Tutorial Introduction:
A lot of people are making them. A lot of people suck. We don’t suck, and neither do you. This tutorial requires NO drawing talent… so don’t trip folks. You will however need Adobe Photoshop 7.0 or higher and Illustrator CS2 or higher. My name’s Dave, and this is my first ever solo tutorial. I’m very unorthodox and direct… so forgive me if I lose you guys during any part of this. I’ll do what I can to answer questions for people who think my tutorial is too confusing.
So we’re going to make a gig poster! Subject matter: Deftones and The Fall of Troy in Cleveland, Ohio at the House of Blues on May 30th. Why are the Deftones not first, you ask? Because I like The Fall of Troy better… and this is an unofficial poster, so who cares?
Let’s get to business.
So what to make? Hmmm… something fierce. Maybe something militaristic? Considering the legendary event of the fall of Troy… we’ll go that route. After searching through some public domain photos from WWII, I found a picture of Dwight D. (Ike) Eisenhower on D-day lecturing some troops.
We’re going to use this as the base of our initial illustration… but the hand, it lacks emotion. It’s ok. We’re all designers and we can fix this, right guys?
Istockphoto.com (a lifesaver for all stock photo needs) will be our resource. If you do not have an account, get one. If you would rather go the free route – www.sxc.hu, better known as Stock Exchange, has a slick selection of free stock photos. You’ll still need an account, but it’s free.
I found this chick holding a gun on istock. We’re gonna get the cheapest one because the resolution doesn’t matter so much in this tutorial yet. Her hand will become Ike’s hand… holding a gun.
Next we have to cut out Ike and the girl’s gun so we can combine these different pieces into the same image. We’re going to use the pen tool to cut these out. I trust we can all accomplish this through knowledge gained in previous tutorials. WARNING: Using the pen tool in Photoshop is tricky… to keep your anchor points from drifting off into oblivion, you have to alt+click them (The same way you would click your anchor points in Illustrator). Make sure your shapes fill color is an obnoxious color so you don’t lose it in the photo.
Once you have the shapes made to cut them out (and it’s ok if it took 3000 shapes and layers to make it) you’re going to merge them all to one layer. Ctrl+click your “shape layer” to make a selection and then click the actual image’s layer. Press Ctrl+C to copy and then press Ctrl+V to paste it into it’s own layer. Do the same for the girl’s gun. Save your PSD’s in case you fumble up. The hardest part is over.
Now take both shapes and tastefully combine them on a fresh canvas. Some airbrushing or cutting may be needed to make it look real. It’s up to you. The rotating of the hand will be needed to make it fit on Ike’s arm. Make your image 300 dpi (image>image size) and don’t worry about the image quality. Merge the hand layer with the Ike layer and make it gray scale.
You now have Ike pissed off and holding a gun.
Here is where it gets a little interesting and it might be hard to follow here. Create three files in Photoshop that overcompensate in size for the Ike-shape - you don’t have to save them or anything. They’re there for copying purposes only. Throw a copy of Ike into each of them. Make sure they all remain on their own layers. We’ll be playing with the contrast next.
Above are the setting you’re going to make Ike the first two files. The third will be -100% on both Brightness and Contrast. It will result in just a shape of him in solid black. Now open Illustrator and make a new file at 11×17 portrait orientation.
Size down the Photoshop window and drag over each of the layers that have been brightness/contrast-adjusted into Illustrator. Line them up horizontally and start Live Tracing them one-by-one using the “Black and White logo” option. The option is located on the top tool bar once your photo is selected. Copy these attributes in the photo below.
Live Trace is basically Illustrator’s tool for deciphering and creating graphics into vector art automatically. It was a new feature in CS2 and it’s way cool, but can have some backlashes. Like all automated solutions to things done best by hand, there are sacrifices made with the result. A lot of times, your Live Traced images get lossy. Having them at a high resolution most times solves this but not always. In our case though… the dirtier, the better.
Now make sure each image is expanded. Use your magic wand tool and select the white areas that Illustrator assumed when you dragged in the Photoshop layer. They’re there, trust me. Once all selected – delete them. They’re not needed. Now’s your time to start figuring out a color scheme for this big project. Here’s what I chose.
Having 1 dark color, 1 to 3 medium tones, a light color, and a wild-card color is pretty mandatory when making 4 to 6 color prints. They work better. Although this wouldn’t be a silk screened poster, following this limited color rule assists in giving it an authentic gig poster appearance.
