Gungurru Blog » Graphic Design

Create a Retro Vintage WWII Style Poster: A Photoshop Tutorial

Joe Swinn — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:35:02 +0000

Following the success of my previous Vintage World War Two Poster Tutorial, I’ve decided to do another, this time using a slightly different style. The key to making a good poster is to use the ideas from this tutorial, and create your own unique poster, to improve upon this style. We’ll be using Adobe Photoshop CS4, and hopefully this is possible to follow even if you’re on Photoshop CS3 or CS2 – tell me if there are problems!

Here’s what we’ll be creating:

Open up photoshop, and create a new document with canvas size 1654px by 2338px. (If you’re wondering, that’s the rough resolution of A3 Paper)

Next off, insert this old paper image from Sxc.hu, and resize it over the canvas.

To this, we then add some noise: select Filter>Noise>Add Noise. I’m adding around 45%, but feel free to experiment around a little!

Drop the opacity of the paper layer to around 80%. This adds a little more of the white from the canvas in, to keep the background unobtrusive to the main elements.

Insert this image of clouds into the document, covering the top half of the canvas.

Then, with the new layer selected, click the “Add Layer Mask” button at the bottom of the ‘Layers’ Palette.

With this selected (a little icon next to your layer thumbnail), select the gradient tool, and draw a linear Black>White gradient from the top of the clouds to the bottom; this creates a fade-out effect.

Set the blending mode to ‘Linear Burn’ and the Opacity to 70%.

Now to add in the rays of light. This is probably the trickiest bit of the whole tutorial, but it can be done fairly easily:

The key is to switch the guides on (View>Show>Grid) and the ‘Snap To Grid’ command on (View>Snap To>Grid).

With the pen tool selected, and a fill colour of #fff799, start drawing a japanese sun ray shape. Here’s what you want to create:

If it’s not exact, don’t worry too much – mine definitely isn’t. The origin of the rays will be hidden anyway, so don’t panic!

Change the Blending Mode of the rays to ‘Soft Light’.

Insert this image of bread (or another image of your choice – bread isn’t my most creative inspiration of the year).

Then select the Magic Wand tool, with a Tolerance of 40, and delete the white area around the image.

Change the Brightness and Contrast to -45 and 60 respectively, and then we’ll add a “Dry Brush” effect from the presets (Filter>Artistic>Dry Brush), with the following settings:

After this, stick this image of some planes into the document from SXC. Just use the ‘Magic Brush’ tool with a Tolerance of 40 to get rid of the surrounding sky, to show our clouds in the background.

Then, with the layer selected, click Image>Adjustments>Posterise and select ’8′ as the ‘Number of Layers’.

For the text, I’m using the Freely Available Font Wrexham Script, which is an Awesome WW2 Style Font, and free, even for Commercial Use. Select a font size of 250px, and a Line Spacing of 200px, and a colour of #45340f. Then write the text of your choice. I’ve chosen “Homemade Bread Wins The War”, a useless propoganda phrase for your poster.

To add an underline to one of your words, just use the line tool, with a 10px width, and the same colour as before. To ensure that it sticks with the text layer, just select both layers, and select ‘Link Layers’ – it ensures that when you move the text around to suit your liking, the underline stays with it!

For a finishing touch, you want to add an image of the WWII Housewife. You could, of course find a photo of your choice, then add a Cutout Effect, or a Dry Brush Effect, but I’ve decided to browse a Google Image Search for “1940′s Dress Patterns”. Seriously don’t ask how I searched that in the first place.

Find a suitable image which you can use without infringing copyright, and stick it onto your canvas.

Then, you’re finished! If you need to, continue to modify some elements’ Brightness and Contrasts. It takes a little playing around, but you should get a nice result (for example I’ve changed the contrasting on the Bread Again to -45 and 100 respectively, to add a golden colour to the bread).

If you enjoyed it, or have some creative input to add, please do leave a comment – I’m sure to reply!

Design A Shiny Premium Web 2.0 Download Button – Photoshop Tutorial

Joe Swinn — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:53:52 +0000

We often see these glossy download buttons all over the Internet, and today we’ll be designing a button in Adobe Photoshop, and the button design is easily flexible for your own uses for your website.

