Learn how to make digital displays like car stereos, dashboards, home entertainment products etc. Here are some tips and tricks you can use to add this type of effect in your web-to-print template.

Before you start

• Add a page frame (Layout/Page Setup/Add Page Frame). This will create a rectangular shape with the exact same size as the paper size of your template and place it as a bottom layer.
• Select the background shape and round it’s corners.
• Use the Rectangle Tool (F6) to make a equalizer grid like the one you see on most stereo displays.

Fonts

The character width on this type of digital displays is fixed. Therefore, we need to use a special font that has these properties.

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Download the SF Digital Readout 1.1 font or any other digital font you can find on 1001fonts.com

Dummy text

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Notice the characters on these types of digital displays are formed by activating a combination of all parts that the Full character is made up of.

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Look closely, you’ll see the unused parts are also visible in the background.

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To achieve this effect, we’ll make a static background text frame by typing a number of those Full characters and assigning a 95% Black color fill to it.

Note. For this particular font, type “`” to create a Full character.

We now have the background for the variable text and we can add the dummy text.

• Duplicate the background text frame,
• Assign a lighter color (Ex. Blue) to it,
• Type in the dummy text, assign a left or right horizontal alignment  and turn it into a variable web-to-print field,
  
• Repeat this for all the text frames in your template.

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The result should be similar to this.

Text texture

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Look closely, see a very small pixelated texture on the parts that are lit up.

To achieve this we can use one of CorelDRAWs built in textures and slightly modify it.

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Select a dummy text, open the Object Properties docker (Alt+Enter) and assign a Texture fill to it. (Ex. Use the Cobwebs texture from the Samples 6 collection). Click the advanced button to open the Texture Fill advanced options.

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Change the texture colors and any other properties needed to achieve the desired effect.

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The result should be similar to this.

Note. Repeat the steps above for all remianing text frames and shapes in your web-to-print template.

Final touch

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Lets add a glossy glow to the display and give it a 3D look. To achieve this draw a smaller rounded rectangle on top of the original one and place it close to the top edge.

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Assign a white uniform fill to the new rectangle and activate CorelDRAW’s Transparency tool.

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Click on the top edge of the white rectangle and drag the cursor downwards. You can adjust the transparency transition by dragging the nodes to the desired position.

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Note. Repeat this step for the bottom side as well.

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The result should be similar to this.

Things to consider

Since the text must align with the background text perfectly, you should keep in mind:

• The variable text fields must have a Max number of characters that is equal to the number of Full characters used in the background text.
• Using narrower characters like “! . : [ ] etc.” will missalign the text.
• These type of digital fonts don’t support some special characters like “& % # @ etc.” and they all appear the same as the Full character.

All done!

Our web-to-print software can handle this effect easily! Upload the template into your catalog and test it.

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Try this web-to-print template.

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Download the FREE CorelDRAW template file.

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