Doodads are always the hot ish in your designs, so we’re using some from our arsenal, the Go Media Vectorpacks. Along with a few we’ll be making from scratch. Below is what we’ll be using from the packs. (side note: we’ll be using a bunch of stuff from Go Media’s Arsenal. If you haven’t any cash to purchase some of the packs, we’ve got some samples here).
We’re using 5 splatters from the various Splatter packs and one wheel-type doodad from Set 5’s Decorative Ornaments pack. Now we’re going to get all these shapes ready and drag em over into our Illustrator file. Mind you we have not touched Ike yet… don’t worry about him or the colors. Let’s get trendy.
Make a long, skinny rectangle and duplicate it about 80 times (alt+click and drag it to copy it once, and then press Ctrl+D over and over again until you get a lot of bars) or more depending on your preference. Align them to the center and space them evenly. Now use the add function in your pathfinder box and expand the selection. Now that it’s own shape – rotate it 45 degrees (holding shift + rotate will rotate the shape in increments of 45 degrees). Duplicate that shape about 3 or 4 times.
Now duplicate/take a splatter from the vector art we’ll be using and place it on top of that shape you made. Select both objects and intersect them (it’s an option in the pathfinder box as well). Expand the appearance of your object.
You now have a distressted pattern of diagonally running lines. It’s a pretty neat trick to add some organized distress to your designs. Do this a few times with different splatters. That is why I’m encouraging duplicating your objects and not just dragging and dropping. A lot of these shapes need to be kept preserved because they’ll be used over and over again throughout this project.
Now make sure your actual poster area is clear of any objects. Moving them to the sides of the artboard and separated is always a good thing to do so you can just drag in what you need when you need it. Make a rectangle in the 11×17 area. Bleed of the edges a little bit for good measure. Now fill it with a gradient of color 1 and 2. Throw a medium color in there if you want it to blend smoother (I added some earthy-red in the middle). It might help, or it might not, who knows. Experiment and be different.
Now we turn to the Go Media Texture Packs. I want a concrete-looking surface to start this off with. We’re going to use Concrete8.jpg. It’s a nice and has lots of good grainy tones. Place it into your file (file>place).
Stretch the image to fit the poster size. Now go to your transparency settings and choose the multiply setting. All the dark ridged areas of the texture are now accented onto the gradient. Drop the opacity down to like 30% or so. Lock these two objects in place at the very bottom and we’re onto designing the focal piece of the poster.
So now back to good ole’ Ike. Make the Solid shape of his body Color 3, The medium-detailed shape Color 4, and the least detailed shape Color 2. Align them in this order – Color 3, Color 4, Color 2. You have your focal image almost intact. Add a stroke of the same color to Color 3’s shape to bring it all in. Expand the stroke if you need to, in case we do any abnormal sizing to the figure. Group the three objects, and there you have Ike.
Take the wheel object we chose from Set 5’s Decorative Elements pack and place it right in the middle of the poster (above the gradient/texture combo). Size it up huge if you have to. It will accentuate Ike’s figure in the design. Fill it with Color 1 and drop the opacity down to 30%. We’re done with that.
Grab all those crazy diagonal line objects we made and fill them with color 3 or 4′ (your call, color 3 was too strong for my liking – I chose 4). I duplicated them and threw them in the middle-area of the poster, kinda outlining where Ike will be. Grab Ike and throw him in the mix. Make sure he’s the top layer. We’re almost there.
Let’s play with our text options. I want something nice and organized, but already beaten up with some grunge. I don’t want it a grungy impact font because those are way too common for post-hardcore bands nowadays… Luckily we created the Affliction font (located at our Arsenal site). It’s styled well and beat up tastefully. We’re using it!
So we’re gonna play with the font and sizing. After a few options, I think stacking the text all the same size by breaking up “THE FALL” and “OF TROY”and adjusting the tracking and leading should do it. Check out the settings I used below.
Duplicate that in case it gets messed up and right click the text and create outlines. Color it with color 3 and place it right above Ike in the poster. Add the Deftones with a larger tracking size and smaller font size and we’re in business.
I added a rectangle at the bottom for the venue information. I applied a stroke to the rectangle, broke up Ike’s group, and wedged it between the Color 4 object of him and the Color 2. Since we won’t be moving Ike at this point, we’ll leave him ungrouped, but the effect just created makes Ike’s figure look almost like a part of the rectangle; eliminating the look of the area being an afterthought. Now add your venue’s information and all that good stuff. Adjust your bleeds, save it out… and you are DONE!
