its fill properties.
And now we duplicate this object and change its fill properties and also its blending mode.
Finally the texture, it's made out of several random objects filled with black and a blend mode set to overlay and opacity reduced to 55 %. You can get creative on this part and make your own texture.
Another way of making this texture is adding it directly from Illustrator's pattern swatches, though if you don't have one that you like you have to make it manually.
So this is what we have accomplished until this point of our tutorial:
Now we proceed with the insertion of a black element.
And then another black object behind this last one.
Between these two objects, we're going to insert a tiny gradient object.
Step 5: The paper
So now that we have the top of our typewriter ready, we can continue with the design of the paper. You can choose many different papers, including regular paper, parchment, photo paper and more; on this opportunity we're going to work with and old parchment piece of paper, ideal to use with the whole vintage look that we're looking for. Let's start by adding a couple of shadows at both sides of our machine.
And now we can start with the actual paper design, so pay attention to these following screenshots, we will place little notes when necessary.
This is how our typewriter is looking after we completed the paper, pretty cool isn't it?.
Step 6: More details
During this step we will add some elements that we forgot to illustrate previously as well as some new components to continue with the design of our vintage typewriter. Scroll across the next few screenshots to see what you have to do right now.
Step 7: Platen knobs and some other parts
Our advance until this point has been successful and the results speak from themselves. Now we're going to make the platen knobs of our typewriter along with some other parts that we forgot to illustrate once again, pay attention to these next screenshots so you can easily continue the tutorial.
There's no need to make the other platen knob, just duplicate it and flip it horizontally .
Now we proceed adding a few more extra elements, take a look to these next screenshots.
Duplicate the object that we created a couple of steps ago, then flip it horizontally and place it where it belongs.
Step 8: Creating the typebars
What's up guys?, so far we have been doing a terrific job, now we're going to proceed with the design of our typewriter's typebars, which are basically those little metal bars that have the characters printed in and move every time we press a key. So sit tight and let's continue with this next part of our tutorial.
After doing this, it's time to make the actual typebars. It will be a waste of time if we explain each one of them because they were all made with exactly the same method, so what we're going to do is show you how we did one typebar and then you will only have to repeat the process.
Easy isn't it?. just two different shapes and you will complete all the typebars of our machine.
Using the pathfinder tool (choose Minus Front) and two different ellipses, you need to construct the next object:
On top of this element goes and identical replica with a different fill (from solid color to gradient).
