Recently I was wandering around the stalls at a classic car show admiring a collection of vintage automotive signs, which featured various lubricant and fluid brands on old rusty metal plates. It has taken over 70s years to slowly decay those tin advertisements into vintage memorabilia, but they gave me the idea to use the aesthetic to create our own rusty sign effect using Illustrator and Photoshop. Follow along with today’s tutorial to produce a simple motor oil brand sign with a 50s inspired design, using type and colours that are based on authentic examples. We’ll use Illustrator to construct the design for its powerful shape and text editing tools, then we’ll transfer the artwork over to Photoshop to distress it using a rusty metal texture. I’ll show you how a simple layer mask trick can instantly take your crisp digital design and give it a realistic weathered patina look.
Access All Areas members have a colourful collection of abstract backgrounds to download this week, courtesy of Freepik. These 10 vector graphics feature a variety of organic shapes and vibrant hues that can be used to add colourful backgrounds to your designs. Each graphic is made with a beautiful colour scheme, with subtle gradients that make the elements really pop. Use them to create eye catching posters, advertisements, stationery and other trendy designs with an abstract style.
Can you relate to this scenario? You’re working on a design and you need a high-resolution texture to add some cool effects to your artwork, but you just don’t have the time to make it yourself! Save countless hours by equipping yourself with this versatile collection of texture and pattern resources that you can choose from for years to come. This is an exclusive chance to own these best-selling packs for 99% off the regular price, with unbeatable license terms.
The style of ‘Old School’ tattoos is a popular aesthetic in the tattooing scene and has become an iconic illustration style in other genres of art. The stylised handmade drawings feature thick black outlines and bold colours, often depicting roses, anchors and pin-up girls from the tradition of sailor tattooing. Follow along with today’s Photoshop tutorial to produce a digital illustration inspired by the style of old school tattoos. Unlike tattooing with ink, Photoshop layers to make it easy to draw with the advantage of being able to delete and try again! We’ll then bring the design to life with colour, and apply a stippled shading effect to create a modern interpretation of a traditional tattoo flash graphic.
In today’s Adobe Illustrator tutorial we’re going to create a striped text effect with a retro 70s vibe. We’ll create the effect by layering up a series of strokes and fills with Illustrator’s Appearance panel, which preserves the live text so you don’t lose the ability to edit the wording. Once the artwork is complete, I’ll then show you how you can achieve an old t-shirt look with the help of my free washed and worn textures.
Access All Areas members have a great collection of vector illustrations to download this week, courtesy of Martin Malchev. These 7 superhero graphics feature powerful characters in a bold comic book style, featuring a variety of poses and backgrounds. Supplied in AI, EPS and CorelDraw file formats, these graphics can be scaled to any size. You could even break apart the vector paths to customise the colours and backgrounds.