Firstly, for the purposes of this photoshop tutorial, we’ll use a canvas size of 600px by 200px.

Once this is done, use the rounded rectangle tool, with a radius of 10px.
Then, draw the rectangle to your chosen size – If you’re wanting to write multiple lines of text, like the example, drag it to around this size:

Then, open up the blending options for your brand new shape, and apply the following effects:

(For the outer Glow, I’m using the colour #e9e9e9)

(For the gradient Overlay, I’m using a gradient of #c4c4c4 to #ffffff – Note: I have checked the ‘Reverse’ box here)

(For the Stroke, I’m using a gradient of #ff5b5c to #febbbc)

Now for the next step (creating a white glassy effect), there are, I know, a number of different methods of doing it.
The method I use is to use the pen tool to create a shape directly above the original layer like this, and I’ve filled it with White (#ffffff):

Drop the Opacity of this new layer to 55% and already, the button is starting to take form.

Now, using a 54px Arial Bold font, with colour set to #444444, and the Tracking set to -25, write the text ‘Download’ (or whatever text you want to have here)

Then apply the following styles to it:

This gives an awesome letterpressed text effect. The gradient overlay is hidden enough to be discreet, but still gives a nice feel to the button.
Then, create a new line (in the same text layer), and using a size 24px of the same font, with the colour #e8e8e8, write your secondary line of text.

For Usability, it is often important to have the minor details in a smaller, lighter coloured font here, as the users can easily see the information which is important to them.
Next, we’re going to create the ribbon element which overlaps the button, with a little 3d-style effect to add another dimension to the button.
Select the Pen Tool, and create the following shape. If you need to (like I have), use a few guide lines to help align your arrow. It really doesnt matter what colour the arrow is, as we’re adding effect to it soon, which will change that.

Then, apply the following styles to your shape:

(For the Inner Glow effect, I’m using the colour #80271d)

(For the Gradient Overlay, I’m using the colours #871508 and #e4250f for each end of the gradient)

Next, for the 3d part below the ribbon, select the pen tool, and draw a shape like so behind the ribbon. Give it a dark red colour (I’ve chosen #990000)

For the arrowheads inside our glossy ribbon, select the Custom Shape tool, and use the ‘Arrow 2′ shape.

With that, draw an arrow, rotate it 90 degrees to be pointing downwards and to fit inside the ribbon, and change the shape colour to white (#ffffff).

Then Apply the following Inner Shadow, and duplicate the layer and place it just above:

And there you have it! A premium-style download button, created in Adobe Photoshop!

Now it is easily possible to adjust the colours of the buttons, and get some really good results – here’s what I got:

If you want a copy of the project files, the PSD file can be downloaded here (file size is 280KB)

Thanks for reading this graphic design tutorial – if you have any thoughts/improvements, feel free to comment!

Design an Online Advert Set in Photoshop

Joe Swinn — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:35:34 +0000

It’s always good to know how to design online adverts – even if it means designing a ‘Your Ad Here’ ad, it’s still great to have one place where you can go to get all the information for Ad sizes, Ad Creation and Ad Animation. Hopefully, this tutorial will be a great resource for future reference when it comes to creating an online advert.

Ad sizes:

All of the major ad networks use a standard advert size (presumably so that publishers can easily switch their site from another advertising network), and this is great for advert designers.

Square/Almost Square shapes:

Large Rectangle: 336px x 280px

Medium Rectangle: 300px x 250px

Square: 250px x 250px

Small Square: 200px x 200px

Button: 125px x 125px (This type of advert can be seen in the right hand side of this page)

Small Rectangle: 180px x 150px

Skyscraper ads (Vertical Rectangles)

Vertical Banner: 120px x 240px

Skyscraper: 120px x 600px (click thumbnail for larger view)

Wide Skyscraper: 160px x 600px (click thumbnail for larger view)

Banner ads (Horizontal Rectangles)

Leaderboard: 728px x 90px (Click the image to see the full size)

Banner: 468px x 60px

Half Banner: 234px x 60px

Ad Tutorial

Now, we’re going to make a series of ads in Photoshop, in a modern, glossy style. The magical thing about these ads is that once a ‘Large Rectangle’ (336px x 280px) has been created, we can just move the elements around, and then resave the image. This is great for creating a series of adverts.

