I’m looking at those pages (p. 190-195)in my copy, and it looks pretty clear to me.

I think the thing you have to watch out for is making sure the baseline curves properly. It may be tricky depending on the letters and typeface you’re working with.

Does that help or is there something more specific you’re having a problem with?

Andrew, my copy of LFLB is at the office, so excuse me if I duplicate advice already offered therein. Putting text on a curve messes royally with the inter-character spacing, so you’ll always need to kern and respace to achieve even typographic colour right around the curve. Word spacing should almost always be closed up for the same reason.

I always found it safer to a) do this on a copy of the setting in case I mess it up and have to revert to the original, and quicker to b) get the spacing done satisfactorily before any ’convert to paths’ operation.

In a lot of cases where the text runs around a complete circle in an ’over and under’ fashion, it can help to place punctuating dingbats, flowers or bullets symmetrically (say at at 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock) – again to fill gaps and achieve even colour.

Printing a proof and examining it upside down from a distance is a quick way to check for spottiness and bad spacing.

Leslie talks quite a lot about making the baselines and foot serifs of the type follow the curve, which is easily done after the ’convert to paths’ operation. You’ll need to work with duplicates of the original circle (in the original position relative to the type outlines) and the pathfinder function.

Another tip for the ’over and under’ style is to make sure both parts of the type are ’aligned to path centre’ in the options.

Excellent. I think the most difficult part is the kerning and spacing, because the baseline gets crowded really fast.

Leslie’s explanation for masking and clipping the edges doesn’t explain if I should extend the tops of letters and then clip them like I would have done for the baseline and foot serifs.

I’m using Freight Sans because it seems to be the most forgiving without losing much character. The Text is: CERTIFIED along the top curve and PEST FREE along the bottom curve, inverted of course. Do I need to worry about the center arms of the E and F?

Don’t feel squeamish about changing the lettershapes. This situation of yours is a classic reason for custom ’lettering’. One way to escape from the font’s forms would be to print out & hand draw over the forms to get them to sit nicely together. Or make outlines & do it digitally. Whichever gives you the freedom you need. Or indeed both. You might want to look at Mark Simonson’s lettering too.

http://www.ms-studio.com/letteringdesign.html