Design a Constructivist Zine Cover in Lopsy

Open Lopsy. In the New Document dialog, type 1000 for Width and 1400 for Height, choose a White background, and click Create. That's close to the A5 proportion most zines are printed at.

Select the Background layer and set the foreground to #ECE2C6 in the Color panel's hex field. Press G for the Paint Bucket and click the canvas. Then double-click Layer 1 and rename it Rays.

The rays will seem to shine out from behind the eye, so they all start at the eye's centre, (640, 470). Press L for the Lasso. Press the mouse down at that point, drag out past the right edge of the canvas at about y = 150, come down to about y = 250, and drag back to the start.

Set the foreground to #171514, click inside the wedge with the Paint Bucket and press Cmd+D to deselect.

Lasso and fill two more wedges from the same point. The second one reaches the right edge between y = 330 and 400, and the last, thinner one between y = 470 and 530. Rays of different widths look more dynamic than evenly spaced ones.

Click Add Layer and name it Red Sun. Pick the Elliptical Marquee, hold Cmd and drag from (340, 210) to (940, 810) to make a perfect circle 600 px across. Set the foreground to #C62828 and fill it with the Paint Bucket. Press Cmd+D.

The circle hides where the rays start, so they now seem to come out from behind the sun.

Click Duplicate Layer and rename the copy Sun Halftone. Choose Filter → Halftone…, set Dot Size to 10, Angle to 30 and Softness to 0.5, tick Preview, and click Apply.

Halftone dots along the edge stick out past the circle. To trim them, draw the same circle again with the Elliptical Marquee, press Cmd+Shift+I to invert the selection, and press Delete. Deselect with Cmd+D.

Open the layer's Layer Effects (the sparkle icon on its row), set the blend mode to Multiply, and close the panel. Then set the layer's opacity to about 45%. The dots now read as ink texture, but the red still looks red.

Select Sun Halftone and click New Group in the Layers panel. Name the group Kino-Eye and add a layer inside it called Eye.

Lasso an almond shape centred on (640, 470), about 524 px wide and 236 px tall. Trace two gentle arcs that meet in points at the left and right. Fill it with cream #ECE2C6.

Open the Eye layer's Layer Effects, turn on Stroke and set Width to 13. The default black works. A live effect is easier to change later than a painted outline.

Add a Lashes layer. Press B for the Brush and set Size to 11, Hardness to 100 and Opacity to 100, with the foreground black.

For each lash, click once on the upper lid. Then hold Shift and click 60–70 px further out, on a line pointing away from a spot below the eye. That fans the seven lashes out like rays. Make the middle lashes a little longer than the outer ones.

Add an Iris layer and fill a black circle 220 px across centred on the eye. Add a Clock layer above it and fill a red circle 158 px across, also centred.

Select Iris again and set the foreground to cream. With the Brush at Size 12, click the Radial Symmetry button in the options bar and change the segment count to 12. Hold Cmd and click the centre of the clock to move the symmetry centre there. Then click once just inside the rim at 12 o'clock. All twelve ticks appear at once.

Click Radial Symmetry again to turn it off before you go on. While it's on, it takes over every Cmd+click.

Select Clock and set the foreground to black. Use the brush's Shift-click line trick again:

1. At Size 16, click the centre, then Shift-click 60 px to the right for the hour hand.
2. At Size 10, click the centre, then Shift-click about 72 px up for the minute hand.
3. Switch to cream and click once at the centre for a pivot dot.

Select Sun Halftone and add a layer called Gear. It sits below the Kino-Eye group. Make a rectangular marquee 48 × 424 px with its top-left at (156, 718) and fill it black. That bar is two opposite teeth. Press Cmd+C to copy it and Cmd+D to deselect.

Press Cmd+V. The copy is pasted in place on a new layer. Draw the same marquee over it, press V for Move, hold Cmd and drag a round rotation handle. Cmd snaps the rotation to 15° steps, so stop at 30°. Press Enter, then Cmd+D.

Repeat the paste, marquee and rotate for 60°, 90°, 120° and 150°. Six crossed bars give you twelve evenly spaced teeth.

Choose Layer → Merge Down five times to merge all the copies into Gear. Make an elliptical marquee 330 px across centred on (180, 930) and choose Edit → Fill to fill the hub. Then make a 110 px circle in the same centre and press Delete to punch out the axle hole.

The teeth on the left run off the canvas. A cropped machine part feels bigger than one shown whole.

