Design a Dadaist Collage Restaurant Menu

Open Lopsy. In the New Document dialog, set Width 1500 and Height 2100, choose a White background and click Create.

1. Select Background, set the foreground to #EBE0C5 and choose Edit → Fill.
2. Rename Layer 1 to Paper Grain, fill it with #808080, then choose Filter → Add Noise…. Set Amount 60, click Mono and Gaussian, and Apply.
3. Open the layer's effects (✦), set the blend mode to Soft Light, and set its opacity to 35%.
4. Add a layer named Toning, fill it white, run Filter → Clouds… and set it to Multiply at 6%.

Keep Paper Grain and Toning at the top of the stack as you go. They texture every ink above the paper, so the whole sheet looks printed at once.

Choose New Group in the Layers panel and name it Red Letters. With the group selected, click Add Layer and name the new layer Red Anchor. Type every red letter with this layer selected, so they all land in the group.

Pick the Text tool (T). Choose Ultra in the font browser, type 800 into the Size field (the slider stops at 500) and set the colour to #C43A2B. Click in the canvas, type W and press Tab. Click Rasterize Layer in the Layers footer.

Marquee the W. Switch to the Move tool (V), hover just outside the top-right corner until the cursor turns into a crosshair, then drag to rotate it about −7°. Press Cmd+D and drag the W so its top-left sits around (40, 300).

Make each remaining letter the same way: select Red Anchor, type the letter at its size, rasterize it, then rotate and move it.

• U: Size 625, rotated 180° so it hangs upside down, at (960, 640)
• R: Size 675, rotated −90° so it lies on its back, at (50, 1080)
• S: Size 550, rotated 12°, at (560, 1480)
• T: Size 425, rotated −16°, at (1060, 1270)

Turned upside down, Ultra's slab feet almost close the U's counter, so it reads as a keyhole. Marquee from (1120, 950) to (1228, 1110) on the U layer and press Delete to open the counter.

Real litho red is never perfectly flat. Click the W row and choose Layer → Merge Down four times so all five letters become one layer, then rename it WURST.

1. Add a layer named Ink Mottle, fill it white and run Filter → Clouds… with Scale 7.
2. Pick the Magic Wand, untick Contiguous, select WURST and click any empty part of the canvas. That selects everything except the letters.
3. Click the Ink Mottle row and press Delete, then Cmd+D.
4. Set Ink Mottle to Multiply at 14%.

Dada collages reused printed scraps. This one is a public-domain Berkshire pig from Brett's Colonist's Guide (1883), found on Wikimedia Commons.

Collapse Red Letters, create a group named Collage and drag its grip so it sits above Red Letters. Add a layer named Pig Scrap inside it. Copy the engraving in your browser and press Cmd+V. It lands at the top-left with its transform box live. Cmd-drag the corner down to 56% and press Cmd+D. Rename the layer Pig, rotate it about 5° and set it to Multiply so its white paper disappears.

On Pig Scrap, use the Lasso to draw a rough rectangle around the pig, about 490 × 320. Zigzag the edges by a few pixels every 15 px or so, with slightly bigger tears on one side. Fill it with #F2EBD8. Place the scrap so its right edge stops at x 1444.

To trim the engraving to the scrap, select Pig Scrap, click its empty surroundings with the Magic Wand (Contiguous off), then click the Pig row and press Delete. The selection survives the row click, so everything outside the paper disappears. Slide the pig before you trim so its snout stays on the paper.

Create a Type group above Collage with an empty Type Base layer inside. Click the top ruler at 54 and 1446 to drop margin guides.

1. With Holtwood One SC at size 206 and colour #1A1714, type URSONATE and move it to x 54, y 46.
2. Add a layer named Rules and pick the Pencil (N). Its square tip is centred on each click, so start and stop half a tip inside the guides. At Size 8, click (58, 226) and Cmd+Shift-click (1442, 226) for a thick rule. At Size 4, draw a thin rule from (56, 278) to (1444, 278).
3. In Special Elite at 30, type KLEINE DADA WURSTBUDE * HANNOVER * MERZ 1923 * SPEISEKARTE NR. 1. Special Elite has no ✶ glyph, so use typewriter asterisks.
4. Open the Text panel and raise Letter spacing until the line spans the guides exactly. Here that was 4.3. Centre it between the rules.

Select Rules, choose Anton at 74, and type DADA IST GEGEN DIE ZUKUNFT! ("Dada is against the future"). Then click Rasterize Layer. Marquee it and rotate it about −7° with the rotate handle so its baseline follows the tilt of the W. Press Cmd+D. Black type over the red reads cleanly and gives the giant letter a job.

Drag an area-text box about 340 px wide. In the options bar choose Abril Fatface at 56 and Align Center, set Line height to 1.1 in the Text panel, and type ES LEBE Enter DIE WURST! ("long live the sausage!").

Rasterize it, rotate it 180°, then Cmd-drag it down to 82%. Centre it on the U's arch at about (1206, 703). Check that it sits fully on red, with clear space above the counter and below the pig scrap.

Each menu section is printed on its own scrap of paper. Inside Collage, add a layer named Slip Beilagen, marquee from (60, 1572) to (600, 1909) and fill it with #F3ECD9. In the Text panel, set Letter spacing back to 0 and Line height to 1.7, so every row is 51 px apart.

1. Prices: drag an area box from x 470 to 560, 110 px below the slip's top. Use Special Elite 30 with Align Right, and type 0,40, 0,50 and 0,10 on separate lines.
2. Dishes: drag a second box from x 100 to 470, starting at the same height. Use Old Standard TT 30 with Align Left, and type Sauerkraut, lautpoetisch, Kartoffelsalat gegen Kunst and Senf! Senf! Senf!.