Create a new canvas in Photoshop – 336px by 280px.

Then draw a rectangle which covers the entire canvas. The colour I’m using is #b2ff67.

Then, open up the blending options, and apply the following settings:

The gradient is from #5d9724 to # b2ff67.

Next, select the text tool, with a font size of 60px, and using Rockwell font (You’ll have it if you have Microsoft Word. If not, use a font like Clarendon) and make sure that it’s Bold, and White (#ffffff). Write your main text in the centre of the page, and then, on a new line, reduce the font size, and write your motto. Note: Try to make the motto take up the same amount of space as the entire first line – its good visual impact.

Then, open up the text layer’s blending options. Apply the following styles: (the red-brown colour is #944023).

The stroke’s colour burn settings are great, so that it goes well with the background. If you want to polish off the effect, change an important word to a light colour (I’m using a light pink, because it’s part of the Gungurru site’s colour scheme).

Then, place the text right in the middle of your canvas, and select the pen tool. Then, draw a sun-rays design, like so, and then change the colour to #FFFFFF (if you haven’t done so already). Make sure that the rays are relatively large, so that you can resize the canvas for different advert sizes, and still have some awesome rays.

If, like me, you haven’t had all of the points really neatly in place, just select the ‘Direct Selection’ tool, and modify the inner paths. Try to get the like so, so that the rays look as though they’re coming from a source:

Then, change the blending mode to overlay, and the layer opacity to 30%.

Here’s what I’ve got upon saving the file as a Jpeg:

Now you can call that a complete work – and you can use this as-is, but if you want to animate this, read on:

Animating the advert

If you want to animate your advert (note, some advertising networks don’t accept animated adverts), duplicate your text layer, and bring it to the front of the canvas, and change the text to something advert-like. (Don’t worry that it’s overlapping the text that’s there at the moment). I’ve written “Tailored Websites from only $$$)”. Then, make the visibility of the new layer invisible (click on the eye icon next to the layer)

Then, open the animation settings box (Window>Animation), and do the following:

Change the view mode to ‘Frame Animation’ (a little button at the bottom right) and there should be one thumbnail which has a time length written underneath it.

Click on the time, and change the time to 2.0 seconds.

Then, create a new frame (there’s a little icon below that looks like the ‘new layer’ button)

With the new frame selected, make the ‘Tailored Websites…’ layer visible, and make the Original text layer invisible.

Then, to save the file, save for web & devices (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S), and choose the following settings:

Now the animation is done! Here’s the result that I got:

Changing the ad size

If you want the advert to be all kinds of sizes, just change the canvas size, and move the elements to match:

I’ve changed the size to a ‘Banner’ size:

That concludes this tutorial! If you have found this useful, please do subscribe – I’ve got some new PSD to HTML tutorials coming up soon, and please do comment to tell me how you got on with this!

Create a Sleek Web 2.0 Style Website Layout: a Photoshop Tutorial (Part 2)

Joe Swinn — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:50:12 +0000

This is the second of a two part tutorial on Designing and Coding a Sleek Web 2.0 Style Website Layout. (Part one can be viewed here).

For this version, you will need your .PSD file from the original tutorial. If you want to start with what I got, please download the PSD file here. Note: There is one important change in this PSD file than the end result of the first part of this tutorial (the alignment of the ‘content-background’ layer). So if you want a better result, please download the PSD file.

First off, open up the PSD layout in Photoshop, and select the Slice tool (this is found behind the crop tool in the toolbar, default key ‘c’)

Now, make a vertical slice along the header background, right down to the zigzagged lines, and make sure that your slice will allow the image to be repeatable (this is really important for the CSS later on).

Then, make a slice around the logo (you can resize the edges of your slice by clicking and dragging them).

