LOPSY

Design a Typographic Hot Sauce Party Invitation

Make a wood-type style party invitation in Lopsy with flame-gradient lettering, sauce drips, a misregistered red plate, a heat scale and text on a circle.

  • Intermediate
  • 60 min
  • 21 steps

Published

The finished Hot Sauce Social invitation. A kicker line reads You're cordially invited to the. Below it are a dripping orange-to-red HOT, a tilted green script Sauce and a tall black SOCIAL with a red misregistered plate. Next comes a heat scale from MILD to INFERNO over a green-to-black gradient bar. At the bottom are a red BYOB badge with a chili and the party details, all on cream paper with a peach sunburst and halftone corners

In a typographic poster the letters are the picture. This tutorial builds Hot Sauce Social, a 1200 × 1680 px (5 × 7) invitation in the style of an old wood-type print shop. It has three big words in three contrasting faces, each with its own print trick, plus a small, well-organised details block.

Along the way you'll use rasterized type with the Magic Wand for gradient fills, Brush drips, a hand-offset second ink plate, a gradient heat scale, a Layer Mask, Halftone, Text on a path, and a grain made from Add Noise and Threshold.

The palette:

  • Paper #F1E6D0, ink #1B1714
  • Chili red #D62718, deep sauce red #A80F12, habanero #F28A1E
  • Jalapeño green #2E6B3A, plus #3E7D2A and olive #8C8A1A for the heat scale
  • Sunburst peach #F4CF9C, halftone red #E0301A

One rule keeps it coherent: every display element gets the same hard offset, 12 px right and 10 px down with no blur. Dark type gets a red plate. Colored type gets an ink shadow.

  1. Set up the paper and margins

    Choose File → New, keep the unit on Pixels, and create a 1200 × 1680 document. Rename Layer 1 to Paper. Select all, then Edit → Fill it with #F1E6D0.

    Click the top ruler at 80, 600 and 1120, and the left ruler at 80 and 1600. That gives an 80 px safe margin on every side and a centre line. Guides only drop while View → Show Guides is ticked.

    A blank 1200 by 1680 document filled with cream paper, with guides at x 80, 600 and 1120 and y 80 and 1600

  2. Draw a sunburst with the Lasso

    Add a layer called Rays. Every ray starts at the same point, (600, 330), which will sit inside the O of HOT. Split the circle into 28 equal slices and fill every other one with #F4CF9C. That's 14 rays.

    For each ray, use the Lasso to click from the centre out to the canvas edge, trace along the edge, and come back to the centre. Then choose Edit → Fill. Let the far points run about 40 px past the canvas edge, so no ray ends in a sliver.

    A long lasso wedge running from a point behind the headline out past the left edge of the canvas, with seven peach rays already filled

  3. Fade the rays with a layer mask

    With Rays selected, click Add Mask in the Layers panel, then click the Mask row to edit it. Open the Gradient tool's Advanced… editor and set three stops: white at 0, white at 40% and black at 100%. Pick Radial and drag from (600, 330) down to (600, 1650).

    The rays stay strong behind the headline and fade out behind the small type, where they would hurt readability. Click the Rays layer row to stop editing the mask.

    The Rays layer mask being edited, shown as a blue overlay, after a white-to-black radial gradient from the burst centre

  4. Halftone the corners

    Add a layer called Dots. For each corner, draw a 360 × 360 Rectangular Marquee tucked into it. Drag a Radial gradient from the corner outwards, from #E0301A at full opacity to the same red at 0% opacity.

    Deselect, then choose Filter → Halftone… with Dot Size 16. Set the layer to Multiply at 40% in the effects drawer. Dots in all four corners keep the page from feeling top-heavy.

    The Halftone dialog open with Dot Size 16, previewing red halftone dots fading in from all four corners

  5. Set the kicker and the HOT headline

    Select the Dots layer, so new type doesn't restyle anything, and pick the Text tool. In the Text panel, set Letter spacing to 8. Type YOU'RE CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE in Space Mono, weight 700, at 26 px in ink. With the Move tool, click Align center horizontally, then nudge it so the tops of the letters sit at y 96.

    Reset the letter spacing to 0 and type HOT in Ultra at 400 px. Ultra is a chunky slab serif that looks like cut wood type.

    HOT typed in Ultra at 400 px in red above the sunburst, with the letter-spaced kicker line centred above it

  6. Scale HOT to the margins

    Click Rasterize Layer at the bottom of the Layers panel. Draw a marquee around the letters, switch to the Move tool, and hold Cmd while you drag the bottom-right handle. Cmd keeps the scale uniform. Stop when the letters are 1040 px wide, then press Cmd+D to commit.

    Move the word so its top-left corner is at (80, 150). Use the arrow keys for the last few pixels.

