In this tutorial I will show you how to create a retro style design or vintage collage style. We will use images from old ads, handwritten texts, patterns, and other things to give to our design a vintage look.
There are excellent designers that we can consider masters on this subject. One of them in particular is a Brazilian called
Eduardo Recife. His work is fantastic and it’s totally worth checking his website out.
Step 1
The first thing to do is plan your design, you will have to have an idea of what you want to show with your image. So the best thing to do here is to draw some concepts. It’s faster doing some sketches than going straight to the computer (even though I am a terrible drawer)!
Step 2
With some drawings and ideas in mind it’s time to go to the computer. Go to Photoshop and create a new document. Set the size to
600 x 800 pixels.
Step 3
Find some old paper. I used a
Creative Commons-licensed image from
Flickr. That’s going to be our background. Open the image in Photoshop and copy it to your design document. Resize it and change the
opacity to 60%. Just make sure that your background is
white.
Step 4
Choose the
Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) and create a rounded rectangle with a dark yellow color like I did.
Step 5
Create a
Layer Mask (Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All). After that select the
Brush Tool. Set the color to Black and use some brushes to erase parts of the yellow rectangle. I used brushes from the "Grunge Brushes by Ardcor" and "BB Watercolor II" packs.
Step 6
Next I found a
Creative Commons-licensed image of a flying saucer from Flickr. In my UFO file, I just selected the spaceship cut it and pasted in my design. After that using the
Pencil Tool with brush size of
2 pixels just draw some lines like I did.
Step 7
Next I’ll search for vintage ads. You can use Flickr, searching for Creative Commons-licensed photos, or stock photography sites like
iStockphoto. Once I found my image I cut the lady out of the image using the Magnetic Lasso Tool (L) and pasted her in my design.
Step 8
Convert the lady’s layer to
Smart Objects and apply a
Smart Sharpen. If you are using the CS2 or lower version just apply the filter.
Step 9
Next you’ll need an image of handwritten text. You can either make one yourself and scan it, or search for one as described above. Once you find a good one, just copy it to your design. Make sure that the image has a white background, then just change the Blend Mode to
Multiply.
Next we can add some vectors. I used some from a free Go Media Vector pack that you can get
here.
Step 10
Now using the
Pen Tool (P), create 3 triangles as shown below. For my design that will give the idea of abduction.
Step 11
After you have the 3 black shapes change the Layer Styles.
- In Advanced Blending, set the Fill Opacity to 0%,
- In Color Overlay, choose a Pink for the color and set the Blend Mode to Color Burn,
- After that using those brushes again, repeat the Step 5 and erase some parts of the shapes to make them look very old.
Step 12
In order to give it more of that vintage look, you can add some patterns to your image. You can find lots of patterns on stock sites, and I found a site that’s really cool,
http://www.missjo.com.au/. They sell amazing vector patterns for a very good price. You can create your own pattern as shown below.
Step 13
Now you can add more elements. I added a city skyline and using some brushes I deleted some parts of it like in
step 5.
Step 14
Again add more elements of your choice. I added a plane to my design.
- Extract just the plane from the image and paste it in the design,
- Rotate the plane as it’s going up like 309º. Try to hold SHIFT while you are rotating it,
- Using the Rectangle Tool, choose color White, and create a rectangle. Rotate it just the same as the plane,
- Duplicate the white rectangle, change the color to a dark grey and flip it vertically (Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical),
- Create Layer Masks to refine the edges of the both rectangles in order to give a perspective.
Step 15
Repeat step 14 two more times and that’s it. So you will have 3 airplanes.
Conclusion
Now you can add your logo and some more information. Even though it looks like we just throw elements together, this vintage collage style requires a lot of work to be executed well. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and I look forward to seeing some of your designs!
Sample PSD
You can download the sample Photoshop file for this tutorial by clicking the button below. This sample is free because it contains derivatives of images from Flickr.
