Repeating Spiral Text with the Transform Effect
This tip turns a few words into a spiralling tunnel of text in Adobe Illustrator using a single Transform effect. The text stays live, so you can retype it or drag words around and the whole spiral follows.
Step 1: Set the text
Type two or three words in a heavy typeface, set to all caps in the Character panel. Rotate one copy minus 90 degrees and another 180 degrees and arrange them around a centre so they form a loose square. Give each word a different fill colour and, importantly, a stroke (about 2 pt) in a dark tone. Without a stroke the effect loses its definition.
Step 2: Group first
Select all the words and press Ctrl+G. The Transform effect must be applied to the group, otherwise each word repeats on its own.
Step 3: Transform with copies
Go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. Set copies to 25, scale to 95 percent horizontally and vertically, and preview: each copy shrinks relative to the one before, which already gives a tunnel. Now add an angle, for example 5 degrees. Every copy rotates a little more than the previous one, so 25 copies turn 125 degrees in total and the tunnel twists into a spiral. Increase the copies for a deeper spiral.
Step 4: Options
- Leave “Transform strokes and effects” off so the stroke stays the same weight on every copy.
- Reflect Y mirrors the arrangement, so colours swap sides on each copy and the spiral gains more variety.
- The Move values shift the vanishing point off centre.
Step 5: Keep it editable
Click OK and treat the group like normal text. Retype a word, change a colour or drag a word outward and every copy updates. In the finished poster in the video, a rectangle at 89 percent opacity sits behind each word inside the group, so the rectangles rotate with the text and build up the coloured spiral bands.
Links from the video
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