Filling outlines with text has come to be one of my top "learn how to do" items lately. Even in classes, I'm finding that making objects out of text has become a theme, which makes me very happy as it's something that I really, really want to learn how to do. Even the example above from Smarties, manipulates text to create a funky-looking cat while emphasizing the pink Smartie for the nose. I know text manipulation will work best in illustrator ... it's just finding out "how". I know in some images, the text isn't tweaked but rather the shapes of the letters are used to create an image by stacking. I've found that I've become comfortable stacking, it's just moving onto the next step of manipulation. I'm assuming it's fitting text to outline but again, just gotta figure out how and finding the time to actually do it. This is will be on my list this coming summer when I have a little more time to play with the programs.
