How's it going everyone, this is Chris from Spoon Graphics back with another video tutorial
for Adobe Illustrator.
Today we're going to have fun creating a retro style poster based on the artwork of old VHS
cassette covers.
We'll use Illustrator to construct the design with text and shape elements, then we'll quickly
send the final artwork over to Photoshop to give it an aged appearance with texture overlays.
You can find plenty of inspiration from Google Images and Pinterest, where you can pick out
common aesthetics and mix and match the different elements to create your own custom design.
This is the artwork I'll be producing in this tutorial, it uses the popular trend of colourful
stripes and retro shape patterns, combined with simple text elements that represent the
various features displayed on the authentic examples.
Open up Adobe Illustrator and create a new document.
I'll be creating an A3 sized poster, which is a preset in Illustrator, but with the units
set to Millimetres and a portrait orientation.
Bleed will be required is you want to get the poster printed, so we might as well add
it, then for the same reason the color mode is set to CMYK.
A retro style colour scheme is the foundation of any retro design.
I used Coolors to find a cool palette.
You can hit spacebar to randomly generate different colours, then lock certain ones
to narrow down your selection.
You can either note down the hues, or take a screenshot of the page.
Paste in the screenshot to Illustrator and create a series of filled shapes for each
of the colours.
Use the Eyedropper tool and hold Shift to sample each hue from the image.
Select one of the filled shapes to load the appearance, then use the Rectangle tool and
draw a shape to cover the entire artboard, including the bleed area.
Making sure you have Smart Guides turned on under the View menu helps snap to the bleed
guides.
To avoid accidentally moving this background out of place, go to Object > Lock > Selection.
Use the rectangle tool again to draw a long thin shape across the full artboard as the
first stripe and give it a fill from the palette.
Hold the ALT key and drag a copy of the stripe rectangle to form the next stripe, align it
exactly underneath the first.
You can press the CMD+D shortcut to Transform Again, which will continue duplicating the
rectangle and adding more stripes.
Add an extra 3 to make 5 stripes.
Head back and select each stripe in turn and alter the fill colour to each colour from
the palette.
With the Eyedropper tool, you can toggle it back to the Selection tool to select the next
shape by holding the CMD key.
Hold ALT and drag a copy of the last shape to near the bottom of the artboard and squash
it down in size vertically.
Select both of these shapes by holding the Shift key while clicking them both, then go
to Object > Blend > Make.
Head straight back to Object > Blend > Blend Options and adjust the settings to Specified
Steps, then alter the number of lines to create a gradual reduction in size.
Before adding the text elements, use the Rulers to add guides around the edge of the artboard.
You can then select each one and hit the Enter key to move it a specific amount, such as
10mm to add a margin around the edge to help balance the design.
You might need to right click and select Unlock Guides to move them, then lock them again
when you're done to avoid accidentally moving them out of place.
Begin setting out some text elements with inspiration from authentic VHS covers.
Simple sans-serif typefaces were commonly used, so I'm using Helvetica Neue (or Noyeh
if I was to try and pronounce it right!)
Set every font element with a fill from the colour palette, so for this particular element
the same fill as the background colour effectively knocks out this black strip.
Combining bold and normal font weights is a good way to set up a visual hierarchy between
the elements, as well as adjusting the size and colour.
Balancing the size of elements against each other is also a good trick to incorporate
when composing the layout.
Draw a square that's scaled to the same height as another text element to house a text element
of its own.
Select both the elements, the give the square an extra click to make it the key object so
it doesn't move out of place, then use the Align panel to centre them up.
Using alternative variants of a font, such as Helvetica Condensed is also a good way
to mix up the different type elements.
This area of the design is typically where the logo is placed.
The original VHS covers often have little pattern graphics made up of dots.
We can also create this kind of effect with the Blend tool in Illustrator.
Draw a circle, then hold the ALT key and drag a copy off to the side.
Reduce this circle down in size while holding both the ALT and Shift keys.
With both items selected, go to Object > Blend > Make, then go straight back to Blend Options.
Change the settings to Specified Steps and evenly space out the dots.
Go to Object > Expand, then Ungroup the elements.
Before deselecting the shapes, drag a copy of the row vertically while holding the ALT
and Shift keys.
Add a further 5 rows with the CMD+D shortcut.
Alter the length of these rows by selecting and deleting a random number of dots from
each one, then select all the shapes and group them together before placing the graphic into
the composition.
The final artwork is looking pretty good, but it's far too clean to be a retro design,
so let's transfer it over to Photoshop for some ageing.
When you open up the Illustrator file in Photoshop the dimensions will be preserved.
Download the Vintage Paper Texture Pack linked in the description, then open up one of the
textures.
Select All, then Copy and Paste into the main canvas.
Scale the texture to fit the canvas, then change the blending mode to Multiply to allow
the stains of the texture to be applied to the artwork.
You can tone down the effect by reducing the opacity of the layer.
Duplicate the layer and press CMD+I to Invert the texture, then change the blending mode
to Screen.
Press CMD+Shift+U to desaturate it to remove the inverted colour information to apply some
texturing to the darker portions of the artwork.
You can also boost the texturing by altering the levels, Press CMD+L to open the Levels
histogram, then clip the highlights for the inverted texture and the shadows for the normal
texture layer.
The final result is a cool retro style piece of artwork inspired by old VHS cassette covers.
Illustrator is a great tool for composing designs with simple shapes and text elements,
while Photoshop offers some more advanced adjustments when applying textures to finish
off the effect.
If you enjoyed this tutorial be sure to leave a thumbs up on the video.
Subscribe to the channel to stick around for more, and take a moment to check out my Spoon
Graphics website to grab my free resources bundle.
Thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.