Tutorials
Ever since the addition of the Object > Pattern > Make workflow to Adobe Illustrator in CS6, creating seamlessly repeating patterns has never been easier! Beforehand, it was necessary to manually place graphics so they repeated from edge to edge, but now it can all be done visually using Illustrator’s Pattern interface. Follow along with this tutorial to learn how to create a seamlessly repeating pattern in Adobe Illustrator. We’ll compose a series of illustrations, then I’ll show you a useful tip for adding a background colour directly to your pattern swatch.
I recently came across the website Junk Type, which is a compilation of nostalgic labels and packaging designs from various antique household products. Seeing all those old brand logos gave me the inspiration to make my own, so in this tutorial I’ll take you through the process of creating a retro logo design for the fictional brand ‘Hard Graft Elbow Grease’. Many of those original logos contained the brand name within a geometric shape, so we’ll use Illustrator’s type and shape tools to construct a similar layout. After decades of wear and tear those old product boxes are aged and damaged, so watch until the end to discover some additional techniques to add distressed effects to your design to give it a true retro look in both Photoshop and Illustrator.
In today’s video tutorial I’m going to share some useful techniques for creating a glowing effect in Photoshop to make objects appear as if they are illuminated. I’ll be applying the effect to the antlers of a deer in this example to create a surreal fantasy image, but the same process can be used to add lighting effects to all kinds of objects within a scene.
In today’s Photoshop tutorial I’m going to show you how to create a ‘speed lines’ text effect. This tutorial is an alternative to my original Speed Lines Type Effect tutorial for Adobe Illustrator from back in 2017. In that video, I showed how Illustrator’s shape building tools helped to add the fast movement lines, but I actually found this method for Adobe Photoshop to be much easier. The result isn’t a vector lettering illustration, but the use of Photoshop does give us the opportunity to easily add texturing effects.
In today’s tutorial I share my process of designing a business card and highlight some important considerations when designing for print. It’s super important that you get things like bleed, color mode and resolution right when you’re creating your artwork, otherwise you might end up having your files rejected by the printer, having to start again from scratch or even worse, receiving hundreds of prints back that look nothing like your design!
In today’s Adobe Illustrator tutorial I’m going to share some useful techniques for creating a vintage style engraved text effect just like the illustrations you see on paper money or banknotes. By applying transformations and effects using Illustrator’s Appearance panel we can preserve the live text, rather than have to first outline the text into shapes, which means it can’t then be edited. Using this same technique, you can combine various colours and effects to craft a variety of retro and vintage text styles, just like my free download of Retro Text Effect Graphic Styles for Adobe Illustrator.
