Make a Screen-Print Style Coffee Shop Flier

Open Lopsy. In the New Document dialog, set Width to 1200 and Height to 1600 pixels, keep the White background and click Create. That's a 3:4 portrait, a good shape for a letter-size or A4 flier.

Select Background, set the foreground colour to #F0E4C8 and choose Edit → Fill. Add a little tooth with Filter → Add Noise…: Amount 5, Mono.

Rename Layer 1 to Paper Fibers and run Filter → Fibers… with the default settings. Fibers draws a strong grey grain, so set the layer's blend mode to Multiply and its opacity to about 8%. That's just enough to read as paper.

Now the guides. Each one is a single click on a ruler:

• Cmd-click (Ctrl-click) the middle of the top ruler. Cmd snaps the guide to an exact fraction of the page, so it lands at the centre, 600.
• Click the top ruler at 60 and 1140 for the side margins.
• Click the left ruler at 1220. This is the ground line the bike's wheels will stand on.

Select Paper Fibers and click New Group at the bottom of the Layers panel. Rename it Key Plate. Select Paper Fibers again before each new group, so the groups sit side by side instead of nesting inside each other, and make Red Plate, Teal Plate and Mustard Plate. You should end up with Key at the top and Mustard at the bottom, just above the paper.

Select each group, open its drawer with the effects button on its row, and set Blend to Multiply. From now on, wherever two inks overlap they darken each other, like real ink: red over teal turns almost black, and teal over mustard turns olive.

Select Mustard Plate, click Add Layer (it lands inside the group) and rename it Sun.

With the Elliptical Marquee, hold Cmd (Ctrl) to keep it a perfect circle and drag one about 760 px across, centred on the middle guide: from about 220, 420 to 980, 1180.

Pick the Gradient tool, set it to Linear, click Advanced… and make the stops plain black to white. Drag from a little below the middle of the circle (around y 840) straight down to its bottom edge. The top of the sun becomes solid black and the bottom fades to white.

The black isn't the final colour. It's a tone map that tells the halftone filter where to put big dots and where to put small ones.

With the circle still selected, choose Filter → Halftone… and set Dot Size 18, Density 1.5, Angle 45 and Softness 0.6. Density 1.5 packs the dots tightly enough that the black area closes up into solid ink, and the dots shrink and vanish through the fade.

Press Cmd+D to deselect. Then open the effects drawer for Sun, turn on Color Overlay and set it to mustard #F2A93B. The overlay recolours every dot without touching their shapes.

The halftone leaves the top of the sun's edge a little ragged. With nothing selected, click once with the Elliptical Marquee without dragging. That opens the Elliptical Selection dialog, where you can type exact corners. Enter From 223, 423 and To 977, 1177: the same circle, 3 px smaller all round. Choose Select → Inverse and press Delete. The sun now has a clean, round edge.

Select Teal Plate, click Add Layer and name it Hills. Set the foreground to teal #2B8C8A.

The hill is a very wide, flat ellipse that runs off both sides of the page, so it's easiest to type. With nothing selected, click once with the Elliptical Marquee to open the Elliptical Selection dialog and enter From -500, 1030 and To 1700, 1750. The top of the curve sits 1030 px down at the centre guide and drops to about 1090 px at the edges of the paper. Choose Edit → Fill.

The ellipse runs off the bottom of the page, and the ground needs a straight bottom edge that tucks just under the info band you'll add later. Click once with the Rectangular Marquee and enter From 0, 1359 and To 1200, 1600, then press Delete and Cmd+D.

The teal crosses the halftone dots at the bottom of the sun and overprints them dark green. That's the Multiply plate doing its job.

First turn off View → Snap to Guides. Several circles from here on end within a few pixels of the ground guide, and snapping would pull them onto it.

The wheels are paper-coloured saucers, and a Multiply plate can only make things darker. So, like a real printer, cut the shapes out of the inks underneath. Cmd-drag a 300 px circle for the back wheel from 180, 920 to 480, 1220, so it sits on the ground guide (or type those corners into the dialog). Select Sun and press Delete, then select Hills and press Delete again.

Do the same for the front wheel: a 300 px circle from 740, 920 to 1040, 1220.

Select Key Plate, add a layer named Rear Wheel and set the foreground to navy #24263B.

