Experimenting with lighting and typography to create an e-card

Posted on April 16, 2015 by vgrunewald

I can’t believe it’s my last week as a formal student of Photoshop. Of course, there’s much, much more to learn, however I feel that I greatly improved my skills over the past semester, especially in training my designer’s eye to recognize the best practices for marketing and digital design. To finish off the semester, this week I created a digital e-card that the University of Florida Alumni Association would send out to their upcoming Spring 2015 graduates.

Following best e-mail practices, I kept my design width between 500-650px at 600px. I kept the design square so to be a more flexible design. I found a University of Florida graduation photo and decided to duplicate the image so that the background of the image would be in grayscale while the student in the foreground would remain in color. I cut out the student using the quick selection tool, cleaning up edges with the eraser.

Almost at the same time, I worked on the right portion of the image that would contain my text. I decided to create a curved line between the image and the text portion using a blue ellipse so as to appear more visually interesting. I found a free alligator skin texture online and applied it to the blue ellipse with a clipping mask in the Overlay blending mode, opacity level about 70%. This gave the ellipse a subtle texture that wasn’t too busy to overlay with text.

Back to my photo, I applied lighting effects to the student using three spot lights: one streaming light from the upper left corner towards the bottom right (down the student’s left arm), one streaming from the upper right corner towards the bottom left (down the student’s right arm), and one streaming down directly onto his head. I upped the intensity and dulled the absence slightly so the student appeared to glow from the front. This reminded me of that feeling you get when you graduate, the feeling that you’ve finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel. It feels so good. Since my image is rasterized (not embedded), the lighting effects do not appear as fx smart layers on the student cut-out layer. Instead, to better understand the lighting effects I used, one would have to compare the original photo (included in my submitted Photoshop files) with the cut-out layer.

I added the UF Alumni Association logo to the top right corner of the e-card with some cleaning up by the magic wand tool.

Finally, I added my text. I used free font, Bree Serif to write my main header of “Congrats!” and added various layer effects including a slight bevel and contour, a soft white stroke, and a subtle drop shadow (in gray), to give the text more depth. I then kerned the font (+75) between the ‘R’ and ‘A’ since the letters appeared to be touching. With my header evenly spaced, I added my subhead and additional copy in Droid Sans, to provide typographical contrast.

As a call to action, I included a button asking recent graduates to update their profiles with the alumni association so the association can keep track of them and keep them up-to-date on the goings on at UF. Social media icons courtesy of Font Awesome complete the card.

Overall, I am pleased with the way this card turned out. I consider typography to be a personal weakness, so this was a particular challenge for me. The lighting was also difficult at times, with my Photoshop program crashing a couple times before I finally got it right. I learned so much this semester and can’t wait to learn even more as I continue towards my goal of achieving a master’s in web design and online communication.

Designing an original moodboard for StreetTreks.com

Posted on February 18, 2015 by vgrunewald

This week, I designed a moodboard for a brand/website I will be developing in another graduate class: StreetTreks.com. The idea behind Street Treks is to create a series of informative, fun and easy-to-use self-guided walking tours of a particular city so residents, especially those new to the area, can explore all of the unique neighborhoods and see everything their city has to offer. Besides promoting new experiences, my website will also promote an alternative activity to traditional hiking. While Seattle offers many mountainous trails, the city sidewalks can take you to views just as breathtaking.

Street Treks will be a website that combines both the rugged, earthy aesthetic of traditional hiking with the sleek and modern feel of the city. To convey this feeling, I designed my moodboard with a natural color palette, contrasting rustic with city images and mixing sleek and handwritten fonts.

Before I began my board, I searched for stock photography that fit my theme. I used Unsplash and pexels.com, as well as a few other resources that can be found here.

I loosely used this tutorial to help design the layout of my moodboard using the rectangle shape tool. I used my grid and guides to help with even spacing between boxes. Once I had a layout I liked, I placed my images and applied them as clipping masks to each rectangle so each box acted as a frame. Once all images were placed, I added image adjustments to various image layers as needed, including photo filters to help cool the tone of warmer images, and decreased brightness to correct washed-out images. Because my images are embedded as smart objects, I had to double-click each image to open it as a separate file, make edits and save.

