Design an Art Deco Sardine Tin Label (Product Label)

Open Lopsy. In the New Document dialog, set Width to 2400 and Height to 1500 pixels and click Create. A wide landscape sheet suits the long lid of a sardine tin.

1. Select Background, set the foreground colour to #0F4A3A and choose Edit → Fill.
2. Click once on the top ruler at x 840, 1200 and 1560 to drop three vertical guides. These are the two walls of the arched window and its centre line.
3. Click on the left ruler at y 180, 820, 1000 and 1260. They mark the top of the arch, the sea's horizon, the top of the title band and the bottom of the band.
4. Open the View menu and make sure Snap to Guides is ticked. For now, you want marquees to lock onto the guides.

Rename Layer 1 to Frame and set the foreground to gold #C9973F.

1. Drag a rectangular marquee about 40 px in from every edge of the canvas and choose Edit → Fill.
2. Choose Select → Shrink… by 10 and press Delete. That leaves a 10 px gold frame.
3. Drag a second marquee about 22 px inside the first, fill it, shrink it by 3 and press Delete. You now have a heavy frame and a fine keyline.

Select Background and click Add Layer to make a layer called Pinstripes. Before you fill the panels, draw a tiny pattern tile:

1. Pick the Rectangular Marquee and click once on the canvas without dragging. A dialog opens where you can type the selection's corners. Enter From 10, 0 To 13, 24, click Select and fill with #1F5C49. That's a 3 px stripe.
2. Click again and select From 0, 0 To 24, 24. Choose Edit → Define Pattern, then press Delete to clear the tile.
3. Drag a marquee over the left panel, from just inside the frame to a little left of the 840 guide, down to the 1000 guide. Hold Shift and drag a matching marquee over the right panel.
4. Choose Edit → Fill with Pattern…, pick Pattern 1 at 100% and click Apply.

Keep the stripe colour close to the background. Pinstripes are a texture, not a feature.

With Pinstripes selected, click New Group and call it Window. Add a layer inside it called Arch Rim. Now build the arch shape:

1. Drag a rectangular marquee from the 840 guide at y 540 down to the 1560 guide and the 1000 guide.
2. Pick the Elliptical Marquee. Hold Shift (to add) and Cmd (to keep it a perfect circle), and drag from where the 840 guide meets the 180 guide across to the 1560 guide. That's a 720 px circle; its bottom half overlaps the rectangle, and its top half rounds off the arch.

You'll reuse this exact selection several times, so get used to drawing it. Choose Select → Grow… by 16 and fill with gold. Then draw the arch selection again and press Delete. A 16 px gold rim is left around an empty window.

Period labels didn't use smooth airbrushed gradients. They built skies from flat tints, so you'll do the same.

Add a layer called Sky. Draw the arch selection and fill it with #2C6B55.

The rings are circles centred on the sunrise point, where the 1200 guide meets the 820 guide. Press Cmd+D to deselect, pick the Elliptical Marquee and click once without dragging. In the Elliptical Selection dialog, enter From 600, 220 To 1800, 1420 and click Select. That's a 1,200 px circle around the sunrise. Then step inwards:

1. Fill it with #5B917A.
2. Choose Select → Shrink… by 130 and fill with #8DB59C.
3. Shrink by 120 and fill with #BFD6BF.
4. Shrink by 100 and fill with cream #EFE3C2. That's the 500 px halo.

Shrink pulls the circle in evenly, so the rings stay perfectly concentric. They spill outside the arch for now: draw the arch selection, choose Select → Inverse and press Delete.

Add a layer called Rays, set the foreground to cream #EFE3C2 and draw the arch selection again. Choose Filter → Sunburst… and set:

• Rays 36, Length 55, Width 50, Fade 0
• Center X 50 and Center Y 54.7. Both are percentages of the canvas, and 54.7% of 1500 is the horizon at y 820.

Tick Preview to check the rays fan out from the horizon, then click Apply. Deselect and set the layer's opacity to 30%, so the rays read as a pale tint over the stepped rings.

Add a layer called Sun. Use the same trick: click with the Elliptical Marquee and enter From 1010, 630 To 1390, 1010, a 380 px circle on the sunrise point.

1. Fill it with gold #C9973F.
2. Shrink by 40 and fill with #D9AE5C.
3. Shrink by 40 and fill with #E6C47E.
4. Shrink by 42 and fill with cream #EFE3C2.

Draw a rectangular marquee covering everything below the horizon guide and press Delete, so only the top half of the sun is left. Then cut the classic Deco slits: drag three thin marquees across the lower part of the sun and press Delete after each. Make them about 6, 8 and 10 px tall, each lower one a little thicker, with roughly 16 px of sun between them.

