Design a Vaporwave Venice Poster

Choose File → New, set Width to 1200 and Height to 1600, keep a white background and click Create. Double-click Layer 1 and rename it Sky.

Pick the Gradient tool and click Advanced… to open the Gradient Editor. Click the handle row to add stops. Select each stop and pick its colour on the saturation square and hue strip:

• teal #2EC4C9 at 0 %
• lavender #9D8CF0 at about 45 %
• pink #FF8FC8 at about 80 %
• peach #FFD1A8 at 100 %

Click Done.

Drag the gradient straight down from the top edge to y 1020. That line will be the horizon, and everything below it is peach for now.

Click the top ruler above x 600 to drop a vertical center guide. Then click the left ruler at y 1020 to drop a horizontal horizon guide. You'll line up the sun, the palace and the floor against these two guides.

Click Add Layer and name the new layer Clouds. Choose Filter → Clouds…, set Scale to 3 and tick Preview. Clouds is randomized, so if you don't like the pattern, preview it again for a new one. Click Apply.

Open the layer's effects drawer (the ✦ button on its row), set Blend to Screen and close the drawer. Then set the row's opacity to 60 %. Screen only brightens, so the clouds glow over the gradient and don't go grey.

Rectangular-marquee everything below the horizon guide and press Delete. Press Cmd+D to deselect.

Add a layer named Moon. In the Gradient Editor, set three stops: pale yellow #FFF1B8, pink #FF9CC8 at 55 % and hot pink #FF4F9E.

With the Elliptical Marquee, draw a 540 × 540 circle from (330, 290). The Options bar's ratio lock or the guides help keep it round. Drag the gradient from the top of the circle to the bottom. Deselect.

Open the effects drawer, enable Outer Glow in cream #FFF4D6, then set Size 60, Spread 10 and Opacity 70.

Most vaporwave suns are cut into stripes. This one fades out in halftone dots instead.

1. Add a layer named Moon Dots and set the gradient to plain white → black.
2. Re-draw the same circle and drag the gradient from y 470 to the bottom of the sun, then deselect.
3. Choose Filter → Halftone… and set Dot Size 14, Angle 0 and Softness 10. Dark areas become big dots and light areas become tiny ones. Click Apply.

Enable Color Overlay on Moon Dots in #E23C93, so every dot turns a deep sunset pink.

Dots near the rim poke out past the circle. Draw a slightly smaller circle (about 532 px) over the sun, choose Select → Inverse and press Delete. The edge is clean again.

Add a temporary layer.

1. Marquee a 100 × 100 square at the top-left corner and Edit → Fill it with deep purple #3A1C71.
2. Fill the top-left and bottom-right 50 px quarters with pink #FF6EC7.
3. Marquee the whole 100 × 100 tile and choose Edit → Define Pattern.

Delete the temporary layer.

Click the Moon Dots row, then add a layer named Floor. Marquee from the horizon to the bottom of the canvas (0, 1020 to 1200, 1600). Choose Edit → Fill with Pattern…, pick the checker tile and click Apply.

Zoom out with Cmd+- a couple of times so there's room around the canvas. Keep the marquee, switch to the Move tool and click Perspective in the Options bar. Drag the bottom-left corner about 1100 px out to the left. The bottom-right corner mirrors it, so the tiles now converge toward the horizon.

Click Free, then press Cmd+D to commit the transform. Press Cmd+0 to fit the canvas back in the window. Anything pulled past the canvas edge is simply cropped away.

Add a layer named Haze. Set two gradient stops, both pale pink #F8D8F2. Select the right-hand stop and drag the Opacity bar under the colour picker all the way to transparent.

Marquee the floor area, then drag the gradient from the horizon down to about y 1250. The far rows now dissolve into mist. Because the haze fades out, there's no hard seam between it and the floor.

Click Moon Dots and add two layers: Towers, then Palace above it.

1. On Palace, marquee a band from y 800 down to the horizon and fill it with #F3E9FF.
2. Crenellate the roofline with the Lasso: make one small triangle every 60 px along y 800 and Edit → Fill each one.
3. Fill a band from y 805 to 890 with pink #FBD0E8. That's the Doge's Palace pink upper wall.

Each arch is a rectangle plus a circle on top, filled with the same colour:

• Wall windows: six tall windows in #9C7FD6, each a 40 × 45 rectangle under a 40 px circle.
• Upper loggia: small arches every 50 px, 26 px wide.
• Lower arcade: large 58 px arches every 86 px in deeper #7E5DC4.

Finish with a white 8 px cornice at y 889 and a thin #7A4FB0 line on the horizon. The line gives the palace a clean base.

On Towers, which sits behind the palace:

• Domes: three teal #3FC6C8 domes made from elliptical fills, with a small lasso triangle on each for the onion point. Add gold #FFE08A finials: a thin rectangle plus a small circle.
• Campanile: a pink #F48CC0 shaft at x 995–1091 with two darker pilaster strips, a lavender belfry with three arches, a lasso-filled teal spire, and a gold angel at the tip.

The tower sits far enough right to leave room for the subtitle later.

Click Towers, Shift-click Palace and choose Layer → Group Layers. Rename the group Venice.

To try it out, click the group and drag with the Move tool, and the whole skyline moves together. Press Cmd+Z to put it back. Undo and redo restore it pixel-for-pixel.