Per the project instructions, I needed to incorporate three Pantone colors of the year into my board. To add 2015’s Marsala, I selected the image of the woman holding a camera and used the color replacement brush at a high tolerance to change the color of her watch, fingernails, and bracelet. To add 2013’s Emerald, I selected the image of the woman wearing hiking boots and used the color replacement brush to change the color of her jeans from grey to green.

Finally, to incorporate 2006’s Sand Dollar, I took the image of a grayscale city skyline and added a layer of the color above the image using a “Multiply” blend mode, tinting the overall image.

Original image

Sand Dollar layer applied

The last image adjustment made was to the image of the woman holding the camera. I found a free downloadable Photoshop action called “Portrait Action” and applied it to my image. The action helps desaturate an image and comes in two parts. A couple steps must be manually done in-between Parts 1 and 2 as indicated in the instructions.

Original Photo

After Color Replacement and Portrait Action

I added two sets of text, one in modern “Coolvetica” and the other in handmade “Moon Flower Bold,” both free from dafont.com. I purposefully tried to create a contrast by placing the more modern font on a rugged image, with the rougher handmade font on the modern city skyline. I also added a few dashed boxes and compass custom shapes to make the board more interesting and balance the white text. Finally, I added a color palette sampler that I felt reflected both the natural and city beauty of Seattle.

I like to think my final moodboard conveys to the viewer the StreetTreks.com goal: to take the scenic and woodsy activity of hiking and apply it to the city you’re already living in. A forested mountain hike isn’t always close by, but a city hike, exploring new neighborhoods and discovering new viewpoints, can be right outside your front door. So bring your camera, and your map (to be provided digitally by StreetTreks.com, of course) and start trekking!

Understanding Integrated Marketing Communication by creating my own web ad

Posted on February 6, 2015 by vgrunewald

Disclaimer: This blog and its author are not affiliated with Epicurious in any way. Designs featuring their likeness are for educational use only.

This week, we discussed integrated marketing communication (IMC), a brand’s development and execution of a cohesive multi-channel identity campaign that immerses the target consumer in a consistent experience every time they encounter the brand. In this week’s assignment, I am highlighting the new visual IMC campaign launched this week by Epicurious, a recipe website owned by Condé Nast.

I really like using Epicurious to help find new recipes and I always enjoy the expert cooking tips they provide for those trickier dishes. Their previous website was pretty cluttered, a little bit too much for the user to focus on at one time. This week, Epicurious relaunched their entire brand, including a new, better website, promoting it across multiple platforms including social media and magazine advertising. Instead of just being a recipe website, Epicurious wants to be known as a “food utility” — an invaluable tool for home cooks to not only find new recipes, but to be inspired to push themselves to try even more.

Epicurious’s visual IMC campaign features this message and refreshed new logo. For consistency purposes, the brand chose to keep with their same color palette of red and white. Not only did they post a detailed article on their rebranding on their website, Epicurious also posted the announcement and new logo to their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.

The inspiration for my own Epicurious web advertisement came from a print ad they placed in Glamour magazine and a promotional video they created for the rebrand posted to their social media.

Full-page ad in February 2015 Glamour magazine

Post by Epicurious.

In my own web advertisement, I wanted to play off the branded message that Epicurious is more than just a recipe website, they are a valuable all-in-one resource – a “food utility.” When I thought of the word ‘utility,’ I thought of another all-in-one tool, a swiss army knife. This image became the basis of my design.

I started with a red background, sampled with the eye dropper from the Epicurious logo. To make my version of a swiss army knife, I created the custom shape in Illustrator for the handle. I then copied this shape into Photoshop. For its tools, I used a free cooking themed set of wingdings called Cocinitas (from dafont.com). I placed each cooking icon on its own layer and rotated and resized accordingly. I also converted each letter layer into a shape layer so they could be resized without having to adjust font size. Because I could not find a good high-resolution image of the Epicurious “epi” logo, I traced it in Illustrator before placing it into Photoshop. I then added two circles to form the handle screws. I selected all of the layers involved in the swiss army knife and linked the layers so I can resize them all at the same time. Finally, I added drop shadows to the handle and tools to add depth. I kept the shapes white, to keep consistent with the print ad.