Thanks for reading my first tutorial, I hope you learned something. I’m now going to go eat a hot dog.
-Dave
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:58 pm
very well done, a great tutorial. please do more.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Sweet,nice tutorial.Can I use “Flash” instead for live tracing,seeing as I haven,t got illustrator?
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
@jahmodi - that’ll work too I suppose.
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Man, you guys are the best! Keep the tutorials coming. I’m to get my boss to buy all of your Vectorpacks in the morning
May 4th, 2007 at 3:41 am
Great tutorial, I was planning to do something in a similar style for my band, so that’s a nice inspiration.
I’d also like to have that “magic want tool” you are going on about. On second thought it’s maybe just a typo *sigh*
Anyway thanks again for the article.
May 4th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Free-kin Kick ass………the graphic breakdown was my favorite part. Never thought of doing it that way. Thanks.
May 4th, 2007 at 8:03 am
And check out http://kuler.adobe.com/ it’s a great color comp idea site…..if you didnet already know about it.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Yah, that was like, “Take trite design convention #1, add Trite Design Conventions #2 and #3, and blamo.”
Also, you didn’t put The Fall Of Troy first because you like them more. You put em first, because the design problem here would have been to put the Deftones first (they certainly would have been the headliner). So instead of solving a design problem, you used a bad example of how to work-around your issue. It’s obvious that if a promoter came to you with this project, that it would be rejected. He’s more worried about the tickets the Deftones pull in, not Fall of Troy.
As a design tutorial — C+
As a design problem solved? — F-
May 4th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Thanks for the great and very useful tutorial!
May 4th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Look Rietz… I don\’t know what elitist new media design firm you come from but the tutorial I created was a fun little project created SOLELY for the purpose of teaching people something they may have not already known. Not a seminar on how to visually communicate. This was a make-believe poster and it covers good features in Illustrator and Photoshop, and how to implement them well. I don\’t want the end user of this tutorial to make what I made… but to take the techniques and create something ridiculously awesome with their own creative drive.
Re-reading your post made me realize that A.) I Shouldn\’t be explaining myself to you and B.) How people should mind their own business or write a better tutorial if what they see is deemed as garbage.
Get off the kick kiddo and worry about your own. It\’s people like you that make up the stomach-wrenching headache-heavy side of the industry many of us fight tooth and nail to stake a claim in.
Thanks for the feedback.
May 4th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
@reitz - I’m glad you feel so strongly about the topic. But I’d like to respond.
I argue against your opinion that this would have been rejected if this was for an actual poster because you think the Fall of Troy wouldn’t sell tickets.
You are missing the point. If the Fall of Troy is promoting their shows, who are they going to put on the poster? Themselves of course.
If the Deftones are promoting it, then they’ll put themselves on the top and TFOT on the bottom.
If an unbiased venue was promoting it and wanted to make sure they got more ticket sales, yes, the Deftones would be a better headliner choice.
But since there is no promoter, there is no issue with who to put at the top. It could be Avril Lavigne or Weird Al, it doesn’t matter who they are. The point is to discuss design elements and getting that “gigposter” feel using the basic tools from Photoshop and Illustrator.
If you are at all familiar with our work, you’d realize that we’ve done plenty of posters for promoters and yes, it’s up to them what content goes where. And never is a poster flat out rejected, it’s simply revised. I don’t see why you’re making such an effort to talk shit.
But keep it up. It’s fun. Btw, you could have at least taken credit for your opinion and put in a real email address. If you are going to have the nerve to talk shit, then back it up!
May 4th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Yes, Rietz. Please give us a link to your work so we all know what real designers are doing these days. Would love to see the work you’ve done for the local elementary school’s bake sale and the Lost Dog flyer you made for your Aunt.
May 5th, 2007 at 1:09 am
Great tutorial! It really inspired me to go out and try some of these techniques!
May 5th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Wow, this is amazing. I was confused at first wiht what you did with the hand but I forgot to read the part that you rotated it.
May 5th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Great tutorial..really solved my putting off switching from freehand to illustrator…but that’s not what this is about eh? The image composition was awesome..I know, sure it’s probably vector graphics 101 but never really thought it up that clearly. And all the rest makes the poster a truly designed one, tons of ideas inspired by it now…and truly in want of full vectorpack set..gotta get money first, darn it.
and please keep this up.
Ar+ design Student
May 5th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
I think no matter what anyone says, this tutorial is perfectly fine and I learned a lot from it, you shouldn’t have to back yourself up because there’s nothing wrong with the tutorial in the first place.