After this, slice around the top of the zigzagged lines which are below the ‘Call-to-action’ image. Make sure again that the image will be able to loop seamlessly horizontally. (Again, This is really important for later)

Then, slice around the 3 icon images (the globe, the clock and the twitter icon).

Then slice the Headings, A suitable part of the zigzagged grey footer, and the footer logo.

Now, there’s a really useful part of the ‘Slice Select’ tool (Different to the normal ‘Slice’ tool). This means that you can rename the sliced areas to a chosen name.

Just double click on the slice, and rename the parts to your choosing.

Here’s a list of what I’m renaming slices to:

Header zigzagged Background: ‘header-bg’

Header Logo: ‘header-logo’

Content zigzagged background: ‘content-bg’

Globe Icon, Clock Icon & Twitter: ‘icon-globe’, ‘icon-clock’ & ‘icon-twitter’

Headings: ‘we-are-global’, ‘we-are-fast’ & ‘twitter’

Footer Background: ‘footer-bg’

Footer Logo: ‘footer-logo’

Then click File>Save for Web & Devices (shortcut Alt+Control+Shift+S). Select PNG-8 as your image format, then click save. In the browse view, create a new folder on your Hard Drive named ‘site’. Then choose the following settings (ensure to check the ‘interlaced’ box, and click ‘Save’. Make sure that only ‘User Slices’ are exported.

Note: Photoshop should have automatically put the images into a folder named ‘images’ inside your ‘site’ folder, and if not, manually do this.

Now we have to manually delete some parts in the ‘header-bg.png’ and ‘content-bg.png’ files. Open them both up into Photoshop, and do the following (this is really important): Duplicate the background layer, and delete the original background layer. Don’t create a layer from background, or this won’t work. Now, select the magic want tool, and a tolerance of around 10, and delete the light blue colour right in the middle of the zigzag.

Now for the hardest part of this tutorial: open the info panel (default key f8), and draw a rectangular selection all the way around the ‘Call to action’ bit (the stuff with the blue gradient background), and make sure to include the zigzags within your selection. Now, in the info palette, have a look at the object size bit, and look at the height value (it has an H: 000 value, where 000 is your selection height – min is 360px) and remember the height for the next part:

Deselect that now (Ctrl+D / Mac Cmd+D), and move the entire ‘Call-to-action’ group into a new canvas. Make the canvas height the same height as your height value from the info palette earlier. Make the width 1300px, so that the background image will fit nicely inside.

Next, select the ‘Call-to-action background’ layer, and select the gradient tool with a linear gradient like so:

(a white to white gradient, with one side 0% opacity and the other side 100% opacity).

Then, draw white gradients from the outside in:

Then, try to centralise the content, but keeping the background in the same place.

Then, save the image as a jpg file in the ‘images’ folder that you have used earlier, and make sure that the quality is relatively high, so as to look sleeker in the final website.

That’s all we need to do in Photoshop! Now onto the coding! Arguably, we can say that the navigation hasn’t been exported yet, but I think we should leave that to CSS, but you can do an image sprite if you want to.

In the ‘site’ folder, create a new html file and call it index.html – then insert the standard tags and whatnot (i.e. doctype, head, html & body).

Then, create a new CSS stylesheet (call it styles.css) and link to it from the index.html file.

In the styles.css file, make sure that the body margin and padding are 0.
Header Styles
Create a #header div and apply the following:

#header {
width: 100%;
height: 201px;
background: url(images/header-bg.png) repeat-x;
position: relative;
z-index: 1;
}
#header img {
margin: 63px 0px 0px -470px;
border: none;
}

Here’s the HTML for the header:

And so far it should look like this:

Now for the Call-to-action image. I’m going to call it #callto in the CSS, because it saves so much time to write it out!

