CRACK

Watch it being adjusted

How it works

A seeded two-dimensional pattern cuts the type into shards: Shatter is a Voronoi of cells clustered around the impact point, Crack is a set of kinked rays with partial rings between them, Splinter is a stretched Voronoi along an axis. Each shard is the cell intersected with the glyph, so counters stay holes. Shards are then shifted away from the impact and rotated about their centres, more strongly near the impact; Gap keeps the seams visible even at zero displacement. Glyph curves stay smooth cubic curves, only the cut edges are new corners. Every later effect, including 3D walls, is drawn per shard.

What you can adjust

Drag a slider to see what each control does to the type.

• Patternframe 1 of 3
  /img/effects/crack/pattern/1.png
  PatternShatter / Crack / Splinter
  1 / 3
• Rays / Piecesframe 1 of 5
  /img/effects/crack/rays-pieces/1.png
  Rays / Pieces2–100, default 24
  1 / 5
• Impact X / Yframe 1 of 5
  /img/effects/crack/impact-x-y/1.png
  Impact X / Y0–100%, default 55 / 50
  1 / 5
• Shiftframe 1 of 5
  /img/effects/crack/shift/1.png
  Shift0–200 pt, default 4
  1 / 5
• Rotateframe 1 of 5
  /img/effects/crack/rotate/1.png
  Rotate0–180°, default 3
  1 / 5
• Gapframe 1 of 5
  /img/effects/crack/gap/1.png
  Gap0–200 pt, default 1
  1 / 5
• Randomframe 1 of 2
  /img/effects/crack/random/1.png
  Randomon/off directions
  1 / 2
• Rerollframe 1 of 5
  /img/effects/crack/reroll/1.png
  Rerollnew seed
  1 / 5
• Axis / Aspectframe 1 of 5
  /img/effects/crack/axis-aspect/1.png
  Axis / Aspect0–180° and 1–40, Splinter only; default 28° / 8
  1 / 5

Still live text

Crack is applied as an Illustrator live effect, so the text stays editable. Change the word, the font, or any slider afterwards, and save the result as a Graphic Style to reuse it.