Design a Screen-Print Fig Marmalade Billboard

Choose File → New, enter 2700 × 900 and click Create.

Drop guides for an 80 px margin all round. Click the top ruler at 80 and at 2620 for vertical guides, and the left ruler at 80 and 820 for horizontal ones. Click the top ruler once more at 1340. That's where the type column starts: the art goes on the left, the words on the right.

Click the Background row, set the foreground to paper #EFE4CC, choose Select → All and then Edit → Fill. Deselect. Choose Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 5, Mono and Gaussian. That gives the flat fill a slight tooth.

The new document also comes with an empty Layer 1; leave it for now. Click Add Layer, name the new layer Paper grain, set the foreground to white and choose Select → All and Edit → Fill. Deselect and run Add Noise… again with Amount 60, Mono and Gaussian. Then choose Filter → Motion Blur… with Angle 80 and Distance 6, which stretches the noise into short fibres. Set the layer's Blend to Multiply and its opacity to 14%. Multiply drops the white out, so only the fibres show.

Click Paper grain and click the New Group button at the bottom of the Layers panel. Name it Plum ink. Open its drawer (the sparkle icon) and set Blend to Multiply.

Click Paper grain again before each new group, and make Rose ink, Sage ink and Ochre ink the same way, all set to Multiply. Each new group lands right above Paper grain, so the stack ends up in printing order: ochre at the bottom, then sage, rose and plum on top. Finally click the empty Layer 1 and delete it with the trash button.

All the artwork you draw from now on goes into the group for its ink. Because the groups multiply, a plum shape on top of ochre prints darker, just like two transparent inks on paper.

Expand Ochre ink, click it and add a layer named Sun rays. Set the foreground to ochre #E2A240.

The sun sits at 756, 441. Make a circle selection of radius 420 around it, from 336, 21 to 1176, 861. Then choose Filter → Sunburst…:

• Rays 28, Length 24, Width 42, Rotation 4
• Center X 28 and Center Y 49
• Taper, Fade, Softness and Jitter at 0, Opacity 100

Center X and Center Y are percentages of the document, so 28% of 2700 and 49% of 900 put the centre on the sun. Length is a percentage of the distance to the farthest corner, so 24 is long enough to reach the edge of the selection. The selection trims every ray to the same circle.

Deselect, then choose Filter → Halftone… with Dot Size 11, Density 2.2, Angle 45 and Softness 0.6.

Screen printers can't print a pale ochre without mixing a new ink, so they fake a tint with dots. Halftone does the same thing here: from a distance the rays read lighter than the solid sun, but up close they're the same ochre ink.

Add a layer named Sun above Sun rays. Select a circle of radius 345 around the same centre, from 411, 96 to 1101, 786, and fill it with ochre. Deselect, and collapse Ochre ink.

Expand Sage ink, click it and add a layer named Fig leaf.

Pick the Lasso and draw a fig leaf about 470 px across, tilted so its middle lobe points up and to the left, centred near 520, 322. A fig leaf has five lobes: a long middle one, two side lobes and two smaller ones at the back. Each lobe ends in a soft point. The gaps between them are narrow and cut about halfway to the centre, and there's a small notch where the stalk joins. Go slowly; you can undo and redraw as often as you like.

Fill the selection with sage #7B9160 and deselect.

Pick the Brush at Size 18, still in sage, and paint a short curved stalk out of the notch, down and to the right.

Now cut the veins out with the Eraser at Size 9. Click the base of the leaf, just inside the notch, then hold Shift and click the tip of the middle lobe. That draws a straight erased line. Do the same from the base to each of the other four lobes, stopping the two back lobes a little short. Then set the Size to 5 and add two pairs of short side veins on the middle and side lobes, angled forward. Keep them inside their lobe.

Off the sun, the veins show bare paper. Over the sun they show ochre for now; the knockout two steps on turns those to paper too.

Cmd-click the Fig leaf thumbnail to select the leaf, press Cmd+C, deselect and press Cmd+V. The copy is pasted in place on a new layer.

Pasting in place doesn't leave a selection, so draw a rectangular marquee just around the copy. Pick the Move tool, put the pointer just outside the top-right corner until it turns into the rotate cursor, and drag clockwise until the leaf has turned about 96°. Press Enter to apply the rotation.

