Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

March 11th 2009

Text Effects

by Tom

This tutorial carefully walks you through the basics of creating a stunning typographical design. The outcome has a sleek metallic looking finish to it.

Guest Author

This tutorial was written for PSDFAN by Simon Hubbert. You can check out his DeviantArt page for more examples of his work.

If you would like to submit your own article then please get in touch.

User Requested Tutorial

If you remember a few weeks ago I ran a User Poll to see what kinds of basic tutorials you guys wanted to see. Basic text/typography tutorials were overwhelmingly the most popular request.

This tutorial teaches you how to create a super professional text effect, and carefully walks you through each step in great detail. This tutorial is perfect for beginners, and also teaches an effect that even professionals can utilize.

Final Image

This is the final image that we will be creating in this tutorial.

metfinal Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Step 1

Open up new document sized 1400 px by 1000 px. Create a new layer and fill it with black.

met1 Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Step 2

Grab the text tool and drag the box out to fit your document.

met2a Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Choose a font (here I’m using Arial) and use the size 3pt. I used #323131 for the colour of the text.

Type in whatever you want and then copy and paste that word (remember there should be a space in between each word). After you’ve copied and pasted a few words, highlight those and copy and paste that block as it will be much quicker!

Make sure your text is running down the page neatly like so.

met2b Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Step 3

With the text layer selected, go to Edit, Transform, Rotate and enter -25 degress here.

met3a Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

You will have black bits round the edges like mine so just grab the corners of the text layer and enlarge it. You might also have to add more words to your text layer if the words do not fill the page.

met3b Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

met3c Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Step 4

Create a new text layer using the colour white and size 72pt. Write in your word(s) and rotate this layer -25 degress.

met4 Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Step 5

Now go to the layer styles for this layer and set it as soft light.

met5a Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Now your picture should look something like this.

met5b Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design
(Picture – Zoomed Out)

met5c Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design
(Picture – Zoomed In)

Step 6

Duplicate this layer and set the opacity as 45% to ‘liven’ up the text slightly. Make sure that the layer style stays as soft light.

met6a Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Now go to Layer, New Fill Layer, Gradient. This box will then pop up. Click OK.

met6b Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Now enter these settings. The bottom slider on the left is black and the one to the right is white.

met6c Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

met6d Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Your picture should now look like this.

met6e Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Step 7

Now go to the layer styles for your gradient layer and set this layer to soft light.

met7 Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design

Thats the tutorial finished! I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learnt something useful from this.

About the Author: Tom is the founder of PSDFAN. He loves writing tutorials, learning more about design and interacting with the community. On a more interesting note he can also play guitar hero drunk with his teeth.

47 Awesome Comments: Leave Your Comment

Tom 11th March 2009

Thanks again for this tutorial Simon, I really love the outcome
Matt 12th March 2009

Hrmm, I could be wrong, and don’t want to burst your bubble but…

http://abduzeedo.com/reader-tutorial-typography-wallpaper-photoshop

Cheers,
Matt.
Tom 12th March 2009

Hi Matt,

Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention. Of course, I’d never seen that Abduzeedo tutorial before, but I gotta say it puts me in a difficult position. Whilst the techniques used in this tutorial are actually quite different, I’ll allow that the outcome is VERY similar.

I’ve contacted the author asking for an explanation, and until I hear back I’ll leave the tutorial up as it does demonstrate some useful techniques. I’d like some feedback from my readers as to what they think I should do, and I’ll also drop Fabio from Abduzeedo a message about it.

Sorry for this post bothers anyone right now, and I’ll try and get things resolved asap. Again, I’d like to stress that this isn’t a complete copy, and that the end result was really reached by very different methods.

Thanks again Matt!
Nick 12th March 2009

I don’t know, seems way too similar. The only real difference is the gradient.
Nikki 12th March 2009

Great Tutorial! I don’t think it’s a problem that it’s a little similar to fabios tut, I mean its a given that things are gonna be slightly similar in photoshop techniques.

Also thanks for your comment on my bubbles tut!
rjene 12th March 2009

nice. sweet and simple.~
Matt 12th March 2009

No Problems, not saying it’s not good (because it is!). Just ‘warning’ you in the event should anything happen! >.< I don’t think it will bother anyone lol.

Cheers,
Matt.
dollar 12th March 2009

Thanks! This is really simple and sweet.
Tom 12th March 2009

Thanks for the comments guys, and the opinions regarding this tutorial.

I’ve talked with the author and he hadn’t seen the Abduzeedo tutorial. To be honest a lot of Photoshop work is similar, especially with more basic typographical designs. The amount of 45 degrees retro text going around is crazy. I’m still waiting to hear back from Fabio, but hopefully he will understand that this isn’t a copy or anything.

Anyway, I’ll hopefully be coming up with my own typographical tutorial very soon!
Ruan Carlos 12th March 2009

Hi, my name is Ruan and I’m from Brazil.

Only, Thanks for you Tutorial and Congratulation for the simple tutorial with very good effect.

Thanks a lot.
Karlstopoulos 12th March 2009

This is brilliant, I love this tutorial, makes it really easy to create your own cool typography!