May 5th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
@Rietz
Lighten up man, this is supposed to be fun and informative.
Rietz as an a-hole  A++++++
May 5th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
classic - right, but it’s fun to chat about the difference of opinion.
May 5th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Great F’n tutorial, I really enjoyed reading it and I learned some things from it. Keep it up man and thanks again.
May 6th, 2007 at 5:49 am
u deserved that hot dog
May 6th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Just wanted to give out a huge THANK YOU for all the great tutorials you guys been giving out for free. I´m currently studying graphic design in Sweden and thanks to you guys I have been rising to the top of my class (a little self-confident, I know…but it´s the truth, hehehe). There is no reason for you to give out these free lessons, so no matter what anyone says about them…they really help alot of us out. Keep up the awsome work and if you ever would like to get an intern from Sweden, give me a call
If nothing else…I can be in charge of making the cofee.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Great Illustrator (Photoshop) Tutorials
I just found your site and have been searching the internet for tutorials that show work from beginning to end utilizing different techniques, believe me there aren’t many. Most tutorials don’t show real world (type) designs from start to finish and the workflow used. Your tutorials are appreciated, keep up the good work.
Ah, by the way, Reitz, “not everyone here are design experts, that is why we look for tutorials, you should step back and think about people who are beginning to dive into the magic of illustrator or people who are looking for inspiration. AND these guys take time out to share tips and techniques that help others achieve their goals.” Again, thanks for the tuts.
May 6th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
im from dominican republic i really enjoy this tutorial so awesome keep that way
May 7th, 2007 at 9:14 am
This is really helpful, thanks alot.
May 7th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Who the F*&^ cares who’s on the top of the poster. You guys rock! keep up the good work and keep the info. coming. This is one of the best sources on the net in my own opinion for design tutorials and fresh inspiration!Thanks.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Realy good tutorial has tought me a few things thank you
May 7th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
This couldnt have come at a better time, since a band just asked me to make a gig poster. Thanks this will be extremely helpful
May 8th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Excellent Tutorial, reallt useful - would love to have some more. Please dont let numb-nuts comment put you off putting the time in - some of us really do appreciate it!
May 8th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Really enjoyed the tutorial & learned a lot. Cheers.
May 8th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
These are awesome. Really helping me understand the tools and even things like color separation.
May 8th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
I fully understand that people NEED tutorials etc. The thing that kills me is that so many tutorials are focused on ripping off one’s style. Why not just post tutorials titled,”How to vectorize a raster image” or “Create vector paths from a raster image”. Something along those lines. Please don’t get me wrong - what you are doing is a huge help to many beginners and I’m sure they all appreciate the kind gestures. However I would like to see more originality from such a talented individual like yourself. I can tell you right now that if we had a client come to our agency and they said,”make it look like this”, we would inevitably be chastised for producing it the moment it went to print.
Just some food for thought, or my opinions on the subject. Take it as you see fit.
Thanks.
May 8th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Dear Anonymous - I’m not sure what you are getting at? Are you saying that our tutorials have no originality to them? I can’t tell if you are criticizing our tutorials or complimenting them.
Are you joking when you ask for tutorials on “how to vectorize a raster image?” Because there are tons of those out there. Or are you being sarcastic and claiming that’s all we are showing people how to do. I think our tutorials are very original, but ambiguous enough to allow for the user to use their creativity and use our techniques in their own designs.
Please clarify this, I’d email you but you wanted to remain unknown.
Jeff
May 9th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Stay tuned for my next tutorial. How to vector trace a circle… BY HAND! with the pencil tool. bam!
Anonymous, you seem to be a very advanced designer and your agency is a step above the rest. I can tell by your grammar that you’re sweet like that. I’m sorry we don’t have what you would “like to see”. But…
Our tutorials are much like Computer Arts Magazine’s tutorials. They take a project, with a particular style in mind, and walk you through from start to finish.
You should write them too.
And for everyone else, the feedback doesn’t discourage us. It only adds to the drive to make more. Hopefully we can attain the impossible goal of making everyone happy. Keep your eyes peeled.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Very cool tutorial. The techniques are ones I know for the most part, but knowing and implementing are different things, and it definitely helps spark inspiration seeing how someone else puts things together - thanks!
May 9th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
thats a good tutorial ….
May 9th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
thanks again for all the hard work, guys & gals. would love to see more AE toots. current trends have a ton of animated vectors and such. peace [m]
May 10th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Very nice and detailed tut. Bookmarked it and I will go trough it. Good work!
