Design a Neubrutalist Christmas Card

Create a 1500 × 2100 document (a 5 × 7 card) with a white background. Select Background, set the foreground to lavender #B8A6FF, and choose Edit → Fill.

Rename Layer 1 to Halftone. Pick the Gradient tool, set Type to Radial, and use Advanced… to set both stops to black, the first at 100% opacity and the second at 0%. Drag one gradient from the top-left corner out about 900 px. Drag a second from the bottom-right corner.

Halftone sizes each dot by the brightness underneath it, not by its transparency. So the gradients need something white behind them. Add a layer under Halftone, fill it white, then select Halftone and choose Layer → Merge Down.

Open Filter → Halftone and set Dot Size 30, Angle 0 and Softness 1. At 0° the dots sit in neat rows, like a newspaper photo. The gaps between the dots come out transparent. Open the layer effects and turn on Color Overlay in #8F7AF5, so the dots become a darker lavender.

Turn on View → Show Grid, set the grid size to 8 px, and tick Snap in the options bar. Click New Group and name it Window, then add a layer inside it called Window Panel.

Drag a rectangular marquee roughly from (104, 468) to (1396, 1628). Snap pulls the corners onto the grid, to exactly 102, 466 → 1398, 1626, which is centred on the page. Fill it black. Then untick Snap, draw a marquee 8 px inside the edges (110, 474 → 1390, 1618), and fill it cream #FFF4E2. That gives the window its 8 px outline. Finish with the standard Drop Shadow.

Make the tile on a temporary layer: a 3 px tan (#E6D3B6) vertical line at x 30 and a horizontal line at y 18, both inside a 40 × 40 square at the top-left of the canvas. Marquee that square (0, 0 → 40, 40) and choose Edit → Define Pattern, then delete the temporary layer.

Add a Grid Paper layer, marquee the window's inside (110, 578 → 1390, 1618), and choose Edit → Fill with Pattern…. Patterns tile from the top-left of the document, so those line offsets land a grid line exactly on each inside edge of the window. Full cells from border to border make the paper look deliberate.

On a Title Bar layer, fill 110, 474 → 1390, 570 with pink #FF5FA2, and fill a black 8 px strip under it (y 570 → 578).

For the window buttons, pick the Shape tool with Ellipse and Pixels. Give it a fill and an 8 px black stroke. Shapes draw from the centre out, so drag 20 px out from (152, 522), (212, 522) and (272, 522), changing the fill to yellow, blue and white in between. Make the close box from a black square and a smaller yellow one, with two 7 px Brush lines for the ×.

Type upside-down-evergreen.png in Space Mono Bold at 46 px. Then drag it with the Move tool until its centre sits at (750, 522), the middle of the bar.

Make a Tree group inside Window. On a Chain layer, draw two 13 × 21 px ellipses with the Shape tool (click Remove fill, keep the 8 px stroke), and join them with 8 px black bars. On a Trunk layer, draw a black rectangle with a burnt orange (#C2561B) one inside it.

A tree hanging upside down is widest at the top. On a Tier 1 layer, draw the downward triangle (350, 752), (1150, 752), (750, 1080) with the Lasso. Choose Select → Feather… 1 px, so the diagonal edges are smooth, and fill it black. Lasso the same triangle again, then choose Select → Shrink… 8 px, Feather 1 px, and fill it green #1FB86A. For the shaded half, lasso the right half, shrink and feather it the same way, and fill it #14955A. Add the standard Drop Shadow.

Repeat the same recipe on Tier 2 (430 → 1070 at y 970, tip at 1250) and on Tier 3 (520 → 980 at y 1150, tip at 1390). Each new layer goes above the last. The smaller, lower tiers overlap the tip of the tier above, and their hard shadows fall across it. That gives the flat shapes depth without any gradients.

Add a Bauble layer above Tier 3. Draw the string with a 6 px Brush: click the start point on the tier's edge, then Shift-click about 60 px straight down. Add a small black cap rectangle. Then draw a 32 px Shape-tool ellipse in pink with the 8 px black stroke. A single white 15 px brush dab top-left of centre makes the highlight.

Marquee the bauble, press Cmd+C and then Cmd+V straight away. The copy lands in place on a new Pasted Layer. Press Cmd+D, then drag it with the Move tool to the next tier corner. Pick a new foreground colour and click the ball with the Paint Bucket: it only floods the flat fill, so the outline and highlight stay.

Place six baubles in all, one at each tier corner, in pink, yellow, blue and one holiday red #E8202A. Then select the top Pasted Layer and use Layer → Merge Down five times to fold them into one layer. Rename it Ornaments.

Still on Ornaments, draw ten small lights with the Shape tool at radius 13, keeping the 8 px stroke. Draw all the yellow ones first, then the pink, then the blue, so you only change the fill colour three times. Keep each light at least 20 px clear of a tier edge, and spread them across both the light and dark halves.