    HOT rasterized and inside a transform box, being scaled from the corner handle so it spans exactly x 80 to 1120

  7. Fill the letters with a flame gradient

    Pick the Magic Wand, untick Contiguous, and click one letter. All three letters are now selected.

    Set gradient stops of #FFB22E (0), #F7931E (30%), #E0301A (65%) and #A80F12 (100%). Drag a Linear gradient straight down from the top of the letters (y 150) to the bottom (y 453). Heat rises, so the top is hot yellow and the bottom is thick sauce red.

    The HOT letters selected with the Magic Wand and filled with a vertical gradient from amber at the top to deep red at the bottom

  8. Paint the sauce drips

    Deselect. Pick the Brush at Hardness 100 with #A80F12, the same red as the bottom of the gradient. Starting just inside a letter's bottom edge (y 436), paint ten vertical drips at sizes 16–26 px, 38 to 98 px long.

    Finish each drip with an Elliptical Marquee blob about 1.6 times the brush width and Edit → Fill. Put the drips where letters have flat feet: two or three under each H stem, the O's curve and the T's stem. Vary the lengths so they don't look like a comb.

    Deep red drips painted with a hard round brush hanging from the bottoms of the H, O and T, each ending in a round drop

  9. Add a keyline and a hard shadow

    Open Layer effects on HOT. Enable Stroke in #1B1714, Width 5, and Drop Shadow in #1B1714: Offset X 12, Offset Y 10, Blur 0, Opacity 100.

    The keyline keeps the pale top of the gradient from dissolving into the cream paper. The hard shadow is the first use of the 12 / 10 offset. Because the effects wrap the whole layer, the drips get them too.

    The effects drawer for HOT with Drop Shadow enabled, colour 1B1714, offset 12 by 10 and blur 0, above a stroked headline

  10. Set Sauce in a tilted script

    With HOT selected, type Sauce in Shrikhand at 300 px in #2E6B3A. It's the one cool colour in the design. Rasterize it, draw a marquee around it, and drag just outside the top-right corner with the Move tool to rotate it −6°. Press Cmd+D.

    Rasterize type before you rotate it. That way the next text click can't pick up the live layer.

    Draw a new marquee and Cmd-scale Sauce to 1000 px wide, then move it to (100, 590). Its left edge should sit just inside the margin, and every drip should clear its cap line. Give it the same Stroke 5 and Drop Shadow 12 / 10 as HOT.

    Sauce typed in Shrikhand, rasterized and inside a rotated transform box turned six degrees anticlockwise

  11. Cut an inline stripe through SOCIAL

    Set Letter spacing to 58 and type SOCIAL in Anton at 300 px in ink. Adjust the tracking until the word spans exactly 1040 px, then centre it with its top at y 900. Rasterize it.

    Untick Snap, because it can collapse a thin marquee. Draw a 5 px tall Rectangular Marquee right across the middle of the cap height (y 1030) and press Delete. This one clean cut gives an "inline" wood-type look. Two cuts looked like a glitch.

    SOCIAL in Anton at 300 px spanning the margins, with a thin 5 pixel marquee across the middle of the letters ready to delete

  12. Offset a red plate under SOCIAL

    Choose Layer → Duplicate Layer. The copy lands 10 px down and right, so nudge it back with Shift+Left and Shift+Up.

    Select the original underneath, add a Color Overlay in #D62718, and nudge it 12 px right, 10 px down: Shift+Right then two Right presses, and Shift+Down. Rename the layers SOCIAL and SOCIAL Red.

    The red plate peeks through the inline cut, like a second ink run that missed the first.

    SOCIAL in black with a red copy offset 12 pixels right and 10 pixels down behind it, like a misregistered two-colour print

  13. Type the heat scale

    With SOCIAL selected, click New Group and name it Heat Scale. Add a layer inside it called Scale Bar. Select Scale Bar before each word, so the words land in the group without restyling each other.

    Type each word in Anton 64 px with letter spacing 3, then rasterize it. Use a single face for the whole scale. Five different fonts read as a font sampler, and "SPICY" avoids repeating the headline's HOT.

    • MILD #3E7D2A
    • MEDIUM #8C8A1A
    • SPICY #F28A1E
    • HOTTER #D62718
    • INFERNO #1B1714

    Justify the row across the margins with equal gaps. The words total 868 px, so each of the four gaps is 43 px. Their left edges sit at x 80, 248, 500, 687 and 913, all on one baseline at y 1275.

    Five heat-scale words in Anton, MILD, MEDIUM, SPICY, HOTTER and INFERNO, typed in green, olive, orange, red and black inside a new Heat Scale group

  14. Add a gradient scale bar

    On Scale Bar, build a 1040 × 16 capsule at y 1290 from a Rectangular Marquee plus two circle ends, filled in ink. Magic Wand it, then drag a Linear gradient from x 80 to x 1120 using the five heat colours as stops: 0, 25, 50, 72 and 100%.

