How to make neon text in Illustrator
Neon is a rounded stroke on a dark background with a coloured glow. Give the text a pale rounded stroke, no fill, then add Effect › Stylize › Outer Glow in the neon colour. For a tube look, use two strokes. JuicyType builds it with Strokes plus a feathered Shadow as the glow.
The manual way, in Illustrator
- Draw a dark rectangle behind the text (a dark artboard setting alone does not export). Select the text and pick a rounded font.
- In Window › Appearance set Fill to None (double-click Characters and clear its fill too, for a hollow tube) and add a stroke, 3–6 pt, Round Cap and Round Join, in a pale tint of the neon colour.
- Add a second thinner stroke above it in white for the hot core.
- Apply Effect › Stylize › Outer Glow to the object: Screen mode, the neon colour, Blur 15–30 px. Apply it twice at different blurs for a deeper halo, and add Effect › Stylize › Inner Glow to the tube stroke for the hot centre.
Outer and Inner Glow are raster effects and soften on export; raise the resolution in Effect › Document Raster Effects Settings for print, and raise Add Around Object if a wide glow gets clipped.
Menu paths checked against Adobe's current Illustrator documentation; hands-on verification and screenshots are still to come.
3 effects in JuicyType
Strokes give the tube, Shadow with no offset and a wide feather gives a glow that stays vector.
Common questions
Why does my glow look pixelated?
It is a raster effect at screen resolution. Set Effect › Document Raster Effects Settings to 300 ppi, or use the vector feather.