Each ring is two circles with the same centre: select the bigger one and Fill it, then select the smaller one and press Delete. The circles have to be concentric, so type them into the Elliptical Selection dialog rather than dragging. The dialog only opens when nothing is selected, so press Cmd+D after each fill or delete, then click once with the marquee for the next circle. The back wheel's centre is 330, 1070:

• Saucer rim: fill 180, 920 → 480, 1220, delete 192, 932 → 468, 1208. That leaves a 12 px rim on the knockout's edge.
• Saucer groove: fill 214, 954 → 446, 1186, delete 218, 958 → 442, 1182, for a thin 4 px line.
• Cup rim: fill 230, 970 → 430, 1170, delete 240, 980 → 420, 1160.

For the handle, first break the groove where it will go: with the Lasso, loosely circle the stretch of groove at the lower left of the cup (about 7:30 on a clock face) and press Delete. Then lasso a small oval, about 45 px long and 35 px wide, that overlaps the cup's rim and points out towards the lower left, and Fill it. Lasso a smaller oval inside it and press Delete to open up the loop. From above, that's exactly what a cup handle looks like.

Drag a Rectangular Marquee around the whole back wheel, leaving a few pixels to spare. Press Cmd+C, give it a second or two to reach the clipboard, then press Cmd+V. The copy is pasted in place as a new layer, right on top of the original. Rename it Front Wheel and press Cmd+D.

Switch to the Move tool (V) and drag the copy 560 px to the right, onto the second knockout. Fine-tune it with the arrow keys until its saucer sits exactly on the cut-out circle and its bottom touches the ground guide.

The coffee is an overprint. Select the Red Plate group, click Add Layer and name it Coffee Red. Set the foreground to red #E0452F and fill a 182 px circle inside each cup rim (239, 979 → 421, 1161 for the back cup and 799, 979 → 981, 1161 for the front). Then select Hills, add a layer named Coffee Teal (it lands in Teal Plate) and fill the same two circles with teal #2B8C8A.

Red over solid teal is almost black, which is too dark for coffee. Turn Coffee Teal's opacity down to 45%, and the overlap becomes a warm espresso brown.

For the latte art, use the Lasso to draw a heart over each cup, about 100 px wide. Tilt the back one a little to the left and the front one a little to the right. With the heart selected, press Delete on Coffee Teal, then on Coffee Red. The cream paper shows through as milk foam.

Select Front Wheel and add a layer named Frame. Set the foreground back to navy #24263B, pick the Brush (B), and set Size to 14 and Hardness to 100.

Every tube is a straight line. Click where it starts, then hold Shift and click where it ends. Draw them in this order:

1. Chainstay: from the back cup's centre to the back bottom bracket, just outside the back saucer (about 505, 1100).
2. Seat stay: from the back cup's centre up to the back seat cluster, at about 470, 840.
3. Back seat tube: from the back bottom bracket up to the back seat cluster.
4. Front seat tube: from the front bottom bracket, about 700, 1100, up to the front seat cluster at about 660, 840.
5. Top tube: from one seat cluster to the other, and on to the head tube at about 800, 850.
6. Fork: from the bottom of the head tube, about 815, 905, down to the front cup's centre.
7. Down tube: from the bottom of the head tube to the front bottom bracket.
8. Boom tube: joining the two bottom brackets.
9. Diagonal: from the back seat cluster to the front bottom bracket. This brace is what makes it look like a tandem.

Draw the head tube itself at Brush Size 20. Then add the small parts:

• Seat posts and stem: short Shift-click lines, about 35 px long, at Brush Size 10.
• Chainrings: one ring at each bottom bracket. Fill a 62 px circle, delete a 44 px circle from the same centre, then fill a 14 px dot in the middle. Deleting the inner circle also clears the tube ends inside the ring, so the chainring reads as sitting in front of the frame.
• Timing chain: two straight lines at Brush Size 5, joining the tops and the bottoms of the two chainrings.
• Cranks: at Brush Size 11, one crank about 55 px long on each chainring pointing down and one pointing up.
• Pedals: short bars, about 35 px long, at Brush Size 9 across the ends of the cranks.
• Saddles: small wedge shapes drawn with the Lasso and filled.
• Drop handlebars: four or five short Shift-click segments at Brush Size 12, curling forward and down from the stem.
• Stoker bar: at the same size, a short horizontal bar off the front seat post with a little drop at the end. This is what the back rider holds.