    Label the ends in Space Mono 700, 20 px: 0 SHU flush left and 2,000,000+ SHU flush right, with their tops at y 1318.

    A thin capsule under the heat words filled with a green to olive to orange to red to black gradient, with small Space Mono labels at each end

  15. Build the BYOB badge

    Select SOCIAL again and create a Details group with a Badge Disc layer inside it. Draw a 224 px Elliptical Marquee centred on (192, 1488). Its left edge sits on the 80 px margin and its bottom on the 1600 guide. Fill it with #D62718.

    Choose Select → Shrink… by 9 and fill with the paper colour. Then Shrink by 4 more and fill red again. That leaves a crisp 4 px cream ring. Add a Drop Shadow in ink at 8 / 7, blur 0. The badge is smaller, so it gets a slightly smaller offset.

    A red disc at the bottom left with a thin cream ring made by shrinking the circle selection by 9 pixels and filling it cream

  16. Draw a chili with the Lasso

    On a new Chili layer, lasso a tapered crescent in #F1E6D0. It should be fat at the shoulder and curve down to a sharp point. Lasso a small green #2E6B3A calyx on top and a thin curled stem.

    Draw a marquee around the chili and Cmd-scale it to about 64%. Then drag it with the Move tool until it's centred on the badge.

    A cream chili pepper drawn with the Lasso as a tapered curve, with a green calyx being added at its shoulder

  17. Run text around the badge

    Pick the Shape tool, set Shape to Ellipse and Output to Path, and drag from the badge centre out 80 px. That makes a circular path starting at 12 o'clock.

    With Chili selected, set letter spacing to 6 and type BRING YOUR OWN BOTTLE • BYOB • in Alfa Slab One, 16 px, #F1E6D0. Paste it if your keyboard can't type the bullets. Press Tab, then choose the path in the Text options bar's Path dropdown.

    Adjust the letter spacing until the gap at the seam matches the gaps around the bullets. At this size and radius, 6 closes the circle evenly.

    BRING YOUR OWN BOTTLE • BYOB • set in cream Alfa Slab One and flowing around the inside of the badge ring on a circular path

  18. Set the details block

    Line the details up with the badge. The block starts at x 352, its first line's cap top matches the badge top (y 1376), and its last line sits on the 1600 guide:

    • Date: SATURDAY · OCTOBER 18 · 7 PM, Anton 60 px, letter spacing 3.5, so it ends right on the 1120 margin under INFERNO. Top at y 1376.
    • Where: THE FERNANDEZ BACKYARD — 214 PEPPER LANE, Courier Prime 700, 25 px. Top at y 1467.
    • What: Tasting flights, a taco bar & the wing-of-fire challenge., Courier Prime 400, 21 px. Top at y 1520.
    • RSVP: RSVP BY OCT 10 · (555) 014-8822, Space Mono 700, 23 px, #D62718. Top at y 1576.

    The three gaps between the lines are equal, so the block reads as one unit with the badge.

    The details block beside the badge: a large Anton date line, the address in bold Courier Prime, a description line and a red RSVP line

  19. Trim the drips so Sauce can breathe

    Check that every drip clears Sauce by at least 30 px. For any that don't, draw a marquee over the bottom of the drip on the HOT layer and scrub it out with the Eraser at Size 60. The marquee keeps the eraser off everything else.

    Fill a new ellipse drop about 22 px higher. The stroke and shadow re-wrap the new end automatically.

    A marquee under the long centre drip of the O with the Eraser at size 60 clearing its lower end before a new drop is added

  20. Add a fine print grain

    Add a layer called Wear. Fill it with #808080, run Filter → Add Noise… at Amount 100 in Mono, then Filter → Threshold… at 174. About 4% of the pixels are now white specks on black.

    Set the layer to Lighten at 40%. The black does nothing, and the white specks knock tiny holes of paper colour into the ink.

    Drag the layer's grip to the top of the Layers panel, so the grain covers every element evenly.

    Close-up of SOCIAL and Sauce showing a fine, even speckle of light specks over the ink, like worn letterpress

  21. Finish with a warm vignette

    Add a top layer called Vignette. Drag a Radial gradient from the page centre (600, 840) to (600, 1900). Use #C77A3A stops: transparent from 0 to 55%, then fully opaque at 100%. Set it to Multiply at 30%.

    This warms the edges without the muddy brown of a burn. Hide the guides with View → Show Guides, then File → Quick Export PNG.

    The finished invitation in Lopsy with a soft warm vignette darkening the edges of the cream paper
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