I recently designed a poster and postcard for a Mercedes Benz dealership and their partnership with a local performing arts hall. Here was the brief:

Design a poster that communicates the message that we are giving away tickets to the Broadway series. To be in with a chance to win, they must come to the showroom, and we want the ad to encourage them to also test drive the new 2010 GLK while they are there.

So, I got to work. Firstly, I got the document ready in Photoshop, 22 x 28 inches, 300 dpi. I gave it a .127 bleed to work with.

I decided that a decent stock image of the interior of a theater would work nicely, as the posters were to be placed inside the lobby area of the performing arts hall. This imagery would also give me the upscale look I was hoping to create to tie in with the Mercedes Benz brand. So, I placed the above stock image into the photoshop document, and sized it to take up just over half of the poster vertically.

Then, I added dark grey to the bottom half of the poster, pulling the color from a Mercedes Benz brochure. I then decided it was time to place in the main message of the poster, and the text I was supplied with was, “WIN A PAIR OF PREMIUM ORCHESTRA SEATS TO THE 2009-2010 BROADWAY SERIES”. I added this text and after some formatting, it started to fit nicely. The upper level of the seating in the image needed to be darkened down so that the white text would stand out clearly. The font type used is the the standard Mercedes Benz font, Corporate S.

By adding a slight drop shadow ( opacity=100%, angle=120, distance=37px, size=5 ) and dark outer glow ( opacity=85%, size=32 ), the text now popped and would be easily legible from a distance when viewed in the lobby of the performing arts hall.

The 2010 GLK car image was going to be placed on the stage, so I had to first create a stage and then clip the image of the GLK that I was provided with. I created the stage in three steps. First, I drew an elongated oval shape in light grey, with the pen tool spanning the width of the poster. I then duplicated that layer, and added a filter to it. ( Filter > Render > Fibers ) To give it somewhat of a spotlight look, I masked over right and left hand sides slightly.

Once the stage was complete, I placed the clipped GLK layer, and placed it onto the stage. I carried out some photoshop work on the car to enhance it a little, and you can see the changes I made in the before and after image below.

To finish it off, I placed in the additional text supplied by the client and the poster was ready for print. I flattened all layers and pdf’d it and sent it off. The postcards were designed in the same style to match the posters, and together they make a nice impact inside the performing arts hall on show nights.

The way in which we communicate in today’s world as humans is becoming increasingly complicated and cumbersome. With so many methods of communication, which do you use, and when you do select one, how do you know that method is the best for the recipient to receive the message through?

Here is how I got to the current state of mind I am currently in:

We all want instant gratification; instant answers. Websites with a “live chat available” option is a like an oasis in the desert for the wandering nomad lost without a camel. I have a question, and I want a response immediately. This is the world we live in. However, I am also on the computer a lot, which makes me dislike my phone and speaking on the phone more and more as a way of communicating. This seems to be typical with most “techy” types as we work mostly in an online world, where we control when and how communication is made. The telephone naturally becomes a nuisance and an interruption.

However (again)….the telephone is the most efficient way to get the instant answer we are looking for, that instant gratification most of us demand as 21st Century civilians.

So, we are somewhere in between a rock and a hard place. Or on Twitter. Is that the solution for this communication conundrum?

There are a a few ways that you can achieve this in Photoshop, but this tutorial will simply go through my personal process of how to create a post-it note pretty quickly. I tried not to use too many shortcut keys when doing this just so those with less Photoshop experience could follow what was going on.

However, here are some of the shortcut keys used and what they do: (MAC controls in grey)

CTRL/CMD + N = create new document

CTRL/CMD + T = free transform (then right click to select "Warp")

Press 5 and 0 on Number Key = drops opacity of selected layer to 50%

ALT/OPTION + Click + Move = duplicate the layer

Would you like some more Photoshop shortcuts? Check this out

(If you are reading this in your feed reader, the lightbox function will not work, so you will be brought to a new page displaying the video. Please visit the post link first to view in the lightbox, thanks!)

Click here to view tutorial

Difficulty: Easy

The quality of the video is a little on the scratchy side, I am still new to creating video tuts and all of the export settings when publishing it. It will get better the more I do, thanks.

Previous Video Tutorials:

#1 : Die-cut Business Card – How To Mock Up for a Client

Many users of photoshop don’t seem to ever get their hands dirty in the animation tools that Photoshop gives you. Well, this post is here to help you to start using more than $50 worth of photoshop!

First , we need to create our image, with all of the layers that will make up this animation. In the image below, I have 5 layers. 4 different background color layers and one text layer. The animation I want to achieve is simply to have the background color change thru the different colors. Very basic animation but it is a good start in learning how to animate in photoshop.

Now, we need to open up our "Animation" window (have you ever opened this up before?!) Go to "Window > Animation" and the animation panel should pop up at the bottom of your photoshop interface.

To start building our animation, we need to create "frames" in the animation panel. Click on the icon "Duplicate selected frames". This will duplicate the first fame already displayed in our animation panel. I am going to create 4 frames for this simple animation; One frame for each background color.

Once you have the correct number of frames that you want, now we need to determine what layers are to display in each frame. So, for the first frame, I want the dark teal color to show up along with the text layer. Click on the "eye" icon to hide the layers that should not be visible in the first frame. For this animation, I am hiding the other background colors for the first frame.

Complete this step for each frame in your animation, hiding and showing the correct layers for each frame.

Now we need to decide how long each frame should display for….for my animation, I will make each frame show for 2 seconds. The image below shows you where to click to control the seconds for each frame.

