Adrian Hasmasan – freelancer

Tutorial: Awesome stationery design

Posted on 08. Feb, 2010 by AdrianHasmasan in Tutorials

This is a tutorial for a stationery design, made in Photoshop CS4 Extended with a little help from Illustrator, my first tutorial by the way, hope you like it and enjoy.

The final product looks like this.

Step  1. Create a new document in photoshop  1200×1000 px, resolution 300dpi.

Step 2. Make an awesome background, I made one with a wood like parquetry, you cand made something else for yourself. The color I used for this is #660000 and the color layer it`s overlay on the wood layer like in the pic below.

Step 3.  Next create your logo in photoshop or any other graphic program, I made it in Illustrator, copied from there (Crtl+C) and pasted in photoshop as a Smart Object. A smart object is a layer that contains an image’s source content with all its original characteristics, enabling you to perform nondestructive editing to the layer.

Icon in lower right corner of thumbnail indicates Smart Object.

I have also a G in the background, the initials from the logo, it has the Overlay  blend mode over the color layer.

After you done with the logo you should have something like this.

Step 4. Now here comes the hard part of the tutorial. Let`s begin with the A4 cover for the map. First you create a document in photoshop or illustrator with the dimensions of an A4 paper sheet (297×210mm). Now if you can notice the surface has a clumble paper like effect, if you are in photoshop make a layer with the shape in the picture, it can be any color you like it doesn`t matter.

Step 5. Next we need to create another layer over it and make a clipping mask. This layer will contain the crumbled paper (you can get it from the internet). After you create the layer with the paper right click on the layer and select Create Clipping Mask, make sure the paper layer is above the layer with the shape.

Step 6. Another layer we need over the paper layer with the color you need (#660000) and change the blending mode to multiply. This layer also need to be clipped, same as in Step 5.

Now you should get something like this.

Step 7. Now you can put your logo on top and get a nice result.

For better results I advice you to create the stationery design in a vector graphic based program like illustrator and paste the design as a Smart object in the photoshop document, this technique helps you to edit further the smart object when you want to change something and keep the same quality.

Step 8. After the A4 map cover design is finished make it as one layer, your design should have 4 or more layers, select them all and with right click on the selected layers select Merge Layers.

Step 9. It`s time to create some 3D stuff here. With the resulting layer selected go up to 3D menu and select New 3D Postcard From Layer.

Step 10. Now you have a 3D layer. Select the 3D rotate tool of press K on the keyboard and you should get something like this.

Step 11. If you have some knowledge of 3D you should know what these tools mean, but for those who don`t have here you have a link with more info on using 3D tools in Photoshop CS4 Extended.

Step 12. After you move the designs in the positions apply on each layer a Drop Shadow effect to get more realism.

Do the same with the rest of the design elements: the envelope, the letter head, business cards.

Hope you like it and keep the gook work.

If you have some questions don`t hesitate to contact me.

Tags: stationery design, Tutorials