Draw a new marquee around the rotated copy. Hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right corner handle in until the leaf is about 60% of its size, then press Enter and deselect.

With the Move tool, drag the small leaf across to the right edge of the sun, centred around 1100, 280, and rename the layer Fig leaf 2. It will peek out from behind the halved fig.

Sage over ochre makes a muddy olive, so take the ochre out from under the leaves. Expand Ochre ink.

Cmd-click the Fig leaf thumbnail and choose Select → Grow… 6. Growing closes up the vein gaps and adds a hairline all round. Click Sun and press Delete, then click Sun rays and press Delete. Do the same for Fig leaf 2. Deselect.

The leaves are now printed straight onto the paper, and the thin paper outline around them looks like a printer's trap.

Collapse Sage ink, expand Rose ink, click it and add a layer named Whole fig.

With the Lasso, draw a fig about 320 px wide and 400 px tall, centred near 550, 596 and tilted about 14° to the left. Make the body round and the neck short, about a third of the body's width, rising to a rounded point. Fill it with rose #D2566A.

Keep the selection. Expand Ochre ink and Sage ink, then press Delete on Sun, Sun rays and Fig leaf. That knocks them out behind the fig, so the rose prints on clean paper.

Collapse Ochre ink and Sage ink, expand Plum ink, click it and add a layer named Fig shading. The fig's selection is still active, so the gradient will only fill the fig.

Pick the Gradient tool, set it to Radial, and open Advanced…. Give it four stops, typing each colour into the hex field:

• #FFFFFF at 0% and #B58AA6 at 22%
• plum #4A2140 at 62% and again at 100%

Drag from the light spot just left of the body's centre, about 488, 570, down and to the right to 670, 726.

Keep the selection and choose Filter → Halftone… with Dot Size 12, Density 1.7, Angle 30 and Softness 0.5.

White makes no dots, so the highlight stays rose, while the dark edges print solid plum. The dots sit on top of the rose plate and multiply into it, which is exactly how a two-colour screen print shades a round shape. Deselect.

Add a layer named Stems inside Plum ink. Paint each stem with the Brush at Size 16 in plum: a short, slightly hooked stroke rising straight out of the top of the neck, starting around 495, 381. Paint the halved fig's stem now too, at the top of where its neck will be, starting around 968, 340. It floats on its own for a moment; the halved fig grows up to meet it in the next steps, and because Stems isn't knocked out it stays on top.

The halved fig needs its own clean patch of paper. With the Lasso, draw the outline of a fig about 390 px wide and 470 px tall, centred near 945, 598 and leaning slightly right. Give it the same round body and short neck as the whole fig.

Choose Select → Grow… 10. Expand all four groups and press Delete on Sun, Sun rays, Fig leaf, Fig leaf 2, Whole fig and Fig shading. The extra 10 px leaves a band of paper around the halved fig, so it doesn't merge into the whole fig.

The window's selection is still active. Choose Select → Shrink… 10 to get back to the fig's own outline. Click Fig shading, add a layer named Fig skin in Plum ink, set the foreground to plum and fill.

Choose Select → Shrink… 15 and press Delete. That leaves a thin plum rim of even width, the skin.

Keep the selection and choose Select → Shrink… 22. Click Whole fig in Rose ink, add a layer named Fig flesh and fill it with rose. The 22 px you shrank by is the cream pith ring between skin and flesh, and shrinking keeps it the same width all the way round, even up in the neck.

Keep the flesh selected and choose Select → Shrink… 3. Click Fig skin and add a layer named Strands above it. With plum as the foreground, choose Filter → Sunburst… again:

• Rays 120, Length 13, Width 55, Taper 100
• Fade 35, Softness 20, Jitter 70, Seed 17, Opacity 80
• Center X 35 and Center Y 68

Center X 35 and Center Y 68 put the burst at 945, 612, just below the middle of the flesh. A Taper of 100 turns every ray into a spike that starts thick and thins to a point, and Jitter varies their length, so they look like the stringy inside of a fig. The selection keeps them inside the flesh. Deselect.

Cmd-click the Fig flesh thumbnail and choose Select → Shrink… 12. Expand Ochre ink, click Sun and add a layer named Seeds. Set the foreground to ochre.

Pick the Brush at Size 8, click Open brush presets and set Spacing to 260 on the Shape tab, then Scatter 100 and Size Jitter 45 on the Dynamics tab. Paint five wobbly loops around the centre of the flesh, each one a bit bigger than the last. The scatter throws each seed off the line, so the loops don't look like rings. Deselect.