Add a layer called Waves. Each wave is two lasso fills: a light crest, then the wave colour 6 px lower so only a thin crest line shows.

1. With the Lasso, draw a gentle wavy line across the window just below the horizon, with about three and a half waves across. Carry on down and around below the bottom of the window to close the shape, and fill it with the crest colour.
2. Draw the same wavy shape 6 px lower and fill it with the wave colour.
3. Repeat four more times, each wave about 32 px lower than the last and shifted sideways so the crests don't line up.

From top to bottom, use these crest / wave pairs:

• #EFE3C2 / #BFD6BF
• #EFE3C2 / #8DB59C
• #BFD6BF / #5B917A
• #8DB59C / #2C6B55
• #5B917A / #0A2E24

Draw the arch selection, choose Select → Inverse and press Delete to trim the waves to the window.

The bottom wave is deep green, so finish it with a sill. Pick the Pencil at Size 4 in gold. Click just inside the left wall about 10 px above the bottom of the window, then Shift+click at the right wall. That draws a straight gold line.

Before you start transforming things, open View and untick Snap to Guides. A marquee edge near a guide jumps onto it. If that cuts off part of a fish, the cut-off pixels stay behind when you rotate.

Add a layer called Sardine above Waves. Sardines are slim: make the body about 260 px long and only about 60 px deep.

1. Use the Lasso to draw the body high in the window, centred on the 1200 guide. Give it a pointed snout on the right and a deeper belly about two-thirds of the way along. It should taper to a narrow tail stem on the left.
2. Hold Shift and lasso a forked tail onto the tail stem, about 34 px long, with two pointed tips.
3. Fill with #BFD6BF.

Cmd-click the Sardine thumbnail to load the fish as a selection. Then lasso each band with Shift+Alt held, so the lasso is intersected with the fish: you only need to draw the inner edge of each band carefully, and can loop loosely around the outside. Fill, then Cmd-click the thumbnail again before the next band.

• Back #17392F: everything from the top edge down to about a third of the body's depth, plus the whole tail.
• Side stripe #5B917A: a narrow band just below the back, tapering at both ends.
• Belly #EFE3C2: the bottom third.
• Fins: deselect and lasso these on their own, since they stick out of the outline. A low, swept-back dorsal fin in the middle of the back in #17392F, a small pointed pectoral fin just behind the head and a small fin hanging under the belly, both in #5B917A.

Leave the pale #BFD6BF showing between the stripe and the belly. It reads as the silver flank.

1. With the Brush at Size 4 and Hardness 100 in #0A2E24, drag a short curve behind the head for the gill cover. Switch to Size 3 and drag a short line, about 20 px, back from the snout for the mouth.
2. At Size 8, click a row of seven dots along the top of the side stripe. That row of spots is what makes a sardine look like a sardine.
3. For the eye, fill a 16 px gold circle, a 10 px black circle inside it and a tiny cream highlight.

Now hatch the belly so it looks engraved:

1. Add a layer called Belly Hatch. Click once with the Rectangular Marquee and select From 0, 0 To 7, 2. Fill with #667764.
2. Select From 0, 0 To 7, 7, choose Edit → Define Pattern and press Delete.
3. Cmd-click the Sardine thumbnail, then Shift+Alt lasso the lower half of the belly so the hatching can't spill outside the fish. Use Edit → Fill with Pattern… with Pattern 2.
4. Choose Layer → Merge Down to fold the hatching into Sardine.

Finally, open the layer effects drawer, enable Stroke with Width 2 in #0A2E24. The fine dark contour is what makes it read like a printed illustration.

The fish needs to fill the window. Draw a marquee just around the sardine and pick the Move tool so the transform handles appear. Hold Cmd (to keep the proportions) and drag the bottom-right corner outward until the fish is about 360 px long, about 122%. Press Cmd+D to commit.

Drag the fish so it's centred on the 1200 guide, with its middle about 220 px below the top of the arch.

1. Choose Layer → Duplicate Layer and rename the copy Sardine Left. Drag it down and to the left so its middle sits about level with the top of the sun.
2. Draw a marquee around it with a little room to spare and pick the Move tool.
3. Move the pointer just outside the top-right corner handle until it changes to the rotate cursor. Drag up and around until the fish points 35° nose-up, then press Cmd+D to commit.
4. Duplicate the top Sardine again, call it Sardine Right, move it to the right and rotate it 35° nose-down. It looks like it's diving back into the sea.

