Every now and again you will need to adjust the shape of a font you are using in a project, Ive needed to do this quite a few times when creating logo concepts that have a play on text shape rather than use a icon/shape logo. It’s an easy technique to learn and will give you loads more scope when coming up with those creative concepts.

1.  Lets start with some plain text, Ive used Impact as its a safe font that most of you should have.

2. Now right click the text and select convert to paths

3. You will now have a Group of paths, so right click again and click ungroup to get a set of paths distributed to individual layers.

4. Now that we have our font in the format we want, we can now start to play around to get the font deign we want. To do this select your subselection tool  from your toolbar and select the anchor points you would like to move. I have chosen to skew the bottom of the font to stretch downwards for this example but you are really only limited by you imagination.

5. To make the adjustment you can either drag and drop the selection or use cursor keys ( I prefer cursor keys as it gives me more control).

6. The final result.

This is a tip good for poster art. Add a radial gradient in bold text to spice things up. If you’re tired of using borders and bevels, try this.

1. Start off with your text on canvas however you want. Choose a very bold font, I used Impact as it is most common.

2. Select the text and click the Fill Color square, and click Fill Options. Choose gradient instead of the default solid. Then choose Radial among the types of gradients.

3. Choose your colors, preferably darker on the edges and bright on the center.

The result is a simple beautification of your headline or title.

4. And optionally, create a rectangle and fill with another radial gradient.

Drawing
Curves with pen tool
Create custom shapes
Create a grid
Draw a drop of water
Shape editing
Design a website with Fireworks
Create a golden star

Text
Text on path
Patterned text
Chocolate Text
Beveled text with transparent edge
Glass letters
Plastic text

Photo/image
Change color within image
Extracting with Magic Wand
Feathering
Paste inside masking technique
How to use rubber stamp (video)

Effects
Twist and Fade Effect
Motion Trail
Fog Effects
Perspective shadow
Mirror reflect

Buttons
Gel button
Rollover button
Round corner button
Jewel button
Rounded gradient button

Animation
Bouncing ball
Animation and Tweening

Official Fireworks Support Center
Fireworks video tutorials
Comprehensive basic skills knowledge base

1. Start with a canvas which is 175% higher than your circle for the drop shadow, reflection etc. Draw a circle and gradient fill it using a sample of blue (dark) and then a dropper sample of a lighter (not white that’s too harsh) shade of blue, or your chosen color.

2. Now grab a copy of the circle and invert it and position it under the existing circle and commands > creative > fade image to fade it out as a reflection then reduce the opacity down to 60%

3. Now we add the inner reflections to create the shiny effect on the surface of the marble. Draw a small ellipse with the same colour (FW usually keeps the same gradient you used earlier) and place it in the circle as in the image below.

4. Now copy the added inner circle and paste it on the top of the circle, again fade it out to get it to blend in the main circle and reduce it’s opacity down to 60%.

5. Nearly there, you can add in a further drop shadow to the left or right of the main circle (make sure that it sits under the main marble and is lowest in the order list in the layers panel. Draw an ellipse. fill = solid, colour=#DDDDDD. width=70px, height=13 pixels, feather = 5

6. You can add in surface elements and an overlapping title for the navigation item if, like me, you needed to use a number of these on a page.

Have fun, I hope this was of use to somebody somewhere!

This tutorial will show you how to create a barcode for any purpose.

Step 1.
Select the Pencil Tool, set the color to black, and make sure both the Anti-aliased and the Auto erase boxes are unchecked. Holding down Shift, start drawing random lines on the stage. You should get something like this:

Step 2.
Make sure the layer of the bitmap is selected, and using the Marque Tool, create a selection box anywhere on the bitmap with a width of choice but a height of 1. Right click on the selection, then pick New Bitmap Via Copy.

Step 3.
Now that you have what you need, go ahead and delete the original Bitmap layer (the random pencil lines). At this time, on the stage you should only see a few black dots/pixels lined up. Increase the height of this Bitmap by using either the Free Transform Tool or by imputing the desired height of the barcode in the Properties Panel.

Step 4.
We all know a barcode has numbers. Using the Marque Tool, select a portion of the barcode as illustrated below, and press Delete. Add some randomly spaced out numbers in the cleared portion.

Step 5.
Get creative! Add text instead of numbers, or both. Place the barcode on a sticker and create a peeling effect featured in “Creating a Realistic Peelable Sticker Effect in Fireworks” tutorial. Give the sticker a Web 2.0 touch featured in Justin’s “Create Web2.0 logos with Fireworks” tutorial.

*Download not available*

Here’s an easy one. Make your own radial burst, as its not an autoshape in Fireworks and sometimes you want it in your design, like this one. You easily make your own and I’ll show you how. Also, some essential keyboard shortcuts.

1. Draw an isosceles triangle using the rectangle tool and vector shaping. Position triangle on the bottom center of the canvas

2. Now for some hotkeywork. Learn the shortcuts select all (Ctr+A), duplicate(Ctr+Shift+D), and transform(Ctr+Shift+T). Mac users, take note of the Ctrl button, you know what to do.

Select triangle, duplicate, and rotate it 180deg. Position triangle directly above original one, tip touching the tip.
Select all, duplicate, transform rotate 90deg.
Select all, duplicate, transform rotate 45deg.
Select all, duplicate, transform rotate 22.5deg.
You get the point.

You now have a decent radial burst. Set that to overlay in your vector art, it’ll make a great addition.