The seeds look too dark printed on top of the rose. Punch them through instead: Cmd-click the Seeds thumbnail, choose Select → Grow… 1, and press Delete on Fig flesh and then on Strands. Now each seed is ochre on bare paper, which reads as golden.

Lasso a small teardrop about 26 px wide and 45 px tall at the burst's centre, 945, 616. Press Delete on Fig flesh, Strands and Seeds to leave the hollow in the middle of the fig. Deselect.

Click Fig shading and add a layer named Shadow. With the exact-corners dialog, make an elliptical selection from 380, 742 to 1180, 802: a flat oval 800 px wide under the figs, centred on 780, 772. Pick the Gradient tool, set it to Radial and open Advanced…. Click each middle stop and delete it until only the two ends are left, then make the left one plum and the right one white. Drag from the middle of the oval, 780, 772, to its right end. Then run Halftone… with Dot Size 12, Density 1.3, Angle 30 and Softness 0.5.

Lasso the whole fig, then hold Shift and lasso the halved fig to add it to the selection, and press Delete so the shadow sits behind them. Finally Cmd-click the Sun thumbnail, choose Select → Inverse and press Delete on Shadow. That keeps the shadow on the sun, so it can't smudge onto the bare paper. Deselect and collapse all the groups.

Type goes in from the bottom up. That way each new click lands in empty space and not on a line you've already set. The type layers sit above the ink groups rather than inside them; clicking a collapsed group row first just places each new line in the stack and stops the Text tool restyling the last one.

Click the collapsed Plum ink row so the Text tool's settings don't restyle anything. Pick the Text tool, choose Young Serif at size 56 in plum, click in the type column near 1340, 700 and type Spread the last of summer. Press Tab to commit it. With the Move tool, nudge it with the arrow keys until its left edge is at x = 1334 and the bottom of the p sits at y = 772.

Click Plum ink again. Set Rozha One at size 236 in plum, click near 1340, 440 and type Marmalade. Nudge it so it starts at x = 1334 with its baseline at y = 662. It should end at about x = 2566, close to the right margin.

Click Rose ink, then choose Rozha One at size 372 in rose. Click near 1340, 150 and type Fig. Nudge it to x = 1334 with the bottom of the g's loop at y = 516. That leaves about 25 px between the loop and the r and m of Marmalade, so the two words nest without touching.

Click Plum ink again. Choose Bevan at size 60 in plum, click in the top margin near 1340, 40 and type MORROW & FINCH. Nudge it so its left edge is at 1334 and the tops of its capitals are at y = 84. On a billboard, the advertiser's name has to be readable from the road, so keep it big.

Real plates never line up perfectly. Fake one slip on the headline.

Click Marmalade and choose Layer → Duplicate Layer. The copy, Marmalade copy, stays live text on top. Click the original Marmalade row, which is now underneath, and click Rasterize Layer at the bottom of the Layers panel. In its drawer turn on Color Overlay in rose, then click Rasterize Layer Style to bake it. Rename it Marmalade trap and set its Blend to Multiply.

With the Move tool, press ArrowLeft four times and ArrowUp three times. A thin rose edge now shows along the top left of every plum letter.

The badge goes in the top-right corner. It's centred on 2415, 234 with a radius of 150, so its right edge lines up with the end of Marmalade. Click the top ruler at 2265, 2415 and 2565, and the left ruler at 84, 234 and 384.

Expand Ochre ink, click Seeds and add a layer named Badge. With the Elliptical Marquee, drag from the top-left corner of the guide box to the bottom-right one. Snap to Guides is on by default, so both corners land exactly on the guides. Set the foreground to ochre, fill and deselect.

The rings are within a few pixels of those guides, so turn View → Snap to Guides off first, or every circle will jump to the guide box.

Collapse Ochre ink, expand Plum ink, click Strands and add a layer named Badge ring. Set the foreground to plum. With the exact-corners dialog, make two rings around 2415, 234:

• fill 2278, 97 to 2552, 371 (radius 137), then select 2284, 103 to 2546, 365 (radius 131) and press Delete
• fill 2334, 153 to 2496, 315 (radius 81), then select 2337, 156 to 2493, 312 (radius 78) and press Delete

Pick the Brush, open Open brush presets and set Scatter and Size Jitter back to 0 (they're still set from the seeds). At Size 11, click once at 2309, 234 and once at 2521, 234. These dots split the top line of text from the bottom one.