Free wingdings from Dafont.com

I then began to place the text. For the top message (“Introducing the first ever FOOD UTILITY”) I used Helvetica, the same font used in the original ad, in order to keep visual consistency. I took the bottom slogan (“Get Inspired. #NewEpi”) from their video. I was also able to use the same typography here, Helvetica and a free font, Southpaw, from dafont.com.

For the footer text, the full Epicurious logo, I found a larger image that I placed into Photoshop, however I had to select the background of this logo with the magic wand tool and discard it since the color did not exactly match my existing background. I then tried to clean up the white lettering of the logo by using the Sharpen Filter, and by using the paint bucket tool to fill in the lettering with more white. For all of the actual text in my advertisement, I added a slight Outer Glow effect so it appeared brighter against the red background.

Finally, I wanted to add some texture to the background. I started with a high resolution wood background image from Flickr and placed this behind my red background. I then added a layer mask to the red background layer and shaded in grey so to appear opaque, revealing the texture of the wood below.

Background images used

To make the footer appear more interesting, I added another layer between the red and wood backgrounds with an image of berries (from Flickr) and added a mask with a black/white gradient so the berries would appear to fade into the wood. To improve the blending of the wood and the berries, I applied a Desaturate style to the berry layer and adjusted the opacity of the mask on the red background where the berries show through.

By keeping the messaging, color scheme, typography and general design consistent, I believe my advertisement would fit in well with the current Epicurious integrated marketing campaign. In my opinion, it may even better illustrate the message that their website is meant to be an invaluable tool to all home cooks, not just another recipe website.

A Valentine’s Day chalkboard sign using layer styles & typography

Posted on January 29, 2015 by vgrunewald

This week, I created a chalkboard sign in Photoshop using free downloadable layer styles and various typography. For my design, I chose to create a sign for local Seattle coffee chain (and a personal favorite), Caffe Vita for an upcoming fictitious Valentine’s Day special.

Before I started my project, I added the already-created layer styles simulating a chalk pattern provided by my instructor to my layer styles. I went to my Styles panel and selected “Load Styles.” I then chose one of the instructor-provided chalkboard backgrounds, set at 600 px by 800 px, as the base layer of my sign.

I wanted to use a variety of fun fonts in my design in order to replicate popular chalkboard sign styles, so I canvased my favorite free font website, dafont.com, for new typography. For my text, I chose GrutchShaded (a hip serif for the name of the coffee shop), Moon Flower (a skinny hand-drawn type for that homemade flare), and Handy Handy (an obviously handwritten font to add to the realism of the sign). For consistency, I chose to only use two fonts for the majority of the design.

Typography used in this project

After I typed out my text, I added the chalk pattern layer styles I added to my panel earlier. I went to Window —> Styles to open my panel and went through each layer of text and added a colored chalk pattern. In order to vary the roughness of the chalk, I opened up the Pattern Overlay layer style menu and adjusted the scale of the pattern to fit my desired appearance for some layers.

Adjusting the scale of the chalk pattern overlay

I wanted to add some pictorial elements to my sign as well. Per my assignment instructions, I was only allowed to introduce pictures by way of wingding fonts. Again, I scoured dafont.com to find wingdings of coffee cups and hearts, to go along with the Valentine’s Day theme. I found New York, New York 2 (‘Z’ is a coffee cup), and heart-themed My Valentine’s Love.

When placing the coffee cups, I did so in two separate layers and flipped one cup horizontally (Edit —> Transform —> Flip Horizontal) in order for them to appear facing one another. I then joined these two layers so I could move and resize both cups at the same time. I also adjusted the scale of the pattern overlay.

When placing the hearts (in this case, “M”) I rotated the pictorial text about 45 degrees and adjusted the scale of the pattern overlay in order to appear like steam rising from the coffee cups.

I placed my instructor-provided decorative ornaments last by going to File —> Place Embedded and resizing the images (and my text) accordingly. I added the chalk pattern layer styles to these layers as well.

Finally, because I had so many different layers of text, I decided to group relevant layers into folders to improve my file organization.

See my final sign below! I really like the overall effect the chalk pattern layer style gave the typography and I think with the right choice of fun and handwritten fonts, the effect comes across fairly realistically. Now to crack how those baristas actually hand-draw those cool signs without any help from Photoshop!

