WHAT WE’RE CREATING:
Hey there designers! Renee here to celebrate our Marketplace launch with a Spring wedding invitation tutorial that combines beautiful fonts with patterns, gold foil effects, watercolor effects and textures. We’ll be using both Photoshop and Illustrator to bring our fantasy wedding to life.
HAVE YOU SEEN OUR NEW YOUTUBE CHANNEL?
Watch the video tutorial below and subscribe to our new YouTube channel for regular updates direct to your inbox.
Here’s a quick look at the finished piece:
Follow along with this tutorial: Download the freebies
This freebie includes watercolors, vector ornaments and a pattern from Lisa Glanz, a Retro Supply Co. brush and an Aquatype style from Vintage Design Co.
This freebie pack is just a small sample of the resources available in our new Marketplace. Whether you missed something in a bundle or are just looking for something new, the build-your-own-bundle option in our carefully curated Marketplace is sure to please.
TECHNICAL NOTES
We’ll be using several fonts from the Marketplace. From LatinoType, we’ll use Santis, Boho and Trend. We’ll also use Fresh Script by Set Sail Studios.
We’ll also utilize Jessica Johnson’s super customizable and versatile Instaglam action.
Step 1: Borders
Open Photoshop and go to File > New. In the New Document dialog box, enter a width of 5 inches, a height of 7 inches and a resolution of 300 ppi. I’m going to keep my file in RGB so we have all of our original color information in tact, but would probably need to convert the finished piece to CMYK for printing purposes.
Click OK to create the document.
Save your file.
Go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color. Name the layer Light Green and press Ok.
In the Color Picker popup, enter a CMYK value of 27/15/70/0, then press Ok.
Select your Rectangular Marquee (m) and at the top of the artboard, change the Style to Fixed Size. Enter 4.8 inches for width and 6.8 inches for height.
Click once on the artboard and position the rectangle in the center of the artboard.
Click on the existing layer mask thumbnail that’s immediately to the left of the layer name Light Green in the Layers palette.
Press d to set your foreground color to black and background to white. Press alt/opt + backspace to fill the selected rectangular area on the layer mask with black (which makes it disappear from view). The press cmd/ctrl + d to deselect.
Hold cmd/ctrl and click on the layer mask thumbnail on the Light Green layer to create a selection around it. Go to Select > Expand. In the dialog box, enter 12 pixels and press OK.
At the bottom of your Layers palette, click the Create a new layer icon. Name the new layer Dark Gray.
At the bottom of your tool menu, double click the foreground color (currently black) and in the Color Picker, enter a CMYK value of 70/60/60/55, then press OK.
Press opt/alt + backspace to fill the selected area with the dark gray color. Press cmd/ctrl + d to deselect.
In your Layers palette, drag the layer Dark Gray below the layer Light Green.
With the dark gray still set as the foreground color, open your Swatches palette and click the Create a new swatch of foreground color icon and name it Dark Gray.
Now double click your foreground color swatch and use the eyedropper to sample the light green border. Press Ok, then press the Create a new swatch of foreground color icon again and this time, name it Light Green.
Step 2: Corners
In the Layers palette, click the Create A New Group icon and name the new group Corners. Drag the group below the layer Dark Gray.
Click the Create A New Layer icon.
Select your Rectangular Marquee tool and change the style to Normal. Hold shift and click on the artboard, then drag down and to the right. As you drag, a perfect square will form and a tooltip will tell you the size as you drag. Drag out to about 1.5 inches.
In the Swatches palette, click on the Dark Gray swatch to set it as the foreground color. Press opt/alt + backspace to fill the selected square with dark gray. Then press cmd/ctrl + d to deselect.
Go to Edit > Transform > Rotate. Hold shift while dragging to the left to rotate in 45 degree increments until you’ve rotated 90 degrees, creating a diamond. Press Enter to complete the transformation.
Use your Move tool (v) to drag the diamond to the top left of the artboard until it creates a corner shape.
In the Layers palette, select the current diamond layer and drag it down to the Create a new layer icon to duplicate it.
Hold shift and use your Move tool to drag the new diamond shape to the right corner.
In your Layers palette, select both diamonds by holding shift while selecting both layers. Drag these layers down to the Create a new layer icon to duplicate them.
On the artboard, hold shift and use the Move tool to drag the duplicated layers down to the bottom corners.
Next up, we’ll add a pattern to our pattern library. Go to File > Open and navigate to the Dots_Yellow jpg from Watercolor Wedding Vol 2. Click Open.
When it opens, go to Edit > Define Pattern. Leave the existing name in the popup dialog and click OK.