May 11th, 2007 at 11:21 am
hey guys. i just want to say hwo great i think your site is. i am a huge fan since the first day i saw it when i started design school last fall. these kinds of tutorials that you guys do are great because they dont say “copy me so you get it” they say “take this technique and run with it”.
as for the overall look of the poster here, its great. i have always been a fan of the whole distressed/grunge/etc. look. i think it works especially well for gig posters.
nice work. now if only i could afford that last darn vectorpack…..:(
May 11th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
How was the hotdog?
May 11th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Pretty cool tutorial, keep em coming!
May 11th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
I love how the GoMedia guys don’t take shit from anybody.
May 12th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Nice tutorial man!……its so awesome that you guys “share the wealth” with these tutorials, please keep them coming. And its great to see such rich talent coming straight out of Cleveland.
May 15th, 2007 at 3:11 am
cool tutorial man!
cant wait try it out
May 15th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Great tutorial - thanks.
May 15th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
amazing tutorial
and the fall of troy are really good =)
May 16th, 2007 at 5:57 am
Its really sad how these “designers” can take some crit.
Im with Reitz on this, why “design” something that wouldnt work in the first place… that just isnt fun… why not make something that might actually work… maybe and Im spitballing here restrict yourself to 2 to 4 colors (maybe even PMS) now that would be FUN!
But hey, some people are so weak that a little crit hurts there tiny little ego and all they can do is puff out their chests and spew challenges.
May 16th, 2007 at 6:59 am
Hi, i’m from Germany. I love your style and want to say “Thank You” for this great tutorials you’ve been giving us. Lot of Merci
May 16th, 2007 at 9:21 am
@ Marx,
I think you meant “can’t take some crit.” We take criticism all the time, I don’t know what you are talking about. We like to engage in conversation with our readers, so responding to criticism by Reitz wasn’t a result of bruised egos. It’s because we want to provoke discussion. Reitz made some negative comments, which is fine. We just responded.
Keep up the crits!
May 16th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Oh boy, I really like this tutorial, it’s really useful for me, because I am really good using photoshop, but with ilustrator am a mess, I like vector but my pacience sucks, and if something don´t go like a wanna, I dont keep doing it! I hope you can understandme, my english is´s really crappy, T think I jus speak the basics, am from Venezuela and in here we speak spanish all the time…
May 16th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
@Marx - There’s a reason it’s called a TUTORIAL. The content doesn’t matter. Just the look. The fact is that that’s a hot look right now in promotional concert posters. Take a look around. And on another note, I guess you were too busy bitching about the content of the tutorials to take a gander at the actual work the GoMedia guys put out for high end clients like Van Halen and Dragonforce. That shit “works.”
May 16th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
I just want to offer a grateful thanks and suggest a solution for Dave during on step of the tutorial…I believe you could benefit from using the blend tool and setting it to a specified number
of steps instead of making so many copies of one line.
May 19th, 2007 at 3:58 am
Hey fellas…
Nice to see you standing your ground. Y’all are one of my biggest inspirations and [literally] are one of the main reasons I decided to get into this business. I’ve learned quite a bit from y’all and can’t wait to see more. Tutorials are great for anybody and these douche-bags that talk crap to you can go chase themselves. Considering all of the success you guys have gained thus far, I think they are barking up the WRONG tree. Keep it going… I love your stuff.
May 20th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Because of you, I like the illustrator more.
thanks!
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:04 am
Great tutorial, guys. There is a little bit in it for everybody, and even seasoned designers might pick up a trick or two. (we ALL have different trick-bags, it’s always fun to swap and see everybody else’s!)
Keep up the good work. Should be proud of yourselves, and you’re at least doing our industry a favour by promoting good design and skills. It’s all about sharing the love!!
Cheers! — M.
May 27th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
You’ve made a great tutorial. I used it in a class project for computer design. I didn’t have illustrator, so I only used PS throughout the whole project. Thankfully that still worked. ^_^
Anyhow, thanks alot and great job.
May 29th, 2007 at 9:05 am
good tutorial good to learn usefull techniques
June 1st, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I love the result. I have been in a little bit of a creative block lately and have a few poster designs to create. This has refueled me a bit.
On a side note, and I hope this doesn’t sound amature, can’t you get the same result just using Photoshop? Is there a certain reason that an .eps or an .ai poster would be superior in this instance rather than a bitmap based format?
I do work primarily in Photoshop and I don’t want to be creating a sub-standard product if Vector has the advantage.