Click Haze and add a layer named Boat. With the Lasso, trace a long crescent that sits low in the middle and rises at both ends, and fill it with near-black purple #1B0E3A. Add:

• a small circle for the stern curl
• a lasso blade for the bow ferro, with six short 6 px teeth made from marquee rectangles

1. Fill a pink #FF4FA3 velvet seat in the middle of the boat.
2. Lasso a thin gold #FFD27A rail along the gunwale so it overlaps the bottom of the seat.
3. Build the gondolier from simple shapes:

• two dark legs
• a white torso with 8 px pink stripes every 17 px
• small lasso arms
• a round head
• a straw boater: a gold brim ellipse and crown, with a teal ribbon

1. Press Cmd+D so no selection is left active.

Open Boat's effects drawer:

• Enable Stroke in cyan #5CF6FF with Width 4, and click the outside position.
• Enable Outer Glow in the same cyan with Size 28 and Opacity 75.

The boat now reads like a neon sign against the busy floor.

Under the boat, add a Gondola Shadow layer. Set the marquee Feather to 30, fill a wide ellipse in #2A1450 and set the layer to Multiply at 90 %. Reset Feather to 0.

Click Boat and marquee tightly around it, leaving a couple of spare pixels. Switch to Move, then drag just outside the top-right corner handle to rotate it about 3° counter-clockwise. Press Cmd+D to commit. The small tilt makes the gondola look like it's afloat, not parked.

With no selection active, pick the Brush at Size 9 and Hardness 100 in the dark purple. Click above the gondolier's hands, then Shift-click down past the hull to draw a straight oar.

Venice's striped pali poles are just another pattern:

1. On a temporary layer, make a 40 × 40 tile: white on the bottom half, teal #2FB8C0 on the top half. Define Pattern, then delete the layer.
2. Add a Poles layer. Marquee a 50 px-wide column at the bottom left and Fill with Pattern… with it.
3. Add two thinner poles on the right at Scale 50, running down to about y 1420.
4. Cap each pole with a teal ellipse. Put soft feathered Multiply shadows at the base of the right-hand poles.

Marquee just the left pole and rotate it about 4° clockwise with the Move tool's rotate handle. Only the selected pixels turn, so the right-hand poles stay upright. Press Cmd+D to commit.

Add an empty layer, drag it to the top of the Layers panel, and click it. New text lands above the active layer, so this puts the type above everything else.

Pick the Text tool, set Size to 150, choose Shrikhand in the font browser and set the colour to #FF3FA4. Click near the top-left of the sky and type Pink Gondola. Press Tab to commit.

Open the headline's effects drawer:

• Enable an outside Stroke in white with Width 6.
• Enable Drop Shadow in #3A1C71 with Offset X and Offset Y 10, Blur 0 and Opacity 100.

The hard purple shadow stands out against the teal sky. A cyan shadow would disappear into it.

Vaporwave loves full-width characters. Copy ＶＥＮＥＺＩＡ　・　ＮＩＧＨＴ　ＣＲＵＩＳＥ　・　１９８９ to your clipboard. Click the anchor layer, set Size 26, choose DotGothic16 and white, click in empty sky, then paste with Cmd+V and press Tab.

Give it an outside #3A1C71 Stroke of 3, so the thin letters stay readable over the scanlines you'll add later. Then drag it with Move until it's centred under the headline, clear of the spire.

Click Moon Dots and add a Sparkles layer. Lasso a few eight-point four-pointed stars in white, in a few sizes. Keep them in open sky, away from the type. Enable Outer Glow in white, Size 18, Opacity 90.

Click the anchor layer and add a Window layer. Marquee a 520 × 175 box at (590, 1400) and fill it with lavender #DCD3F5. Fake the bevel with 3 px fills: white on the top and left edges, dark #4B3A86 on the bottom and right.

Then add the details:

• a navy-to-pink gradient title bar
• three small bevelled buttons, with a bar, a box and two lasso slashes for the × symbol
• a progress bar with ten pink blocks
• an OK button

Click Window before each new text layer, so changing the font doesn't restyle the previous one:

• gondola.exe in VT323 28 white, in the title bar
• ゴンドラ Now drifting to 1989... in DotGothic16 26 dark purple (paste it)
• OK in VT323 on the button

Then click each text layer from the top down and choose Layer → Merge Down until everything is flattened into Window.

Marquee the window and rotate it about 2° counter-clockwise. A slight tilt makes it look dropped onto the poster, not printed on it. Press Cmd+D.

Enable Drop Shadow on Window in #2A1A5E, with offset 10/10, Blur 0 and Opacity 90. It's the same flat, hard shadow as the headline, which ties the two together.

Click the headline row and add a Scanlines layer on top.

1. Fill an 8 × 2 strip at the top-left corner with #1B0E3A.
2. Marquee 8 × 6 and Define Pattern. The transparent rows are part of the tile.
3. Deselect and Fill with Pattern… the whole layer.
4. Set the layer to Multiply at 14 %, for a faint old-monitor texture.

Choose Layer → Adjustment Layer… (click Got it on the info dialog). Click Add Adjustment → Vignette and set it to 35. The corners darken slightly, which pulls the eye into the centre and gives the pastel palette a little more depth.

Save your project with File → Save Project, then File → Quick Export PNG to export your poster.