The chainstay and the fork cross the coffee and spoil the hearts. Select the circle just inside the back cup's rim, about 178 px across (241, 981 → 419, 1159). Pick the Eraser (E), set it to a large size such as 120, and scrub over the circle. The selection stops it from touching anything outside the circle.

Do the same on the front cup. The tubes now stop at the cup rims, as if each cup were the wheel's hub cover.

Select Coffee Red so the text lands in Red Plate. Pick the Text tool (T), choose Alfa Slab One, set the size to 196, set the colour to red #E0452F, click near the top left and type TANDEM. Press Tab to finish.

Switch to the Move tool and click Align center horizontally in the options bar. Then nudge it with the arrow keys until the top of the letters is about 80 px from the top edge. At this size the word fills the space between the two margin guides almost exactly.

Gig posters love a solid offset shadow. Print it as its own ink, not as a layer effect:

1. Select Hills and add a layer named Title Shadow, so it sits in Teal Plate.
2. Cmd-click (Ctrl-click) the TANDEM thumbnail in the Layers panel to select the shape of the letters. Set the foreground to teal #2B8C8A and Fill. Press Cmd+D.
3. With the Move tool, press Right nine times and Down nine times.
4. Cmd-click the TANDEM thumbnail again, choose Select → Shrink… by 2 px, and press Delete on Title Shadow.

Step 4 knocks the shadow out from under the red letters, but leaves a 2 px overlap all the way round. Printers call that a trap: it hides small registration errors. Where red and teal overlap they overprint a thin, dark line, which gives the letters a crisp edge.

Select Frame so the text lands in Key Plate. With the Text tool, choose Bebas Neue at 112 in navy, and type ESPRESSO. Open the Text panel and set Letter spacing to 55 px. Centre it with Align center horizontally, then nudge it up so it sits about 30 px under TANDEM.

Add a layer in Red Plate named Rules and set the foreground to red #E0452F. With the Brush at Size 9, Shift-click a short line on each side of ESPRESSO, halfway up the letters. Start each rule at the edge of TANDEM, so the whole title block lines up on both sides.

Add a layer named Info Band in Red Plate. With the Rectangular Marquee, click once on the canvas without dragging. That opens fields for exact corners. Enter From 0, 1352 and To 1200, 1600, then Fill it with red. It overlaps the bottom of the teal hill by a few pixels, so another thin dark trap line appears where the two inks meet.

Select Frame and type two lines of text in navy. Each one is its own text layer:

• MOBILE COFFEE BAR in Bebas Neue at 96, letter spacing 14.
• SATURDAYS 7AM–1PM • FERRIS STREET MARKET, STALL 12 in Oswald Medium at 24, letter spacing 3.

Centre both with Align center horizontally. Then nudge them so the pair sits in the middle of the band, with about 60 px above the first line and below the second, and about 30 px between them. The small line comes out exactly as wide as ESPRESSO, so the top and bottom of the flier echo each other.

Cmd-click the first line's thumbnail, select Info Band and press Delete. Do the same for the second line. Then hide both text layers with their eye icons. The words are now bare paper showing through the red, like a real knockout, and the text layers stay editable if you need them.

Select Frame and type Two cups. One ride. in Pacifico at 54. Pacifico is a joined-up script, so make sure Letter spacing is 0, or the letters come apart.

Centre it, then nudge it so it sits halfway between the bottoms of the saucers and the top of the red band, with about 30 px above and below it. Cmd-click its thumbnail, select Hills, press Delete, and hide the text layer.

Now for the offer. Build the stamp at a generous size over the sun's top-right edge. It overlaps the sun for now, which doesn't matter, because you'll shrink it and move it onto bare paper in a moment. Add a layer named Badge in Red Plate and, with the Elliptical Selection dialog again, make three circles around a centre of 975, 560 (press Cmd+D between them so the dialog opens each time):

1. Fill 871, 456 → 1079, 664 (208 px) with red.
2. Delete 881, 466 → 1069, 654 (188 px).
3. Fill 885, 470 → 1065, 650 (180 px).

That leaves a thin paper keyline just inside the edge.

For the ring of text, pick the Shape tool, choose Ellipse and set Output to Path. Shapes grow from the point you press, so press at the stamp's centre (975, 560) and drag diagonally to 1041, 626, holding Cmd to keep it round. That gives a circular path 132 px across, which starts at 12 o'clock.

