The Cropped Letterform
More Reflection and Rotation
For this project, we will find an elegant, abstract design using a small, square crop of a much larger letterform.
Begin by creating a 12" x 12" canvas in grayscale at 240 dpi. Render a single letterform at 1000 pt. using the Horizontal Type Mask tool... It is hiding under the main type tool. Highlight the letter and then highlight the font box in the options bar. Use the up and down arrow keys to scroll through the fonts to find one you like.
Stroke the resulting selection with a 5 - 15 point line.
Using the crop tool, hold down the shift key to constrain the crop to a perfect square. You can move and rotate the crop. Hit enter to make the crop. Important!...Make sure each side of the box has a line touching it.
Select all and stroke an inside line. Now copy this layer using CTRL>J 3 more times... increase the canvas 200 percent in the horizontal and vertical dimensions, anchoring the canvas in the upper left.
Now copy this layer and paste it 3 more times.... Enlarge the canvas by 200% in the horizontal and vertical dimensions. Rotate each unit by 90 degrees more than the previous block going around clockwise.....
Flatten, copy 3 more times to create a 16 block grid.......