- Ryan Grandmison
- RustyEight Media
- http://www.myspace.com/rustyeight
June 1st, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Oh, and by the way, I’ve read all the crits to this tutorial. What people don’t seem to understand, and correct me if I’m wrong, this ad wasn’t made to go “Hey take a military guy and use him for your next poster!”
THEY ARE NOT TEACHING HOW TO BE A DESIGNER.
That is something that can’t be taught. Either you have an eye for art or not. This is the same problem I have with design schools. They teach you theory, but nothing practical. They don’t teach you Illustrator or Photoshop… they teach you futurism, post-modernism, Victorian, etc. (we’re in a post-modern era now anyway, so none of that really matters).
My point is, don’t take this tutorial on its artistic merit, take it as a chance to learn the ins and out of programs the industry uses through a tutorial that actually gives you a result rather than empty techniques and theory.
- Ryan Grandmaison
- RustyEight Media
- http://www.myspace.com/rustyeight
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:06 am
awesome!
June 4th, 2007 at 9:12 am
this totally opened more doors for me in illustrator
thanks
June 4th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
You have just as easily done this in PS without illus. Of course you’d lack the vector shit in backgrounds but you could just as simply played with the pen tool or less desirably played with a brush.
The 3 layers could’ve been thresholded and put into Filter > Artistic > Cutout and you’re golden.
I like the tut though, good experience for those who’re getting into Illus
4239123
June 5th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Hi, love the result.
Could you point me in the direction of that typeface please? Cant find it anywhere. : /
Thanks
June 5th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
hey this is a great tut thanks soo much for it and others u guys rule. HOW do you get rid of all that extra stuff outside the box when your done with the image? thx!
June 5th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
@Ash - the font is called Affliction. You can buy it here:
http://www.gomedia.us/arsenal/fonts.php
@tim - We use what’s called “Crop Marks” in Illustrator. You make a box and then go to Object>Crop Area>Make. And when you export or Save For Web, you will only export that area within those crop marks.
June 5th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
reitz -
he has a point. but this isn’t a marketing/advertising tutorial. this is a DESIGN tutorial. learning how to use illustrator. but seriously, you should put that comment you left in a marketing tutorial web site. seriously man.
June 5th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Graphic Designers can be assholes. ‘Nuff Said.
June 5th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
great work. been working with flash and photoshop to get my vector stuff done, skipping the whole illustrator bit but i like the technique with the different contrasts before tracing, adds more depth and love the vector packs. Looking forward to more.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
this tutorial is EXACTLY what i’ve been looking for. i’ve been wondering how to make the splattered look using diagonal lines, so that was particularly useful. Also, the seperation of colors on Dwight was interesting…i never thought of doing it like that. however, what is the different between how you did it (three different contrast/brightness image’s combined) and using the live trace options to use 3 colors?
anyway, thanks for this, i will deffinitely be checking out more of these tutorials…
June 7th, 2007 at 2:09 am
Thanx a lot for your job.
Your tutoials are awesome!
What do you think if some of them would be translated into Russian? Surely, with respect to all your copyrights.
June 7th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Hey, how would you do this with CorelDraw 12?
June 7th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
thx jeff!
June 8th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Truly an inspiration! Thank you for the tutorial!
June 9th, 2007 at 5:28 am
Wow, that’s a fantastic tutorial. Easy to follow and informative, I love seeing how others go about designing I always pick up new tricks that way
Thanks so much
June 11th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
geez…. a guy puts up a free resource
and gets hassle….thats the sort of grief that stops good guys like dave posting to help noobs like me…
if you dont like the tutorial dont use it..
find another….
it’s really appreciated here..thanks man..
keep going….
June 12th, 2007 at 8:24 am
great tutorial! looks amazing
June 17th, 2007 at 4:57 am
I have a couple of problems that hopefully you can fix for me…
When I copy the layers from Photoshop into Illustrator, they are copied over as a bunch of rectangles grouped together.
Also, when I select one of the newly copied over layers, live trace is greyed out, not making it a valid option to select.
Is there something that I am doing wrong, or forgetting to do?
June 18th, 2007 at 1:49 am
I’ve been trying to get the Pathfinder part of this tut to work, and I can’t. I have my lines, and the splatter image on top, and I hit the intersect button, and the paths are there but they have no fill or stroke, and I can not add a stroke or fill to them, so I hit expand, and they get deleted?
Can you explain this step in more detail?