#callto {
width: 100%;
height: 360px;
margin-top: -10px;
background: url(images/call-to-action.jpg) center no-repeat #fff;
position: relative;
z-index: 0;
}

The HTML is the following:

And now it should look like this:

Next part is the main content section. In the CSS, we’ll create two divs: #top and #content (why two separate ones? The #top div is for the zigzagged lines at the top, and the #content is for the blue box underneath. The reason that the zigzagged lines cannot be a part of the #content div is because the background colour is set as #2142 and would ruin the effect)

#top {
width: 100%;
height: 28px;
margin-top: -15px;
background: url(images/content-bg.png) top left repeat-x;
position: relative;
z-index: 1;
}
#content {
width: 100%;
min-height: 500px; /* This means that the box will look a nice size even with nothing in it */
background: #002142;
padding: 10px 0px 40px 0px;
}

The HTML for the content box is the following:

And this is what it should look like:

Now onto the navigation – with thanks to desizntech for this (this is using a mod of their code)

#nav {
background: #002142;
padding: 0px 0px 0px 20px;
height: 40px;
list-style: none;
font-family: "arial rounded mt bold", arial, "lucida console", sans-serif;
width: 876px;
}
#nav ul {
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 0;
}
#nav li {
float: left;
margin: 0;
padding:0px 30px 0px 0px;
}
#nav a {
display: block;
line-height: 30px;
margin: 0;
padding: 10px 20px;
font-size: 30px;
color: #fff;
text-decoration: none;
background: #none;
}
#nav a:hover {
text-decoration: none;
background: #66789c;
}
.current {
background: #66789c;
}

What you may need to modify is the #nav width. This is what it is so that the Menu can be centred.
And here’s the html for it:



Home


Portfolio


Services & Pricing


 Contact

And that should be the navigation styling!
This is what the site should look like now:

Next, we need to style the three columns. I’m just going to go right ahead and style it as an unordered list…

#columns {
list-style: none;
width: 890px;
padding-top: 30px;
}
#columns ul {
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 0;
}
#columns li {
display: inline-block;
text-align: center;
width: 280px;
vertical-align: top;
}
#columns p {
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 18px;
color: #FFF;
text-align: left;
padding: 0px 10px;
}
#columns img {
border: none;
}
.global {
padding: 0px 10px;
}
.fast {
padding: 0px 10px;
}
.twitter {
width: 290px;
}

And here’s the html to go with it:







Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum







Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit.

Now it should look like this:

Finally, onto the footer styles:

#footer {
background: url(images/footer-bg.png) repeat-x left top #ccc;
width: 100%;
min-height: 100px;
margin-top: -16px;
}
#footer p {
width: 890px;
background: url(images/footer-logo.png) no-repeat bottom right;
text-align: center;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
color: #666;
padding-top: 50px;
}

And here’s the html to go with it:



Copyright Gungurru Web Design 2009

Note: that last div closes the div align center from earlier…

And, if I’ve managed to give correct instruction, the site should look something like this:

And that concludes this tutorial: Please do tell me what you think and how you got on with the tutorial! And if you have found this useful, and want to see more, just subscribe for the latest updates (there’s an interview with Chris Spooner coming up soon)!

Design a Vintage WWII Poster: a Photoshop Tutorial

Joe Swinn — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:28:56 +0000

Ok. As a nice easy start to my tutorials, we’re going to create a World War II themed poster. Here’s a look at what we’ll be creating:

Now we’ve all seen these kinds of things in museums, history books, etc. It’s actually dead-simple, and gives a great end result, too.

Create a new photoshop file – make the canvas size 1500 x 1000

Get a large sized worn paper texture – I’m using http://www.sxc.hu/photo/319356 from SXC because it’s just right for the job.

Place the image on your canvas, and do some adjustments to make sure that it fits nicely. Note: If you can’t see the transform controls, just check the ‘show transform controls’ box at the top. When it is suitably adjusted, apply the transformation by selecting any tool from the panel, and then clicking ‘Apply’ in the dialogue box.

Get a normal picture of any flag of choice. I’m just using a large sized image of the Union Jack (the UK flag) from Google – try to get one of the flags which is a direct-on image of the flag.

Insert the flag image into your canvas, and make sure that it takes up the whole size of the canvas. Then select the flag layer, and apply the wave filter (filter>distort>wave) with the following settings: Now your flag should look like this. If it doesn’t, just play around with the settings until it looks similar.

