DJ Speakers Advertisement Design

DJ Speakers Advertisement Design

Output Result Image

Step 1

Step one is setting up the canvas. Select ‘international paper’ in your new file menu, then select A4. However, you can use whatever settings you want, so feel free to use something else. Here’s a screenshot of what I”ll be using:

CMYK/RGB color mode will be depending on if you’re getting it printed or if it’s just for practice. You’ll probably have more control over the colors though if you use RGB as the color mode.

Fill the background with a nice radial gradient.

Colors used for this gradient were #f9ae1a and #a42b21.

If you want, you can set up some rulers in the center of your document so you know where to place all of your elements later on. Hit CTRL+R to enable rulers, then drag two lines over our document. If you don’t want to see these lines while you’re working, hit CTRL+H.

Step 1.2

This is an optional step, it’s regarding the rulers that you saw in the above screenshot (where I added the gradient in). If you’re a newbie with Photoshop, my guess is you won’t know how to place the rulers in the center of the document. My usual method for accomplishing this, is the following:

1. Start by getting out the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M).
2. Now, set the settings near the top of Photoshop to Fixed Size.
3. Set the width to 50% and height to 50%.
4. Place this 50% selection in the top left of your canvas area.
5. Drag a ruler onto your canvas and hopefully it will snap to your half selection.
6. We’re done. If you were unable to complete this successfully, I wouldn’t worry about it!

OK, time to move on.

Step 2

Now you need to get some stock photos/elements. Start by going over to stock.xchng (sign up for an account, if you don’t have one), then download a stock or two, preferably of a speaker or something similar. I’m using these two stocks to start off with: Speakers 2, Speakers 5.

Step 3

Open up your stock photos and cut out the white from around the objects, like what I’ve done here:

Note: Use the Pen Tool, take your time to go all the way around the object, and it doesn’t matter if your path is in the inside of your shape slightly, either. After you’ve made the paths you should make a selection and delete the white.

After you’ve cut out both/all of your stock photos, copy them to your other document and position them accordingly. Before you start transforming or editing your stocks though, you should first right-click them in the layers palette and convert them to smart objects.

Converting them to smart objects will allow you to edit them freely later without losing the image quality.

Lookin’ good!

Step 4

Now we need some cool elements. For this you can either use Photoshop brushes or vectors, but most brushes most likely won’t be big enough for the size we’re working with. You can either create your own, download some for free, or buy some for a couple of bucks (credits). Remember what I said above regarding Vecteezy and Vector Stock.

Let’s start with something simple. Start up Illustrator, create a new document then enable the grid (and snap to grid).

Using the Rectangle Tool I want you to create a few small, different colored rectangles just like this:

Note: It shouldn’t matter what size the rectangles are, just go with the grid. Select all of your newly-created shapes and drag them into the Brushes palette. Select New Art Brush.

Alright, now we have a simple brush. Create a bit of a wavy path and apply your new brush to it. If any the edges of the brush look a little dodgy in some areas, don’t worry about it, we can conceal that later!

Select your path and copy it over to Photoshop. Resize/rotate and position to your liking.

Not bad!

Step 5

Over at Vecteezy I found a nice free sample pack called BySkell Free Samples. Open this in Illustrator and take a few pieces from it and place them in your Photoshop document. I started by just using the splatter.

Place it accordingly then fill it with black (as it was grey to start with). If you think some parts of the splatter get in the way, take an eraser to it.

There are some other nice elements in that free sample pack, so feel free to use whatever you need to make your design look great.

Above: After adding in the vector tree, change it’s color to white.

Above: Grunge element added. After copying it to your Photoshop document, rotate/resize it and position it at the top. Then simply change the layer mode to Multiply and lower the opacity to around 30-40%.

Step 6

Let’s add a few simple adjustments/details. Start by applying a bit of an Outer Glow to both of our speaker stock layers.

You may also like to experiment with other layer styles on some of your other layers. I added a similar layer style (as above) to the tree layer, except I lowered the opacity slightly and made it a bit larger.

Get creative!

Step 7

Add a little texture. Check out HighResolutionTextures for some nice texture packs. Select a texture, place it over your canvas and mess with layer modes, opacities and level adjustments (for the texture itself).

The last thing to add would be the text. Sometimes this takes a while to get right, just go through your font collection and find the right font combination.

The font used in the above image is called “Kozuka Gothic Pro,” and I believe it’s a commercial font (may come with Photoshop).

I think the design could do with some more floral elements or something like that, so I recommend you search the web and try a heap of different things.

We’re finished

Looks like we’re finished, sorry! If I missed something out, or you need help with anything, please feel free to leave a comment below. Unfortunately the PSD file from this tutorial was way too large for me to upload, so I hope you can do without it (for now, at least). Once I can I’ll upload the PSD file and allow free download.