June 18th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Enjoy your hot dog
June 19th, 2007 at 11:10 am
@Covey:
try dragging the layer from from photoshop into illustrator,rather than copy pasting (IF that’s what you’re doing). Maybe that’s why you’re not getting the live trace option?
@Justin:
this happened to me also, but I managed to figure it out. First make sure you’re doing the lines using the rectangle tool and not the line tool, Otherwise the pathfinder option won’t work correctly. Once you have all the lines done, select them and hit “add” on the pathfinder menu (maybe you’re using “group” instead?) now go ahead and try the other steps.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:15 pm
I am definitely dragging and dropping the image into Illustrator. It automatically just recognizes it as a solid image. I have to rasterize it first, and then it will allow the live trace.
not too sure why this happens, but at least I found a way around it.
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:04 am
Great tute. I like these real world tutes and I especially liked you explaining your decision making.
June 22nd, 2007 at 5:54 am
DAMN HOME SKILLET!!!
you just blew my fuckin mind
i see there are haters even in design land.. i had no idea!!
i will tell you, that coming from breakdancing world, where haters abound–and i have gotten use to think it’s normal–it’s almost FUNNY to see haters in a design context…
it makes me recontextualize my whole hateration paradigm namean!?
anyway, dave-o, you are the fucking man and go media in one day made me realize i dont need to go to design school..
i always dreamed of just doing real life shit and getting better as i go.. but i truly thought design and motion graphics might be too hard..
if someone had showed me that poster you just taught me to made, i would have said you need 5 years experience to work at that level..
SHEISE!
i guess what im trying to say is that i thank you… from the pit of my soul
your friend, now and later,
brit
elastic illusion
teaching kids to do the breakdance and getting hated on like you wouldnt even know (except you do know cuz you get hated on too)
http://www.howtodotherobot.com
and as they say in the ghett-o,
“it’s all love”
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:26 am
haha that was awesome man, thanks for the comment - best comment in years! is that you in the video? wow. you are one crazy robot dude and I would totally buy your video.
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:47 pm
@Carlos
Thank you! I was making lines, and not rectangles, that is why! You are awesome.
June 23rd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
It’s good to see tutorials, and to teach people how to create something they dont know how to so well done on that respect.
However, I dont like the poster created, for a number of reasons. There is a saturation of this style which is overused and in this case done badly through use of image, stock imagery is pretty much the same as selling out, i understand if it has to be used and is part of a brief, but for someone to use it for their own personal “non profit” poster is in my opinion the worse thing a designer can do. There has been no consideration taken into the photograph what has Eisenhower got to do with this and putting a gun in his hand!? secondly the use of typography is awful ‘gore fonts’ as theyre known are only used cos everyone else uses them, how about a nice strong slab serif or sans serif?such as helvetica or avant garde? and the overall composition of colour is trite at best.
This is mass design for the uneducated and
to teach people this way of working is misleading and pretentious.
this is just my opinion, i guess i’ll get backlash like the last guy who voiced his opinion against the work, he was completely right by the way, i dont mind.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
that’s one of my partners in the video… we have just started filming my video “how to do the pop lock”
since i guess i wrote the best comment and all i think about is go media and design and how dope it is and you guys are and all that.. like i am seriously considering having the 3 of us in elastic illusion (http://www.elasticillusion.com) fly from LA to cleveland to just bask in your glow for a few days…
so i have a request… can you guys do a tutorial where you show how you did what you did for the “hateus” intro… i have no idea how to animate vector graphics like that… i bet it’s relatively easy after effects but it would make my day…
thanks guys.. you’re so money you don’t even know
look forward to having a project to work with you guys on!
PEEEEEEEACE
brit
e.i.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:21 am
@elastic
I see. Bask in our glow huh? Haha, well the only glow here is from our monitors!
June 27th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
I am trying to drag the layers from photoshop into illustrator and nothing happens. I try to export them and nothing appears on my illustrator file. Any help?
June 29th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Yo, Camilo…
use a selection tool (polygonal lasso, regular lasso, square, or whatever gets the job done) ctrl+c copies it and when you’re in illustrator ctrl+v pastes it. done deal.
still doesn’t work?
make sure in photoshop your move tool (black arrow) is selected so you can drag it elsewhere.
hope this helped.
@ Mike… I would like to invite you, Rietz, and the other critics to engage in a beer-pong competition with me, where the winner gets to rant on what’s hot and what’s not in graphic design to a room fool of third graders.
holler.
June 29th, 2007 at 10:51 am
whoops, i meant to say full, not fool. forgive me. but yeah… offer still stands!