Line the two side fish up as mirror images. Their outer edges should be the same distance from the 1200 guide, and their tops level. Nudge them with the arrow keys until:

• each one is at least 40 px from the gold arch wall,
• the rising fish's snout and the diving fish's tail don't touch in the middle,
• and both overlap the top of the sun halo a little. The overlap ties the fish into the sky.

Select Frame (outside the Window group) and add a layer called Title Band. Drag a marquee from just inside the frame's keyline at the 1000 guide to the other side at the 1260 guide, and fill it with #141414.

Pick the Pencil:

1. At Size 4 in gold, click 12 px below the top edge of the band at the left and Shift+click at the right. Do the same 12 px above the bottom edge.
2. At Size 2 in red #A8322B, draw a second pair of lines about 11 px inside the gold ones.

Deco fans fill the empty ends of the band. Add a layer called Band Fans. The left fan is centred at x 300 and sits on the lower red line.

1. Click once with the Elliptical Marquee and enter From 150, 1086 To 450, 1386. That's a 300 px circle centred on the red line. Fill it with gold, choose Select → Shrink… by 5 and press Delete, which leaves a gold ring.
2. Drag a rectangular marquee over the part of the ring below the red line and press Delete. Only the upper arch is left.
3. Deselect, click with the Elliptical Marquee again and enter From 165, 1101 To 435, 1371 for a 270 px circle. Switch to the Rectangular Marquee, hold Shift+Alt and drag over everything above the red line to intersect. This half-disc is the area the rays will fill.

With the half-disc selected and gold as the foreground, choose Filter → Sunburst… with Rays 24, Length 30, Width 45, Center X 12.5 and Center Y 82.4. The rays stop at the selection edge.

Add a hub in the same way: a 72 px circle on the centre point, intersected with the area above the red line, filled gold, then a 36 px one filled red. Repeat everything for the right fan, centred at x 2100 (circle corners From 1950, 1086 To 2250, 1386), with Center X 87.5. Keep the fans small. They frame the title, they shouldn't compete with it.

Click the Band Fans row first. If a text layer is selected, the Text options restyle it instead of setting up the next one.

Pick the Text tool. Choose Limelight, Size 230, gold, then click in the band and type JUBILEE. Press Tab to commit. In the Text panel, set Letter spacing to 18.

With the Move tool, drag the title roughly into the middle of the band, then use the arrow keys to centre it exactly. It should sit on the 1200 guide, with equal space above and below between the red lines.

Deco titles often have an inline: a thin light line running inside each thick stroke. You'll build one from the text's own shape:

1. Add a layer called Title Gold above JUBILEE.
2. Cmd-click the JUBILEE thumbnail to load the letters as a selection, and fill with gold on Title Gold.
3. Choose Select → Shrink… by 7. The selection pulls in from every edge, and the hairline strokes drop out of it completely.

1. Fill the shrunken selection with cream.
2. Shrink by 3 more and fill with gold. A 3 px cream line is left running inside the thick stems only, exactly like a Deco inline face.
3. Deselect and hide the JUBILEE text layer with its eye icon. You don't need it any more, but keep it in case you want to change the title later.
4. With Title Gold selected, enable Drop Shadow in red #A8322B with Offset X 6, Offset Y 6, Blur 1 and Opacity 100. A blur of 1 keeps the shadow crisp without a light seam along the edges.

Select Title Band and add a layer called Rules. With Rules selected each time, create three text layers in Josefin Sans SemiBold:

• SARDINES at Size 100 in cream, with Letter spacing 30. Centre it on the 1200 guide, halfway between the band and the frame.
• IN PURE OLIVE OIL and NET WT. 125 g at Size 28 in gold, Letter spacing 6. Centre each one in the space between SARDINES and the frame, at the same height as the middle of the SARDINES capitals.

Then pick the Pencil at Size 3 in gold and fill the gaps with rules. Shift+click straight lines level with the middle of the small capitals. Leave about 24 px between a rule and the small text, and about 30 px next to SARDINES.

Select Pinstripes and click New Group, called Medallions. Add a layer called Medallion Discs.

Each medallion is a 500 px circle centred halfway down the side panel. Build both at once:

1. Click once with the Elliptical Marquee and enter From 195, 283 To 695, 783 for the left circle.
2. Hold Shift and Cmd and drag a matching 500 px circle in the right panel, from x 1705, y 283. The Info panel shows the cursor position, and the right circle should mirror the left one.
3. Fill both with gold.
4. Select → Shrink… by 12 and fill with deep green #0A2E24.
5. Shrink by 16 and fill with red.
6. Shrink by 3 and fill with deep green again. That leaves a fine red inner ring inside a gold rim.