Using Photoshop layers to make a BLT sandwich – yum!

Posted on January 16, 2015 by vgrunewald

My first Photoshop assignment relies on the concept of utilizing layers to stack and organize images. In this assignment, a fictitious restaurant, Albert’s Grille, has asked me to make a graphic featuring a BLT sandwich. My instructor provided the basic images: a plate, a slice of white bread, lettuce, tomato and bacon strips. My instructions: make a sandwich, stacking each item in its own layer.

Before I started this assignment, I thought about what questions I would ask if Albert’s Grille was indeed a real new client:

What type of restaurant is Albert’s Grille? The image should fit in with the current restaurant branding.
What is the purpose of this graphic? Will it be shown on an online menu, or as a large enticing image on the restaurant’s homepage?

I decided to think of Albert’s Grille as a friendly neighborhood diner. The purpose of the image should be broad and useful across their website, meaning it should be enticing but also clearly show the contents of the sandwich, in case it’s used on an online menu.

Instructor-provided starting images

I decided to work with a blank 8″ x 8″ canvas at 72 ppi and created my own plaid tablecloth pattern to use as a background using this online tutorial. Using the magic wand tool, I opened up and worked with each of the provided images to remove their white or busy backgrounds in favor of transparent ones, starting with the plate. If food images had a shadow or outline, I removed those as well using the magic wand or quick select tool, touching up with an eraser as needed. One at a time, I dragged each food item from their separate files into my project canvas, each item becoming a new layer.

Once all sandwich components were on my “plate,” I played with the canvas composition and image sizing. In order to have a better perspective of all sandwich components, I opted to move my plate slightly off canvas so I could have more of an angled view of the sandwich instead of completely top-down view. I also thought this view was more aesthetically pleasing. I rotated my bacon strips. I also duplicated the tomato slice layer and merged the two in order to make the tomato layer appear more realistic (otherwise that would be one giant tomato!). Once I was happy with the placement of my sandwich components, I created two new layers between the bacon and the top slice of bread – one for mayo and one for mustard. To create the mayo and mustard, I used a hard round brush and adjusted the shape dynamics (including size jitter, roundness jitter and scattering) in order to create more of a “squeeze bottle,” less uniform, effect.

Mayo/mustard brush settings

To create the logo around the bottom rim of the plate, I first downloaded the “Airstream” font from dafont.com, a font I believed fit with my mental image of Albert’s Grille. After adding my text to the canvas, I used the warped text feature (found in the option menu when the text tool is selected) to arc and bend the text to fit the curvature of the plate.

A few additional creative liberties:

I added drop shadows to the plate, bottom bread, lettuce, tomato and bacon layers by double-clicking on each layer and checking the “Drop Shadow” option on the menu (adjusting for opacity of the shadow as desired).
The bacon strips image appeared to be brighter than the other food images, so I decreased that layer’s brightness and contrast in order to make the lighting of that layer more consistent with the others (found in the top menu under Image –> Adjustments –> Brightness/Contrast).
Burn tool

I thought the plain white bread on top of the sandwich looked a bit bland. I decided to “toast” the bread using the burn tool on this layer. I never used the burn tool prior to this project, so I looked at this tutorial for a basic idea and practiced “toasting” the slice of bread image until I settled on the effect I wanted. I’m honestly still not 100% sure how to use this tool, however I know by adjusting the exposure of the tool, as well as the color (white vs. grey vs. black), you can “burn” in different tones to achieve a desired affect. I know this tool is not primarily used for toasting bread in Photoshop, so I look forward to learning about its more practical uses later in this course.

Overall, I’m happy with the way the image turned out. I not only built upon my existing knowledge of layers, but also learned how to use new tools. Below is a full-size version of the final graphic:

Vicki Grunewald: Portfolio

My Design Portfolio

Tag Archives: layers

Experimenting with lighting and typography to create an e-card

Designing an original moodboard for StreetTreks.com

Understanding Integrated Marketing Communication by creating my own web ad

A Valentine’s Day chalkboard sign using layer styles & typography

Using Photoshop layers to make a BLT sandwich – yum!