BEFORE:
AFTER:
Friday, February 11, 2011
Fruit Stripes Gum: The Grown-Up Version
We're all familiar with Fruit Stripes Gum from our childhood. We loved the cheap temporary tattoos on the wrappers and the wonderfully brilliant and tangy (but tragically fleeting) flavor. What if Fruit Stripes had grown up with us and changed it's packaging to something a little less 80's. Not too classy and dignified, just more mature.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Friday, January 14, 2011
Three Terrific and Tasteful Texture Tricks
This is a website I'm currently working on to replace the existing site. We're going to look at how to create three different textures in Photoshop used in the construction of my site: noise, metal grille, and grunge paper.
The metal grille texture is shown on the two outer strips while the noise texture is used in the center portion for the rest of the background. The grunge paper texture is seen in each of the article sections. I know this image is much smaller than actual size so we'll look at the textures closer up as we get to each of the three.
NOISE:
Noise is perfect for adding a little crunch to your site. If you're tired of solid colors, this gives you some variation without using more dramatic textures. Here's what you'll need to do:
1.) Pick you foreground color and create the size you'll need for your project. In my case, I used a dark gray (0a0a0a). Make a duplicate of this layer.
2.) Making sure the copy is on top of the original, select the top layer. Go to Filter > Render > Fibers. Don't be alarmed that the fibers turn your foremost layer black and white. For the settings, have the Variance be 10 and the Strength be 50.
3.) Still on the top layer, go to Filter > Distort > Glass. Set the Distortion to 15, Smoothness to 1, and select Frosted.
4.) Set the top layer's blending mode to Multiply (this excludes the white areas) or test out other blending options. If the effect is too harsh, remember the opacity can always be lowered too.
METAL GRILLE:
This technique doesn't require many steps either, just a lot of alignment once you've got the three basic pieces made: a background, a foreground and a circle. Here are the steps:
1.) Select a color and drag your background out the the appropriate size needed. I chose another dark gray (191919).
2.) Using a darker color, drag out a small circle with the circle tool. Go to the circle layer's effects and add a drop shadow. IN the drop shadow options, change the blending mode to normal and instead of using black, pick a highlight color that looks believable in comparison with your background. Change the Distance to 1 and the Size to 2 (this may be different plus of minus 2-3 pixels depending on the size of your circle.)
3.) Add an inner shadow while you're still in the layer effect dialogue box. Change the color to an appropriate shadow color. Change the Distance to 3 and the Size to 5 ( again, a slight pixal variation may apply.)
4.) Now that you have the circles, you can copy and align them in order to make a pattern segment in Photoshop.Not sure how to make a pattern that can be added to your Photoshop library? Click here.
GRUNGE PAPER:
Grunge is always a fun texture to play with. There's something aesthetic about things that appear old or well-worn. I guess that's why destroyed jeans are selling for $50 a pair. None-the-less, here's the last tutorial.
1.) Find a nice image of old paper online (I used this one) and place it in your document. I set the opacity down on mine so the effect is more subtle.
2.) Make a reveal all layer mask on the paper layer. Making sure to select the mask, using a rough texture brush with the foreground color set to black on the edges. Go along the perimeter of the paper with the brush while varying how much you crop into the paper. Go over the sides a few times with different versions of your brush. Change the size or opacity while always making sure to change the path you drag the brush. You may even want to just use a single mouse click here and there. Make it look natural.
3.) If you want to go a bit farther, you can go out and find another image of crinkled paper or old parchment, place the image over top of the original paper, and create a clipping mask. Use the new paper as additional texture only by lowering the opacity and playing with blending modes.
NOISE:
Noise is perfect for adding a little crunch to your site. If you're tired of solid colors, this gives you some variation without using more dramatic textures. Here's what you'll need to do:
1.) Pick you foreground color and create the size you'll need for your project. In my case, I used a dark gray (0a0a0a). Make a duplicate of this layer.