June 29th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
hi, i´m fascinated with the tutorials and ive already bought the vector tools, but theres a problem, my photoshop cs3 cannot reach the numeric value of -100 in contrast, so i cannot perform the effect required for this tutorial, can you please help me?
June 30th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
I dont know what i’m doing wrong, but when i add to shape area in the pathfinder part of the tutorial, whatever i have selected becomes invisible and when i expand, it completely disappears. can anyone help me understand how to mix the ink blots and the rectangular pattern?
July 1st, 2007 at 11:35 pm
First I was going to say that Rietz probably didn’t get breastfed as a child so cut him a little slack… But then I read this quote from Dave,
and I realized that more people who weren’t breastfed should comment! And on that note I must say that YOU GUYS HAVE THE WORST TUTORIALS EVER AND THEN SOME!
Seriously guys this is some great real world stuff! It was very inspiring.
Look I even made SOMETHING using some skills I learned from you, THANKS!
July 2nd, 2007 at 8:41 am
Hi, Dave
I haven’t had any experience working with an agency and have no idea how long it should take to complete a design project from conceptualization to completion. I am passionately self-taught and always wanting to learn more. how long does/ should it take for an average project?
Please excuse my ignorance.
thanks.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:38 am
@ logonathan - click the “legacy” box and it should revert to the previous versions of photoshops brightness/contrast way of editing the image.
@ sam - make sure the object you are subtracting the shape out of is on the bottom of the desired shape you want (shift+ctrl+[ or ] for absolute bottom or absolute top to make absolutely sure). or click both objects and choose the intersect option.
@ Daniel Tyack - Awesome, haha. don’t worry, we’ll have more. really good use of the tutorial by the way, i dig it.
@ Ryan - If you have all of the content needed and you’re given pretty lenient guidelines as far as artistic freedom goes… i wouldn’t expect the project to go beyond 4 to 6 hours using these methods. In some of our straight from scratch illustrations, it’s not wildly inappropriate to invest 12 to 16 hours or more. Client feedback and revisions play a major role as well and may set you a couple hours back. It really just depends on job/client/artistic direction you choose to go in.
and not an ignorant question by any means.
Take care fellas.
July 11th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Veeery cool indeed! You just learned an old bugger some fresh tricks - I love it - thanks a lot
July 16th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Is there a name for this specific style of art?
July 17th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
hey again nice tutorial (i read the sketch one first).
though I agree with one of your dissenters that this dirty surface art vector style (disintegrating lines and text, blood spatters or paint drips, cardboard or otherwise rough dirty backgrounds, angel wings, victorian flourishes, etc) has become trite and overused in pretty much every form of print and motion graphics over the past year and a half.
that said, what better way to teach a tool than to use a style that an unaquainted new user is bound to be familiar with?
nice work guys.
also I would roof your shit in beer pong dave. theres my criticism. oh and also check the sketch to vector thread for another criticism. I want to join in in the arguments!!! David Carson sucked! discuss.
July 21st, 2007 at 7:52 am
Great tutorial :}
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:33 am
whoa! i really learned alot from this tutorial! thanks!
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Thanks alot. Good tutorial. I’m trying to break out of this rut I’ve been in and this was a good start! Keep up the good work.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
oh god, no words for you, well done!
July 27th, 2007 at 6:32 am
thanks for the tutorial! here’s how it turned out.. http://vendetta-music.com/images/blue_ice_gasmask.gif
July 28th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
awesome tutorial but how do cut the stroke on the rectangle to flow with ike??
July 30th, 2007 at 7:25 am
Hey hey Guys, Dave Jeff and others.
mm I was thinking a lot of these comments.
Look Im designer from LIMA-PERU. as you know the graphic of sudAmerica in the last years had as CANNES winner BRAZIL(the most graphics) ARGENTINA. http://www.adhemas.com enter it.!!
This movement, style of GRaphism that you use, its overused in all world its true but its useful too its an easy way of fill an artboard or express an rebel sad, wild,hard smooth idea, depending of the form. Personally, as professional,improving designer I dont know if buy the vector pack or copy this style, I was thinking to creat mine,i fight evry single day for do originals works and break this vector graphism,virus Wave that i see in all medias,video tv ads,Flash and print, but by other side i usually use the graphism. So its difficult to ignore.
Suppose that vector pack took to the owners a lot of days to organize the files,take pictures,many hours in Internet, streets, graffitti, and many hours sitted in the PC, WOW Admiritations.
Id feel badly if I make money designing with unpersona