Area text has an exact hit box, so the two columns can sit side by side. Keep 40 px of paper on every side and at least 55 px between the longest dish and its price.

Select the slip layer, turn on Underline in the options bar, and type II. BEILAGEN in Bowlby One SC at 50, 40 px in from the top-left. Select the slip layer again and turn underline off. Then add Das Kraut wird laut vorgelesen. in Special Elite 22, clicking on blank paper 12 px below the last dish.

Lasso a zigzag rectangle 2 px inside the slip, choose Select → Inverse and press Delete. Then click each text row, starting with the one directly above the slip, and choose Layer → Merge Down until the slip is one layer.

Marquee the slip and rotate it 3°, then press Cmd+D. In its effects add a Drop Shadow with Offset X 2, Offset Y 3, Blur 3 and Opacity 40. A tight contact shadow makes it look pasted down; a big soft one makes it float.

Build the other two slips with exactly the same padding, row pitch, fonts and shadow:

• I. WÜRSTE, from (515, 985) to (1050, 1424), rotated −4°: Bratwurst „Merz“ 1,20 · Bockwurst ohne Zukunft 1,10 · Weißwurst à la Tzara 1,40 · Blutwurst Simultan 1,00 · Die Wurst an sich 2,—, with the footnote Preise in Billionen Mark, täglich neu!
• III. GETRÄNKE, from (942, 1572) to (1462, 1909), rotated −4°: Bier „Cabaret Voltaire“ 0,60 · Selters Hausmann 0,30 · Schnaps fmsbw 0,80, with the footnote fmsbw: bitte nicht aussprechen.

Number the slips in reading order: I in the middle, then II on the left and III on the right. The red letters can run wild because the slips stay calm and readable.

In Noto Sans Symbols 2 at 130, paste the glyph ☞ into a new text layer and rasterize it. Put it at about (245, 965), pointing at the Würste heading.

For a matching fist on the other side, marquee it, press Cmd+C and then Cmd+V. The copy lands in place above the original. Choose Image → Flip Horizontal, rename it Hand Left and drag it to about (1078, 1150) so it points back at the slip.

On Rules, draw two more Size 4 Pencil rules, from (56, 1951) to (1444, 1951) and from (56, 2051) to (1444, 2051). The bottom margin then matches the top.

Set the first line of the Ursonate, Fümms bö wö tää zää Uu, pögiff, kwii Ee., in UnifrakturMaguntia at 54. Select Rules again and add — K. SCHWITTERS, URSONATE in Special Elite 22. Centre the pair between the guides and the two rules, and line up the attribution with the Fraktur baseline.

Add a layer named Stamp and set the foreground to #2B3E9C. It's easiest to build the stamp large on empty paper (hide the groups for a moment), then shrink it into place.

1. Draw an Elliptical Marquee with radius 112, choose Edit → Fill, then Select → Shrink… by 9 and press Delete. That leaves the outer ring.
2. Draw a radius-76 circle at the same centre, fill it, Shrink by 4 and press Delete.

Pick the Shape tool, set Shape to Ellipse and Output to Path, and drag from the stamp's centre out 81 px. This makes a circular path that starts at 12 o'clock.

Type GEPRÜFT * MERZ * HANNOVER * 1923 * (ending with a space) in Special Elite 22, press Tab, and choose the new path in the Path dropdown in the options bar. Then nudge Letter spacing until the end of the text meets the start. 3 closed the gap here. Glyphs sit on the outside of the path, so a path radius a little inside the outer ring keeps them between the two rings.

Select Stamp and type DADA in Bowlby One SC 38 on blank paper beside the stamp. Select Stamp again and type Nr. 7 in Special Elite 20 the same way. Centre both inside the inner ring with the Move tool. Merge the three text layers down into Stamp, rotate it −14°, and set it to Multiply at 88% so it overprints like ink. In the Paths panel, click the path's row to hide its outline.

Show the groups again. At its build size (an outer radius of about 110) the stamp is already right. Centre it at (1325, 1278), in the cream pocket under the U's leg. Blue on cream reads clearly. Over red it turns a muddy purple, so let only about a third of the stamp cross the T. Leave at least 25 px between the ring and any text.

A rubber stamp is never inked evenly. Pick the Eraser, set Size 110 and Opacity 45, and drag one arc along the lower-right of the ring. That side now looks lightly pressed.

At the top of the Type group, add a layer named Wear and fill it with #808080.

1. Run Add Noise with Amount 100, Mono and Gaussian.
2. Run Gaussian Blur with Radius 4.
3. Run Threshold at 135, which leaves about 3% white specks. Run Gaussian Blur 0.8 to soften their edges.
4. Add a layer filled with #EBE0C5, set it to Multiply and Merge Down, which turns the specks newsprint-coloured.
5. Set Wear to Lighten. Black does nothing, and each speck knocks a paper-coloured chip out of the ink underneath.

Specks inside small type change letters (an l becomes !). Cmd-click each slip's thumbnail, choose Select → Grow… 4, and Edit → Fill Wear with black. Do the same with marquees over the strip and the footer.

Even speckle everywhere looks like a filter. Draw a few large Elliptical Marquees over the letters, choose Select → Feather… with 60, and fill them with black on Wear. This leaves cleaner, better-inked patches. Finally, drag Paper Grain up to sit just under Toning, so the grain textures the inks too.

Save with File → Save Project and export with File → Quick Export PNG.