Type Across a Photo

You will often want to put type in a photo, as a label, explanation, or Arlo Guthrie’s circles and arrows. It can be problematic, though, because the photo varies and dark type will be hard to read over the dark parts of the photo, and vice versa.

My trick for setting type in a photo is to use yellow type with a black drop shadow, as shown. Set your type in yellow, get everything sized and positioned as you want. They duplicate the type, change it to black, send it back one layer, and nudge it into position.

In this example, the e wouldn’t be visible if set in black, and the a wouldn’t be visible set in either yellow or white. But the yellow type with a drop shadow works great! Try this the next time you are creating a poster where you need type in a photo.