Text on a closed circle runs all the way round, so the bottom half ends up upside down. Use two arcs instead, both drawn left to right.

Pick the Pen tool. For the top arc, press on the left at 2318, 234 and drag straight up about 130 px to pull out a handle. Then press on the right at 2512, 234 and drag straight down by the same amount. Click the ✓ Commit path button in the options bar. That's a half circle over the top, 97 px from the centre.

For the bottom arc, press at 2305, 274, a little below the left dot, and drag about 110 px down and slightly to the right. Then press at 2525, 274 and drag the same distance up and slightly to the right. Commit it. It sags under the inner ring, 117 px from the centre.

Click Plum ink. With the Text tool, choose Bevan at size 27 in plum, click in the empty bottom margin and type HAND-STIRRED. Commit it. In the options bar set Path to Path 1 and Align to Center. The letters jump onto the top arc and centre over the badge.

Click Plum ink again, type COPPER POTS the same way, and bind it to Path 2 with Align set to Center. Because the bottom arc runs left to right, the letters sit upright with their tops towards the middle of the badge. With COPPER POTS still selected, open the Text panel and set Letter spacing to 3 to loosen it a little. The spacing carries over to the next text you type, which suits the two small lines in the middle.

The top line sits on a smaller circle than the bottom one, because the top letters grow outward from their arc and the bottom letters hang inward. So both lines fill the same band between the rings.

Click Plum ink, choose Bevan at size 18 and click inside the inner ring, clear of the arc letters, and type EST. Click Plum ink again, choose Rozha One at size 56 and type 1931. Nudge both until they're centred on x = 2415, with EST. just above the middle line and 1931 just below it.

This works like the trap on Marmalade. Click Fig and choose Layer → Duplicate Layer. The copy, Fig copy, stays rose and on top. Click the original Fig underneath, click Rasterize Layer, turn on Color Overlay in plum and click Rasterize Layer Style. Rename it Fig shadow.

With the Move tool, nudge it 9 px right and 9 px down with the arrow keys (Shift+arrow moves 10 px at a time). That's the hard shadow of a second plate.

Cmd-click the Fig copy thumbnail to select the letters, click the Fig copy row and add a layer named Fig dots.

Pick the Gradient tool, set it to Linear, and in Advanced… make the left stop white and the right stop ochre. Drag from just below the top of the letters straight down to the bottom of the g. Run Halftone… with Dot Size 11, Density 1.6, Angle 45 and Softness 0.4. Deselect and set the layer's Blend to Multiply. The dots overprint the rose, so they print as a deeper orange, heavier towards the foot of each letter.

Moving a whole group moves its plate. Click the collapsed Rose ink group row, pick the Move tool and press ArrowRight four times and ArrowDown three times. Then click Sage ink and press ArrowLeft three times and ArrowDown twice.

The slip opens thin slivers of paper along some edges and doubles others. The seed holes move too, so the seeds pick up pale paper centres with rose edges, which sells the misprint.

Each arrow press is its own undo step, so Cmd+Z twelve times takes both plates back exactly where they were if you want to compare. Then redo all twelve with Cmd+Shift+Z.

Ink skips on the tooth of real paper. Click the topmost layer in the Layers panel (the first row under Project, here the tagline) and add a layer named Ink wear, so it sits above everything, type included. Set the foreground to grey #808080 and fill the whole layer and choose Add Noise… with Amount 100, Mono and Uniform. Then choose Gaussian Blur… with Radius 2. The blur clumps the noise into small blobs.

Choose Filter → Threshold… and drag the Level up until only a few percent of the blobs stay white, about 150 here. The rest turns black.

Pick the Magic Wand, untick Contiguous, and click any black area. That selects all the black at once. Press Delete and deselect, so only the white specks are left.

Open the layer's drawer and turn on Color Overlay in paper #EFE4CC, then click Rasterize Layer Style. Set the layer's opacity to 85%. The specks are invisible on bare paper, but they break up every ink, type included, like a print where the ink didn't quite cover.

Turn the guides off with View → Show Guides. Export with File → Quick Export PNG and keep the layered file with File → Save Project.