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This video goes over a method for customizing and refining fonts in order to personalize them a bit more to you and your style.

This video is a little bit long, but it covers a diverse amount of Illustrator tips ranging from using layers, brushes, the pen tool, and general theories for how to approach customizing type. I did my best not to skip over how to specifically do anything in order to make this fairly beginner friendly. I do suggest watching the below pen tool tutorials before doing this video if you are unfamiliar with the pen tool.

Pacifico Font: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/pacifico
Pen Tool Tutorial (Easy Overview): https://youtu.be/0B_IQK7hMo0
Pen Tool Tutorial (Professional Way): https://youtu.be/vpOCt6k7Oqg

The tutorial also covers ways inside Adobe Illustrator to tweak and refine free fonts that are often a little bit rough and need some extra attention. When quality fonts are available for free, often times they are used quite a lot and as such can make any project that picks them feel a little bit generic. This method is a great way to get around that by allowing you to take some stylistic control over what the final result will look like.