Select Frame and type BRING THIS FLIER • SATURDAYS ONLY • in Oswald SemiBold at 19, in navy. Press Tab, then pick Path 1 from the Path menu in the Text options bar. The words wrap around the circle with their feet on the path.

Adjust Letter spacing in the Text panel until the gap after the last bullet matches the other gaps. It's 2.4 here. If the last bullet disappears, the text is too long for the circle, so reduce the spacing.

In the middle of the stamp, type FREE in Alfa Slab One at 36 and CORTADO in Bebas Neue at 24 with letter spacing 4. Move them so the pair is centred in the disc. Keep at least 6 px between FREE's corners and the ring of text.

Then Cmd-click each of the three text thumbnails in turn, select Badge and press Delete each time. Hide the three text layers.

The stamp shouldn't compete with the bike, so make it smaller. Draw a Rectangular Marquee around it, switch to the Move tool, hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right handle inwards until it's about 172 px across. Cmd keeps it perfectly round. Press Cmd+D to apply the scale.

Then drag it up into the empty paper in the top right, under the end of the right-hand rule, so it sits clear of the sun and the margin.

Draw a marquee around the stamp again. With the Move tool, hover just outside a corner handle until the cursor changes to rotate, then drag anticlockwise about 12°. Press Cmd+D.

A rubber stamp is never quite straight, and the tilt makes it feel added by hand.

Add a layer named Speed Lines in Red Plate. Turn on View → Show Grid. With the Rectangular Marquee active, set Grid to 8px in the options bar and make sure Snap is ticked.

Draw three bars, each one grid square tall and four grid squares (32 px) apart, all ending at the same point about 10 px behind the back saucer: 72, 48 and 32 px long, from top to bottom. Fill each one in red. The grid keeps them perfectly level and evenly spaced. Turn the grid off again when you're done.

Real prints carry little crosshair targets in the margins so the printer can line the inks up. Add a layer named Reg Marks in Key Plate and draw one in each top corner, about 32 px in from the edges. Each one is a 24 px ring (fill a 24 px circle, delete a 20 px circle) with a crosshair of two 40 px Pencil lines at Size 2.

Copy the marks with a marquee over the top strip and Cmd+C. Then select a layer in each of the other three plates in turn and press Cmd+V, which pastes the marks into that plate. Give each copy a Color Overlay in that plate's ink.

Now knock the plates out of register. Select a plate group, switch to the Move tool, and nudge the whole group with the arrow keys:

• Teal Plate: 4 px right, 3 px up
• Red Plate: 3 px left, 3 px down
• Mustard Plate: 3 px right, 4 px down

Leave Key Plate where it is. The marks fan out into four colours, thin cream and coloured fringes appear round the hearts, and the knockouts no longer line up exactly. That's what makes it look hand-pulled.

Select Frame and type PEDAL-POWERED · SMALL-BATCH ROASTS · SINCE 2026 in Oswald Medium at 17, letter spacing 4. With the Move tool, click Rotate 90° CCW in the options bar. The text stays live, now reading from bottom to top.

Type a second line, OAT MILK ON REQUEST · CASH OR CARD · RAIN OR SHINE, and click Rotate 90° CW.

Drag each one to about 40 px from its edge of the paper. Grab it a third of the way along rather than in the middle, so you don't catch a transform handle. Keep both on the bare paper above the hill, running from about y 430 down to 1015, level with the stamp and the sun.

Ink never covers perfectly. To add tiny gaps:

1. Select Paper Fibers, add a layer named Ink Wear, and drag it to the very top of the Layers panel, above Key Plate.
2. Fill it with mid grey #808080, then run Add Noise… at 100 (Mono, Uniform), Gaussian Blur… at 3 px, and Threshold… at 147. That leaves about one pixel in a hundred white, in small clumps, on black.
3. With Ink Wear selected, choose Layer → Group Layers and rename the group Wear.
4. Add a layer above Ink Wear inside the group, name it Wear Tint, fill it with the paper colour #F0E4C8, and set it to Multiply. That turns the white specks paper-coloured and leaves the black black.
5. Set the Wear group's Blend to Lighten.

Lighten ignores the black completely and only lets the paper-coloured specks through where the ink underneath is darker than paper. So the specks show on the red, teal, mustard and navy, and disappear on bare paper, just like real ink dropout.