Brush a 6 px string down from the bottom tip of the tree. On a new Star layer, lasso an upright five-pointed star, then give it the same outline recipe: fill black, then Shrink 8, Feather 1 and fill yellow.

Marquee the star, switch to the Move tool, and drag the rotation handle past the top-right corner while holding Cmd. Cmd snaps the angle in 15° steps, so it's easy to land on exactly 180°. Press Cmd+D to commit. The star now hangs point down from its string, clear of the tier's shadow.

If the tree is off centre, you don't need to move the layers one at a time. Click the Tree group row, press Cmd+D so nothing is selected, and drag anywhere on the tree with the Move tool. The chain, trunk, tiers, ornaments and star all move together. Line the trunk up with x 750. Undo and redo put everything back exactly.

Make a Gifts group inside Window, below Tree. Each gift is a black rectangle with a coloured rectangle 8 px inside it. Add black ribbon bands with coloured centres, and a bow made of two Shape-tool ellipses and a knot.

Draw the red gift the right way up, then marquee it and rotate it exactly 180° with Cmd held. Press Cmd+D.

Drag each gift down with the Move tool until its lowest point touches the floor at y 1618. That puts the upside-down gift on its bow. Give every gift the standard Drop Shadow. Next to two normal presents, the upside-down one looks like a deliberate joke rather than a mistake.

Collapse Window, select Halftone, and click New Group. Name the group Type and add a layer inside it called Headline Shadow. Then drag the Type group's grip above Window so all the type sits on top.

Type SEASON'S in Archivo Black at 188 px. Then move it so the letters start at (102, 90), the same left edge as the window. Cmd-click its thumbnail in the Layers panel: the letters become a selection.

With the letter selection still active, click Headline Shadow, set the foreground to pink #FF5FA2, and choose Edit → Fill. Press Cmd+D, then drag the layer 16 px right and 16 px down. A coloured shadow like this is a neubrutalist favourite. It follows the same 16 / 16 rule as the black shadows.

Add a Greetings Box layer and fill a black box from 350, 272 to 1398, 422, then a yellow one 8 px inside it. The box starts at x 350, the same x as the tree's widest corner, and ends on the window's right edge.

Type GREETINGS in Archivo Black at 140 px, well below the other text so the click doesn't land inside another text layer. Move it to the centre of the box.

Click Rasterize Layer, then Layer → Merge Down onto the box. Marquee the merged slab and drag the rotation handle to −1.2°. A small tilt reads as a sticker slapped on. A bigger one would crowd the window below it. Commit with Cmd+D and add the standard Drop Shadow.

On a Sparkles layer, lasso a four-pointed star centred at (1300, 148) with 72 px long points and a 30 px inner radius. Give it the fill black → Shrink 8 → fill yellow recipe with Feather 1, then the standard shadow. It fills the empty corner next to SEASON'S and stays inside the 90 px margins.

On an NY Box layer, fill a black box from 102, 1716 to 1219, 1876 and a blue (#4D7CFE) one 8 px inside it, then add the Drop Shadow. Type & A HAPPY NEW YEAR in white Archivo Black at 78 px in empty space and click Rasterize Layer.

Marquee it, then Cmd-drag the rotation handle to 180° and press Cmd+D. Move it to the centre of the part of the box that the sticker won't cover, at (642, 1796). This is the second half of the joke: the reader has to turn the card over to read it.

On a Flip Sticker layer, draw a Shape-tool circle with a 92 px radius in yellow, with the 8 px black stroke. Type FLIP and ME! on two lines in Archivo Black at 54 px, then rasterize it. Point text doesn't centre each line, so marquee the ME! line and drag it until both lines are centred. Merge it into the circle.

Marquee the sticker, hold Cmd, and drag the bottom-right handle out to scale it up about 17%. Then rotate it −12°. Place it at (1284, 1796), so it overlaps the box by about 45 px and its right edge sits on the 1398 margin, then add the standard shadow.

Open the Text panel and set Letter spacing to 2. Then type the footer in Space Mono Bold at 36 px. It uses an em dash, so paste the text in rather than typing it. Move it so it starts at x 102 and sits on y 2010, leaving the same 90 px at the bottom as at the top. The halftone corners stay clear of it, so it reads cleanly.

Add a Grain layer at the top of the Type group and fill it mid-grey #808080. Open Filter → Add Noise… and set Amount 70, Mono and Gaussian. Set the layer's blend mode to Overlay and its opacity to 22%. Overlay grey is invisible on its own, so what's left is a faint print texture on the flat colours.

Finally, click the rulers to drop guides at x 102, 750 and 1398 and at y 90 and 2010, and check everything lines up. Then export with File → Quick Export PNG.