Litza Tips & Tricks


The Litza Type Family comprises 10 layers in 3 weights that show different stages of stitching – which means that there are a total of 30 font files that you can stack, combine, and experiment with. All 30 ‘layers’ derive from the same master file, so they should align and work together perfectly in all combinations – however, sometimes issues may occur if the settings in Adobe Illustrator are not adjusted correctly.

Here are a few tips and settings to check if you run into any issues!

Stacking Layers

It is important to keep in mind that every Litza ‘layer’ is a separate font file. You can apply a different Litza layer (font) to different words within a paragraph and there will be no issue with stacking – however, the kerning between letters will not be active if different Litza layers are applied to different letters within one word. This is because the kerning can only work between letters within the same font file.

Example 1: Two text fields with different Litza layers/fonts are stacked one on top of the other; ‘Litza Light Dots’ underneath and ‘Litza Light Cross Stitch’ above. Both layers/font files have kerning adjusted between the letters L and T so they align perfectly with one another.

Example 2: The same approach is being used here with two text fields being stacked one on top of the other; the bottom text field is set in ‘Litza Light Dots’ while the text field above has each letter being set in a different ‘Litza Light’ layer. Because each Litza ‘layer’ is a different font file, the kerning no longer works – the reason for this is that the kerning can only work between two letters in the same font file.

As you can see in ‘Example 2’, the letter L is set in ‘Litza Light Half Stitch Two’ and the letter T is set in ‘Litza Light Cross Stitch’ – no kerning is active and as a result, the letters in the text field on top are no longer in alignment with the text field underneath where the kerning is still active. Due to the issue with these two letters, all the letters that follow have also been shifted and the two text fields can no longer work together in unison.

Kern Settings

Check if ‘Auto’ is selected in the kern properties inside the ‘Character’ panel in Adobe Illustrator.

You can access this panel from the top menu by going to Window>Type>Character

Sometimes, this setting is automatically set to ‘0’ (Zero), which affects the spacing and can cause misalignment.

If you run into any issues, make sure all the text fields you are working have the kerning set to ‘Auto’.

Example: Two text fields with different Litza layers/fonts have been used here and stacked one on top of the other. The text is in alignment when both fields are set to ‘Auto’. If one text field is set to ‘0’ (Zero) while the other set to ‘Auto’, issues with alignment will occur.

Kerning also exists between all glyphs which are used to create ornamental frames. You may not notice that the kerning is off when you’re working with text fields that are all set to ‘0’ (Zero) – however, the ornaments will be visibly affected by the ‘0’ (Zero) setting being turned on.

The ‘Auto’ and ‘0’ (Zero) setting is often the result the following…

Fractional Widths vs. System Layout

Make sure ‘Fractional widths’ are enabled in the ‘Character’ panel in Illustrator. If ‘System Layout’ is enabled, the kern settings will default to ‘0’, which will disable the kerning in the font files. If you are using mutliple Litza layers and have an issue with misalignment, make sure that the ‘System Layout’ preference hasn’t accidentally been applied to one of the layers (font files).

Ornaments

You can find the symbols and borders in the Glyphs panel in Adobe Illustrator.

In the top menu, go to: View>Glyphs

With your type tool active within text field, you can now insert the symbols you would like to use by double clicking on them within the Glyphs panel. The symbols have been organised into stylistic sets so you can also access them by simply typing them out once the desired stylistic set is active.

In order to do this:

1. Go to View>Type>Opentype
2. Inside the Opentype panel click on the little hamburger icon in the top right-hand corner to see more options
3. Select the Stylistic Set you would like to use
4. Type out the symbols!


Litza is now available on MyFonts.com!

Litza is npw available on MyFonts.com!


This page is regularly updated to provide support for the Litza type family.
Last updated: 26/07/2020