Now drop the Opacity of the flag layer to ‘5%’

If necessary, delete any bits of white space around the old paper, to make the next step look more authentic. Do this using the magic wand tool, with a tolerance of around ‘10’. Just select the white space and delete.

If you look closely at the edges, the flag seems to go over the edges of the paper. To make the flag keep to the same size as the paper, ensure that the flag layer is above the worn paper layer, and then right click on the flag layer, and select ‘Create Clipping Mask’. This ensures that the union jack does not go over the edges of the worn paper.

Next get a good image of a plane. I got a great image of a spitfire off SXC: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/520632 now insert this into your Photoshop document.

Resize the image, so that it fits nicely inside the paper, with plenty of space around. Then use the magic wand tool to delete all of the white space around the plane. If you notice, the plane has also joined the clipping layer. It’s not really important, but if you want to remove this, just right click on the layer and select ‘Release Clipping Mask’. Then place the plane inside the top half of the canvas.

Now select the plane layer, and apply the ‘Dry Brush’ filter. Do this by selecting Filter>Artistic>Dry Brush. Now apply the following settings: Brush Size: 10 Brush Detail: 0 Texture: 1. Hit ‘Okay’ to apply the filter. Feel free to play around with the settings if you want to tweak the effect.

As you can see, the image of the spitfire is now less Photo-realistic, and now more artistic. This is just the effect that we want for our poster. To really make the effect complete, and to make the image blend into the paper, change the blending mode to ‘Linear Burn’. This darkens the image, and also lets the creases of the paper show through, to give a worn look.

Now select the ‘Pen Tool’ and make the Fill Colour #3a3a0c. This is a dark green colour. With that, draw a slanted bar across the canvas. Do this by just clicking where you want the four corners.

Next, drag the ‘Bar’ layer to just above the flag layer, and then right clicking, and selecting ‘Create Clipping Mask’. Now the bar will not cross beyond the (uneven) edges of the paper. Now change the blending mode of the layer to ‘Overlay’.

If it is necessary, try to align the rotation of some of the plane with the angle of your bar. This is just for layout purposes.

For the next step, you will need two good WWII style poster Fonts. I am using these two free fonts: Komika Axis (http://www.urbanfonts.com/fonts/Komika_Axis.htm) and DayPosterBlack (http://www.fontstock.net/2216/dayposterblack.html). Install the two fonts, and restart Photoshop.

Pick the font Komika Axis, and choose the Colour #999999 with a font size of ’60px’ and write your small text (for me, it is: ‘We’ll soon be back in’) then hit enter, and on the new line, change the font size to ‘120px’ and the font colour to ‘#333333’ and write your second lot of text (for me, it’s ‘Good Old Blighty’ – there’s nothing like a bit of old-fashioned slang!) Then select the blending mode, and change it to ‘Multiply’ and rotate the text to fit inside the bar.

Then select the font tool again, and change the font to ‘DayPosterBlack’ and the colour to ‘#3e3e00’ with a font size of 70px. Then, in the Top-Right corner of the canvas, write your text (I’m writing ‘Not Long, Chaps’). If any other bits of the composition need moving, so that your text can fit in, just shift it or resize it to fit.

Next, find an image of a WWII soldier. I found this one (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/306300) from SXC. Bring it into your composition, and erase everything but the soldier. The easiest way to do this (for a beginner) is to use the rubber tool to go around the edges. I just used a soft-edged 21px rubber-brush-tip. You don’t need to be too accurate – just go around the edges roughly because we’ll soon be using a filter on the image.

Resize the soldier a little, and put him in the bottom-left corner, and add the ‘Dry Brush’ filter once more: Filter>Artistic>Dry Brush with a Brush Size: ‘0’ Brush Detail: ‘10’ Texture: ‘1’. Hit ‘Okay’ to apply the filter. Now change the blending mode for the soldier to ‘Multiply’.

And that’s it! More tutorials and posts will be on the way. If you need, I’m usually around to help: email me at joe@gungurru.com

If you found this tutorial to be useful, feel free to subscribe to the Gungurru Design Blog.