Add a layer called Band. Lasso a band that rises about 15° from left to right, with corners at (0, 1150), (1000, 870), (1000, 1080) and (0, 1360), and fill it black. The bottom of the gear now tucks behind the band.

Press T for the Text tool. Open the font browser, search for Anton and click it. Set Size to 190 and the foreground to cream. Click on the band at about (150, 1050) and type INSOMNIA. Press Tab to commit.

Typing over the black band means you can see the cream letters while you work on them.

Click Rasterize Layer at the bottom of the Layers panel. Draw a rectangular marquee around the word and press V. Hold Cmd and drag a rotation handle to −15°, press Enter, then Cmd+D.

Then drag the word with the Move tool until it sits centred on the band, with its middle at about (520, 1117).

Old two-colour presses rarely lined the plates up exactly. To fake that, click Duplicate Layer and move the copy until it sits 9 px right and 9 px down from the original. Then select the original INSOMNIA layer underneath, open its Layer Effects, turn on Color Overlay and set the colour to #C62828.

The red shows only along the top and left of each letter, like a plate that slipped during the print run. If the edge looks too thick, move the cream copy a few pixels back towards the original.

Select Band and click New Group. Name it Factory. It goes in above the band but below the headline, so the letters stay on top. Add a Hall layer inside it.

Lasso a sawtooth roofline. Start at (540, 1010), go up to (540, 850), then zig up and down five times: up to y = 800, and back down to y = 850 every 88 px. Finish at the right edge and come back down to y = 1010. Fill it black.

Add these layers inside the Factory group:

• Windows: cream 20 × 26 px rectangles every 40 px, in two rows at y = 866 and y = 908. Marquee each one and use Edit → Fill.
• Chimneys: three black rectangles down to y = 860. Make them 36, 44 and 32 px wide, starting at x = 596, 698 and 822, with their tops at y = 700, 660 and 690.
• Chimney Bands: two thin cream stripes near the top of each chimney.

The chimneys stand in front of the sun, which gives the cover its depth.

Add a Steam layer at the top of the Factory group. Above each chimney, fill two or three cream circles with the Elliptical Marquee. Start at about 20 px across and make each one bigger as it rises up and to the left.

Flat, stepped puffs suit the style better than soft, brushed smoke, and cream on red is the cover's strongest contrast.

Select the top INSOMNIA layer so the new text goes in above it. Set the foreground to red and the Size to 160. Click at (40, 300) in the empty top-left area, type INDUSTRIAL, and press Tab.

Rasterize it, marquee it, and rotate it −90° so it reads from bottom to top. Press Enter, then move it to the left edge, from about y = 20 down to y = 676. That leaves a clear gap above the gear's top tooth.

Set the Size to 180 and the foreground to cream. Click at (228, 2) and type 07, then press Tab and rasterize it. Open its Layer Effects and turn on Stroke with Width 8.

The number is cream on cream, so all you see is the black outline. It's clearly readable but stays lighter than INDUSTRIAL.

Add a Masthead layer and fill a black rectangle 450 × 96 px with its top-left at (530, 36). Then set two lines of type inside it:

1. THE NIGHT SHIFT ZINE in cream Russo One at Size 30, clicked in at (552, 46).
2. ISSUE 07 / AUTUMN 2026 / 3 AM in Space Mono Regular at Size 22, in a brighter red #E0463A, clicked in at (553, 92).

Rasterize each line when you finish it.

Switch to Bebas Neue at Size 64 in red. Click at (580, 1215), type WE DO NOT SLEEP., press Enter, and type WE PRODUCE.. Press Tab and rasterize the layer.

Marquee the two lines and rotate them −15° so they run parallel to the band. Then move them up and right until they sit in the cream triangle under the band, with a clear margin above the bottom of the canvas.

Select Clock and add a layer called Grain. Set the foreground to #808080, press Cmd+A, and choose Edit → Fill. Then choose Filter → Add Noise…, set Amount to 40, pick Mono and Gaussian, and click Apply.

Set the Grain layer's blend mode to Overlay and its opacity to about 35%. Mid-grey disappears in Overlay, so only the speckle is left. That's enough to make the flat inks look printed.

Choose File → Quick Export PNG to export the cover, and File → Save Project to keep an editable .lopsy file with all the layers and groups.

For a follow-up issue, keep the grid and change the hero. Try a megaphone in the disc, a different time on the clock, or a second band running the other way. For another take on the same style, see the propaganda poster invitation.