Thanks!
Tom 12th March 2009

Thanks guys, it’s great to see the typography tutorial request proving to be a hit
RaSh 18th March 2009

Hah! Awesome tut!

I don’t think you need to bother about similar tutorials till the method explained is different. I made something similar using Masks long back, but I guess this method is way better!

Talking about Typography, there’s another style that’s pretty popular, in which (random) Text fills a shape perfectly (By varying Font size). Any short cut to it?

Keep up the great work!
Tom 18th March 2009

Thanks a lot RaSh! I’m glad you liked this method. I know the typography method you’re talking about, and tbh I can’t really think of an easy way to do it without cutting off some text. That said, I actually have a tutorial to create a really cool effect using these methods.
RUGRLN 21st March 2009

Wicked stuff…there’s another way also. Once you get the foreground and background text ready, rasterize them so they’re on separate layers. CtrlClick the bckgrnd text layer and then invert your selection. With your selection ready, use it to delete the pixels from the foreground text, you get a nice effect. You can now play around with it’s colours frm layers styles and so forth…
Tom 21st March 2009

Thanks Rugrln, good tip there! There are definitely a few ways of achieving this technique, so I guess it’s up to personal preference.
Tom 23rd March 2009

By the way, I’ve heard back from Fabio, and he liked the tutorial, and saw no problem in keeping it up. Hope this clears matters up somewhat
Adam 26th March 2009

At the end of the day, even if you had copied the idea, this tutorial was your own so no-one has the right to close it down.

I love the tutorial – such a simple way of creating what looks like a very advanced effect!
Tom 26th March 2009

Thanks Adam, I’m really glad you enjoyed it, although it’s not my tutorial, it’s Simon’s
Matteo 1st April 2009

Isn’t something wrong in this tut?. If you set the PSDFAN layer to softlight it also screens up the black layer.
I think a mask or a selection is necessary here..
Tom 1st April 2009

It’s worked fine for me. Perhaps you missed a previous step or something went wrong?
Gary Callaghan 3rd April 2009

Thanks for this great little tutorial.
joyoge designers' bookmark 3rd April 2009

nice typograpy I like, thanks for the tut..
Web design adelaide 4th April 2009

Thanks for this tutorial. Nice and easy to follow. Nice quick one too which I like.:)
Create a Simple, Professional Typographical Design 4th April 2009

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Josh 14th April 2009

Again, I’d created a similar design without reading either tutorial but with a different method – it’s a pretty basic and standard thing to do, so no need to worry. Nice tut, though It’s written well and easy to follow.
Cesar 25th April 2009

Easy tutorial, awesome results.

Thanks!
josh 30th April 2009

very nice, a well done tut.
photo retouching 6th May 2009

really great bit of photo retouching. I am going to recommend this to my students. Thanks for sharing.
Jonathan Connolly 7th May 2009

Hey I just found this post the other day. I am actually the original author for the tutorial on abduzeedo. The original tutorial is hosted on my blog here http://creativevolition.com/blog/tutorials/typography-1-tutorial/

I am not really buying the fact that the person who did this tutorial never saw mine on abduzeedo. Although its a very simple idea there are just way too many similarities!

But hey… I appreciate what you guys are doing here and as long as it is helping out other designers I am totally cool with it.
Pedro Diaz 8th May 2009

simple and easy! tks guy!
SOHAIL 3rd June 2009

THNX THNK U VERY MUCH
Vibhav 3rd June 2009

This is one of the best tutorials i have learnt thanks author:)
thank u so much PSDFAN this syt rocks m in luv wd photoshop
seo china 4th June 2009

thanks for sharing tutorial. very professionally has been explained.
retoucher77 4th June 2009

really like the result. Nice job, thank you
Crap 9th June 2009

The font sizes are not right !!!
Kajmeran_67 24th June 2009

Thank you
G 12th July 2009

what exactly is ‘typographic’ about this tutorial?

Type Tool in PS != Typography.
uriah07 23rd July 2009

yeah there is another tutorial like this one. but who knows whats original… i like this one. this is a good beginner tutorial
uriah07 24th July 2009

this tutorial is a little easier. the previous tutorial that people mentioned was harder to me. i light using the soft light feature more than the cut and pasting features.
TutsKing 1st August 2009

Wow. Very nice! This effect was simpler than I could have ever imagined.
Miz 10th August 2009

My result – http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/5544/91967496.jpg

Thanks.
CP 2nd September 2009

I’m using CS4 and for some reason when I try to use new text layer it keeps going back to the text layer before so like a beginner I am stuck at that spot. I have been trying for 2 Days now!
RJP 28th September 2009

Thanx for the tuut it was very useful
Cho Xing 19th November 2009

What a rip off!!
http://abduzeedo.com/reader-tutorial-typography-wallpaper-photoshop
Social Media Application 2nd December 2009

Thanks guys, it’s great to see the typography tutorial request proving to be a hit. Its very useful for designer to think more creative.
Facebook Developers 3rd December 2009

It’s really nice and so easy to create after seeing this tutorial thanks for sharing it.