Add a layer called Medallion Rays and set the foreground to #2C6B55. Sunburst takes one centre, so do one medallion at a time:

1. Deselect, click once with the Elliptical Marquee and enter From 226, 314 To 664, 752. That's the dark inner disc of the left medallion.
2. Run Filter → Sunburst… with Rays 32, Length 20, Width 50, Center X 18.5 and Center Y 35.5.
3. Do the same for the right disc, From 1736, 314 To 2174, 752, with Center X 81.5.

Set the layer's opacity to 35%. The rays should be a quiet texture behind the contents.

The olive sprig says "in olive oil" without words. Add a layer called Olive Sprig.

1. With the Brush at Size 6 in gold, drag a gently curving stem from the lower left of the medallion up to the upper right.
2. Lasso seven narrow, pointed leaves along the stem, alternating sides, plus one at the tip. Fill each with gold, then lasso one half of each leaf and fill it with #E6C47E so the leaves look lit from one side.
3. With the Brush at Size 2 in #8E6A2C, drag a vein down the middle of each leaf.
4. For each olive, draw a short 3 px gold stalk from the stem, then fill a small upright oval in #3F4A1E and add a cream highlight dot.

Use the Move tool to drag the sprig so it sits in the optical centre of the disc. Put it a touch below centre, because a sprig that leans up and to the right looks top-heavy.

Select Medallion Rays before each new text layer, then create:

• 1925 in Limelight, Size 108, #E6C47E, Letter spacing 8.
• EST. in Josefin Sans SemiBold, Size 30, gold, Letter spacing 10.
• MATOSINHOS in Josefin Sans SemiBold, Size 26, gold, Letter spacing 8.

Centre all three on the medallion. Put 1925 in the middle, with EST. above it and MATOSINHOS below, with about 42 px between EST. and 1925, and the same between 1925 and MATOSINHOS. Using Limelight for both the title and the year keeps the whole label in one Deco voice.

Stepped "skyscraper" setbacks are the most recognisable Deco ornament. Add a layer called Ziggurats in the Medallions group and pick the Pencil at Size 4 in gold.

The bracket under each medallion is one continuous stepped line. Each Shift+click draws a straight segment from the last point:

1. Click at the bottom of the left foot, 230 px left of the medallion's centre line and 110 px below the ring.
2. Shift+click 30 px to the right, then 30 px up.
3. Shift+click 50 px right and 30 px up, then 50 px right and 30 px up again. That's two steps climbing inwards.
4. Shift+click across the top step, 200 px wide and 20 px below the ring.
5. Mirror the steps down the right-hand side, finishing with a 30 px foot.

Shift+click a short vertical line from the bottom of the ring down to the top step. Draw the same bracket upside down above the medallion, then repeat both for the right medallion.

At Pencil Size 2, add a fine base line just past each bracket and five short vertical lines 30 px apart inside each one.

Select Rules and pick the Pen tool. You'll draw an arc 400 px from the centre of the arch's curve, so the type sits just outside the rim.

Place five anchors, starting at the lower left and working round to the lower right:

• above the left wall at about y 340,
• up and to the right,
• over the top of the arch at y 140,
• down and to the right,
• above the right wall at about y 340.

At each one, drag a short way (about 70 px) in the direction the curve is travelling, which pulls out smooth handles. Then click the ✓ (Commit path) button in the options bar.

With Rules still selected, pick the Text tool, choose Josefin Sans SemiBold, Size 36, gold, click in empty space and type CONSERVAS DE PORTUGAL. Commit with Tab and set Letter spacing to 14 in the Text panel.

In the options bar, set Path to Path 1 and Align to Center. The capitals now follow the curve, centred over the arch. If the run looks slightly off-centre, nudge the layer a few pixels with the arrow keys; it keeps its place on the curve. Click the path's row in the Paths panel to hide the path outline.

Real tin labels have paper tooth and uneven ink. Add two layers at the very top:

1. Paper Grain: fill with grey #808080, run Filter → Add Noise… at 40 with Mono and Gaussian, set the blend mode to Overlay in the layer effects drawer, and set the opacity to 25%.
2. Ink Mottle: fill with grey, run Filter → Clouds… (Scale 5), set it to Soft Light at 12%. Any stronger and the clouds look like stains.

Choose File → Save Project to keep a layered .lopsy copy, and File → Quick Export PNG for the finished label. If you want another flavour, try swapping the greens for oxblood and navy. Or set a new brand name in the band, since the inline gold trick works on any heavy display face.