2.) Making sure the copy is on top of the original, select the top layer. Go to Filter > Render > Fibers. Don't be alarmed that the fibers turn your foremost layer black and white. For the settings, have the Variance be 10 and the Strength be 50.
3.) Still on the top layer, go to Filter > Distort > Glass. Set the Distortion to 15, Smoothness to 1, and select Frosted.
4.) Set the top layer's blending mode to Multiply (this excludes the white areas) or test out other blending options. If the effect is too harsh, remember the opacity can always be lowered too.
METAL GRILLE:
This technique doesn't require many steps either, just a lot of alignment once you've got the three basic pieces made: a background, a foreground and a circle. Here are the steps:
1.) Select a color and drag your background out the the appropriate size needed. I chose another dark gray (191919).
2.) Using a darker color, drag out a small circle with the circle tool. Go to the circle layer's effects and add a drop shadow. IN the drop shadow options, change the blending mode to normal and instead of using black, pick a highlight color that looks believable in comparison with your background. Change the Distance to 1 and the Size to 2 (this may be different plus of minus 2-3 pixels depending on the size of your circle.)
3.) Add an inner shadow while you're still in the layer effect dialogue box. Change the color to an appropriate shadow color. Change the Distance to 3 and the Size to 5 ( again, a slight pixal variation may apply.)
4.) Now that you have the circles, you can copy and align them in order to make a pattern segment in Photoshop.Not sure how to make a pattern that can be added to your Photoshop library? Click here.
GRUNGE PAPER:
Grunge is always a fun texture to play with. There's something aesthetic about things that appear old or well-worn. I guess that's why destroyed jeans are selling for $50 a pair. None-the-less, here's the last tutorial.
1.) Find a nice image of old paper online (I used this one) and place it in your document. I set the opacity down on mine so the effect is more subtle.
2.) Make a reveal all layer mask on the paper layer. Making sure to select the mask, using a rough texture brush with the foreground color set to black on the edges. Go along the perimeter of the paper with the brush while varying how much you crop into the paper. Go over the sides a few times with different versions of your brush. Change the size or opacity while always making sure to change the path you drag the brush. You may even want to just use a single mouse click here and there. Make it look natural.
3.) If you want to go a bit farther, you can go out and find another image of crinkled paper or old parchment, place the image over top of the original paper, and create a clipping mask. Use the new paper as additional texture only by lowering the opacity and playing with blending modes.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Standing on My Soap Box
Package Design: Create a Soap Mold and Design a Soap Container
As it turned out, my soap box project slowly morphed into a soap jar project because of branding issues. The end product seemed too fancy to shove into a paper box. I found myself creating less conventional soap as well. Rather than a traditional soap bar, I chose to mold actual coffee beans. The beans have a fun shape and there's a bit of novelty in their small size. The beans are only a couple centimeters in length so expecting the consumer to attempt to wash themselves with a small bean of soap was laughable. To solve this, I created a fist-sized bag to contain them. The bag is made of a sheer fabric and the plastic mesh found on most shower poufs. Another added twist was to put herbs into the pouch - I'm not sure if it's especially good for your skin but it sounded like a good idea. Here's the initial concept and the final design:
As it turned out, my soap box project slowly morphed into a soap jar project because of branding issues. The end product seemed too fancy to shove into a paper box. I found myself creating less conventional soap as well. Rather than a traditional soap bar, I chose to mold actual coffee beans. The beans have a fun shape and there's a bit of novelty in their small size. The beans are only a couple centimeters in length so expecting the consumer to attempt to wash themselves with a small bean of soap was laughable. To solve this, I created a fist-sized bag to contain them. The bag is made of a sheer fabric and the plastic mesh found on most shower poufs. Another added twist was to put herbs into the pouch - I'm not sure if it's especially good for your skin but it sounded like a good idea. Here's the initial concept and the final design:
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