After you have added the timing, test your animation. Click on the play button at the bottom of the animation panel and you should see your animated gif in action.

There you go! You just learned how to create an animated gif using photoshop! Let’s not stop there, there is one more little tool that will help you to create more advanced animated gifs. We are going to use the "tween" tool.

Using Tweening

*NOTE** If you are going to create an animation using tweening, leave the timing set up until last. If you do this first on your original frames, each tween frame added will have the same time delay on each new frame as the original ones.**

To keep with our previous animation, let’s say I now want the text "brianyerkes.com" to scroll up and down as part of my animation. I need to move the text layer in each frame set this up.

In the first frame, move the text layer to the top of the document, and off of the displayed area. On the next frame, move the text to the bottom of the document, off of the displayed area.

So now, your first two frames should not have text visible inside them when you are looking at your animation panel. Repeat these steps for the other 2 frames, one with the text at the very top and one with the text at the very bottom.

With the first frame selected, click on the "more" icon on the very right top of your animation panel.

Click on "Tween", and you will be given a few tween options like frames to add for the tween animation. You can play around with these settings , but for this animation, I have used the default of 5 frames and tween with the "next frame". Hit "ok" and you should see your new frames added to your animation panel.

Continue to the old 2nd frame; now my 7th frame after the tween addition. Add a tween to this frame and do this for the other original frames. On the last original frame, you will need to select "First Frame" in the drop down menu for which frame to tween it with.

Play around with the time delays on each frame including the tween frames, and you are now ready to play your animation and test it out! If it looks good, go to "Save for web & devises" and select "gif". Done!

Ugly animation but at least it shows you how to achieve this!

This was an exciting design project for me personally as well as for my company to receive, as this client is soon to be the most popular restaurant in our area. It is currently under construction, and will be part of a $20 million Luxury Yacht Club & Marina property.

The Brief
The imagery in the logo was an important aspect to ensure that it gave off the "waterfront" feeling. The restaurant will be mainly visited by the large number of tourists that visit this area each year, and so the identity of the restaurant has to feel "vacation" like, and give off the sense of "holiday destination".

In addition, the property is going to have a large sign outside facing the water, so that boaters passing by the marina will be able to see the logo, along with the Yacht Club logo which is already up.

The restaurant also spends a large amount on print advertising , so the restaurant logo design had to be striking and keep in line with the overall Yacht Club brand that has already been firmly established in the area.

Ideas and Concepts
The Yacht Club is a luxurious membership only property, with the restaurant open to everyone. The logo design for Bayfront Bistro had to give off the "luxury" feel, but also had to be somewhat casual to ensure that visitors understood the type of restaurant it is. It’s not too fancy, but it’s not "walk in from the beach with your bathing suits on" either.

So, the design had to portray both upscale, yet casual.

Immediately, I had my first concept. Wine glass and palm trees. The wine glass shows the class, and the palm trees give it a relaxing touch. The two seemed to fit the balance I was looking for in this imagery and so I began to sketch a few concepts around this idea.

15 hours of traveling to Europe is a great time to get some logo design sketches done! So, as I developed the wine glass and palm tree concept, it soon began to take shape. If you notice from the sketches, I did have one idea that I thought was pretty interesting; Using the wine glass shape as the "y" in Bayfront.

Some other concepts that I worked on are shown below. The client sent each concept to a large group of people, as a small piece of market research, and most seemed to favor Logo #1 quite a bit. Second in line was the concept discussed above.

Logo 2 was my personal favorite mainly due to the fact that it is much more subtle in its imagery and it is a more creative, and abstract way of presenting the message. The idea in Logo 2, is that there are 3 elements displayed…united into one mark. Wind, Sail, Water. These three elements combined give off a slight "sea shell" image, adding to the "waterfront", "beach" idea.

Logo 3 was another way of using the wine glass and palm trees, but the client decided that the word "Bayfront" could not be split up in that way.

So, I developed the original concept further, and we decided that it would be wise to have a horizontal version as well as the vertical version for the format of the logo .

Once we had the final logo nailed down, I mocked up how the logo would look applied in different ways.
Here it is added to a restaurant building as signage, along with a sample menu.

The logo has just gone to the signage company, and the restaurant and yacht club property will be completed in the next few months. I will probably get some photos at the Grand Opening of the property when it happens, so subscribe to my site , and you will be notified when they are up if you like.

Here is the final logo, along with the horizontal format

On February 26th, David of DavidAirey.com posted about his logo design project for a client and he also showed a mockup of the business card with a die cut. Due to the fact that this card wasn’t in print yet, David wanted to show the client what the die cut effect would look like.

So, as good designers do, he created a nice visual of what the card would look like if the client decided to reach a little deeper into her pocket ($$$) for a die cut business card.

A few people commented on his post asking how he created the “fake business card” that looked so real with the die cut and everything. Jacob Cass was one of them

So, here’s a quick, and very rough tutorial on how to do this for yourself. Please remember this is my first video tutorial production, and it goes pretty quickly at the start! I didn’t get too detailed in the Photoshop tools, how they are used etc, so beginners may get a little lost!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO IF IT IS NOT DISPLAYING ABOVE

If you do this, I would spend a little more time on it making it look better than what I did, but you get the idea hopefully!

Looking at David’s a little closer, it looks as though he may have created a “shadow” layer that allowed him to give only the corners a darker shadow so it gives the effect of being raised from the surface at the corners. This also adds to the “real” feel of a mockup like this.

If you have any questions on how this is done, please feel free to ask away in the comments below!

Future video tutorials will be posted right here so please subscribe to my blog and stay in touch! Thanks!

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