How to Make Border Around Text

I think I finally have some time to blog, so today I will show you a very handy tutorial!

I think that making a big, thick border around the text in a design is one of the most important things in graphic designing. It makes it look cleaner and helps the words pop out. Especially if the background of your design matches the color of the text.

Now Photoshop has some quick, one-click way of doing that, but for those of you who use free editing programs, here's my way. It take awhile, and sometimes the borders don't come out as clean, but it's worth it.

I found this way when I was learning how to make shadows behind the text, and the method is very similar.

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1. open up your designing software (I am using Canva for this) and make your background first--you'll be doing the text last.

2.  Write you text (very important, make sure you center you text exactly where you want it, changing it after you make the border will be very tedious!) I highly suggest using a thick font, or else the border won't overlap with the copies right:

3. Now borders can be any color, so color the text you want the border color to be (I suggest a color that is in contrast with the text and the background). Also the border goes first before the main text.

Here we have a black border I will use:

4. Make several copies of the border-text (there should be a button where you can just click "copy." For PicMonkey, right-click or use two fingers to click the mouse. A small menu will come up; look down and click "duplicate"). Make sure they're the exact same size and color. 

5. One by one, overlap them carefully. Make sure on each copy, it overlaps the previous by just a little bit of the edge. 

This is what it will look like now after you have overlapped you first copy:

You'll probably need a copy for the left side of the text, one for the right, two for the top and two for the bottom (you'll need the extra one at the top/bottom because you just made the text two times wider by putting the copies on the side.)

Although don't be surprised if you need more. Make and overlap as many copies as need to make sure the edges of the text line up and aren't jagged.

This is what it should look like:

Finally, you can out on the real text! Make one last copy, but this time, change the color so it's the one you want (I suggest a lighter color for a darker border and a darker color for a lighter border).

Then, position the real text on top the crazy mess of border copies. (to make it looked centered, you may need to add some more copies still.

The final result should look something like this:

Different fonts will produce different results, but the thicker the font with less space is always best. Also, the border does have to be exact. Sometime you might be looking for a more rugged, worn type-look, so you can use less border copies. Here's an example: (the border almost resembles pixels even)

I'm gonna use this method really soon in making a blog header for Halloween, so stay tuned!