Design a Swiss Style Exhibition Poster

Open Lopsy. In the New Document dialog, type 1200 for Width and 1700 for Height, choose a White background, and click Create.

Choose View → Show Grid, then set the Grid slider in the options bar to 32px and tick Snap. Click the top ruler at 60, 1140 and 888 to add vertical guides, and click the left ruler at 60 and 1640 for horizontal ones. The guide at 888 is where the sounding line will go.

Select the Background layer, set the foreground colour to #EDEBE4 in the Color panel's hex field, press G for the Paint Bucket and click the canvas.

Select Layer 1 and set the foreground to #111111. Press T for the Text tool. In the options bar, open the Font browser, search for Archivo Black and pick it, then set Size to 420. Click near the top-left corner at about (40, 0), type deep in lowercase, and press Tab to commit.

At this size the word runs from margin to margin. Notice the gap between the second e and the p: it sits right on the 888 guide.

With deep active, click New Group in the Layers panel footer and name the group Trench. The group goes above deep, so the discs will cover the descender of the p.

Click Add Layer, name it Disc 1, pick the Elliptical Marquee and drag a circle from (−40, 498) to (1368, 1906). It bleeds off the left, right and bottom edges. Set the foreground to #A3B5FF and fill the circle with the Paint Bucket. Then add Disc 2 and marquee from (248, 754) to (1272, 1778).

Fill Disc 2 with #5470FF. Add Disc 3 with a marquee from (504, 978) to (1144, 1618), filled with #1F2FD6. Add Disc 4 from (728, 1138) to (1048, 1458), filled with #0A0F3C. Press Cmd+D to deselect.

Each disc is smaller, darker and shifted towards the lower right, so the circles read as a tunnel dropping away. Four big steps work better than lots of small ones, which look like a UI gradient.

Click Add Layer and name it Halftone Shade. Choose the Elliptical Marquee, set Feather to 160 in the options bar, and drag a circle from (472, 882) to (1304, 1714), centred on the probe point at (888, 1298). Fill it with #0A0F3C. Deselect, then set Feather back to 0 so later marquees stay crisp.

Choose Filter → Halftone…, set Dot Size to 6, tick Preview, and click Apply. The soft falloff becomes a dot screen that grows denser towards the centre, a classic Swiss print detail.

The halftone mustn't spill onto the paper. With the Elliptical Marquee, drag the same circle as Disc 1, from (−40, 498) to (1368, 1906). Press Cmd+Shift+I to invert the selection, press Delete, and deselect.

Click the ✦ button on the Halftone Shade row to open Layer Effects and set Blend to Multiply. Then click the row's opacity readout and drag the slider to 60%. The dots now darken the discs underneath, not just cover them.

Add a layer named Sounding Line. Set the foreground to #FF3D1F, press B for the Brush, and set Size 4, Hardness 100 and Opacity 100. Click at (888, 0), then Shift-click at (888, 1298) to draw a perfectly straight line down the guide.

Add a layer named Probe. Marquee a circle from (856, 1266) to (920, 1330) and fill it with the same red. In Layer Effects, tick Outer Glow, set the glow colour to #FF3D1F, and set Size 40, Spread 10 and Opacity 85.

Add a layer named Ping 1. Press U for the Shape tool and choose Ellipse. Click the Fill swatch and choose Remove fill, then click Add stroke color and type FF3D1F in its hex field. Set Width to 2, hold Cmd, and drag from the probe centre (888, 1298) out 64 px for a perfect circle.

Add Ping 2 and Ping 3 the same way, with Width 1 and radii of 128 and

1. Set their opacities to 70% and 40%, so the signal fades as it spreads.

With Ping 3 active, set the foreground to the paper colour #EDEBE4, press T, and click at (40, 1175). Type blue and press Tab. It uses the same Archivo Black at 420 px, flush left under deep.

Because the word is paper-coloured, it looks like a hole cut through the discs. It also sits above the rings, so the e cleanly cuts the outer ping.

With blue active, click New Group and name it Depth Scale, then add a layer named Ticks. Untick Snap first, because the grid would collapse a 4 px marquee.

The scale starts at the baseline of deep (y 448 = 0 m) and ends at the probe (y 1298 = 10 935 m, the depth of the Challenger Deep), so every 2 000 m is about 155 px. Marquee a 40 × 4 px tick at (60, 446) and fill it with #111111. Marquee slightly around it, press Cmd+C and Cmd+V, then drag the pasted tick down with the Move tool V to y 603.

Paste and drag four more ticks to y 759, 914, 1070 and 1225. Then choose Layer → Merge Down five times to fold all the pasted layers back into Ticks.

With Ticks selected, set the foreground back to #111111, press T, and choose IBM Plex Mono at weight Medium (500) and Size 22. Click at x 112, about 15 px above each tick, and type 0 m, 2 000 m, 4 000 m, 6 000 m, 8 000 m and 10 000 m. Press Tab after each one.

Select Ticks again so you don't restyle the last label. Set the foreground to #FF3D1F, switch the weight to SemiBold (600), and click at (904, 1212) to type 10 935 m. The final depth reading belongs to the probe itself, so it sits right beside the red dot.

Select Ticks once more, choose Barlow at SemiBold (600) and Size 24, and set the foreground to #111111. At y 24, create three two-line blocks (press Enter for the line break):

• x 60: Ausstellung / Exhibition
• x 348: 12.10.2026 – / 24.02.2027
• x 904: Haus der Tiefe / Basel

The third column starts 16 px right of the sounding line, so the red line acts as its column rule.

Select Ticks again. With IBM Plex Mono Medium at Size 18 and the foreground #0A0F3C, click in empty space at (300, 540) and type SOUNDING THE ABYSS · 10 935 M. Click Rasterize Layer in the Layers panel footer. Then use the Rectangular Marquee to draw a box tightly around the text.

Press V for the Move tool. Hold Cmd so rotation snaps to 15° steps, and drag the top-right rotation handle a quarter turn anticlockwise. Press Enter to commit the transform, then Cmd+D.

Drag the caption with the Move tool until its right edge is on the 1140 guide and its top is at about y 560, just under the p of deep. It now runs over the paper and the pale disc, where it's easy to read.

Select the Trench group and click Add Layer to put a Grain layer at the top. Fill it with #808080. 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 remains. It takes the digital flatness off the colour fields.

Turn off View → Show Grid and View → Show Guides to check the clean result. Then choose File → Quick Export PNG to export it, and File → Save Project to keep an editable .lopsy file with all the groups.

For a series, keep the grid and type and change only the idea in the middle. Try "high tide" with stacked horizontal bands, or "echo" with rings that repeat outwards.