Now close the yellow dot file.
Back in the main layout, go Layer > New Fill Layer > Pattern. In the first popup dialog box, change the name to Yellow Dots and click OK.
In the second popup dialog box, click the small arrow to the right of the pattern thumbnail and select the yellow dot pattern we just made.
Change the scale to 14% and click OK. If you want to even out the placement of the dots, use your arrow keys to move the pattern.
Drag the Yellow Dots layer just above the Corners group.
Now we’ll apply the Instaglam action to our dots. Open your Actions palette (Window > Actions). Click the icon on the far top right of the palette to access the flyout menu. Select Load Actions.
Navigate to the Instaglam actions folder and hit Load. Now you should see the Instaglam folder in your Actions palette. Select Instaglam and press the Play button at the bottom of the palette.
And we have instant gold! I love this action.
Open your Corners folder. Hold down cmd/ctrl + shift and click on each of the layer’s thumbnails to create a selection around all four corners.
Make sure your Instaglam folder is current active group, then click the Add a layer mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.
Step 3: Words
Now we’ll start laying out our words.
Open Illustrator and go to File > New. Enter a width of 5 inches and a height of 7 inches.
Select your Type tool (t) and click once on the artboard towards the top middle. Type: The.
Select your Selection tool in the tool pane.
Open your Character palette (Window > Type > Character) and change the font to Trend Slab One at 8 pt.
At the bottom of the tool pane, double click on the foreground color swatch and in the Color Picker, enter a CMYK value of 70/60/60/55. Add this color to the Swatches palette by opening it (Window > Swatches) and clicking the New Swatch icon.
In the toolbar above the artboard, change the Paragraph to Align Center, then click the Horizontal Align Center icon.
If nothing happens when you hit the Horizontal Align Center icon, you may need to change the type of Alignment. To do that, click the square icon with a little arrow that’s directly left of the Horizontal Align Left icon and select Align to Artboard.
Select your Type tool again, click once on the artboard under The and type: King and Queen. Select your Selection tool. Then change the font to Trend Slab Four at 18 pt and set the Tracking (the space between letters) to -15.
Now go to Effect > Warp > Arc and enter a Bend of 15%. Center on the artboard by using the Horizontal Align Center icon at the top of the artboard.
Select your Type tool, click once on the artboard under King and Queen and type: of Florin. Press enter to break to the next line and type: proudly announce the. Press enter again and type: marriage of their daughter.
Use the Type tool to drag across the top line to select it and change the font to Trend Slab One at 8 pt with Tracking of -15.
Now use the Type tool to select the second and third lines. Change both to Trend Sans One at 7 pt with Tracking of -50.
At the bottom of the tool pane, double click on the foreground color swatch and in the Color Picker, enter a CMYK value of 27/15/70/0. Add this color to the Swatches palette by clicking the New Swatch icon in the Swatches palette.
Now select just the second line (proudly announce the) by double clicking on it with your Type tool. With this line selected, press opt/alt + down arrow twice to increase the leading (the vertical space between lines) to 12.4 pt.
Now type: Buttercup. Change the font to Santis at 45 pt.
We’re going to utilize some of this font’s beautiful, decorative letter alternates. Open your Glyphs palette (Window > Type > Glyphs). At the top of the Glyphs palette next to Show, choose Alternates for Selection.
Use your Type tool to select the B. In the Glyphs palette, double click the first alternate.
Now repeat for the r and p. Choose the letter, then double click the first alternate in the Glyphs palette.
Select your Selection tool. Hold down opt/alt and click on Buttercup and drag down to create a copy.
Use your Type tool to select all of the letters in the copy and type: Westley.
Use your Glyphs palette to replace the W and y with the first alternates.
Position Buttercup and Westley so that the ornamentation at the bottom of Buttercup’s p and the top of Westley’s y meet.
Now type: to. Change the font to Boho Script at 32 pt. Position in the small empty space below the first u in Buttercup and to the left of the W in Westley.
Type: Saturday, the Twelfth of May. Press enter, then type: at Two O’Clock in the Afternoon. Select the first line and change it to Trend Slab One at 10 pt with Tracking of -15 and a color of Dark Gray.
Select the second line and change it to Trend Sans One at 8 pt. Click the Light Green swatch in the Swatches palette.
Next, type: The Chapel. Press enter and type: at the Cliffs of Insanity. Press enter again and type: Presided over by Miracle Max.
Select the first and second lines and change them to Trend Slab One at 8 pt with Tracking -15.
Select the first line only and change it to Dark Gray.
Select the second and third lines and change them to Light Green.
Now select the third line only and change it to Trend Sans One at 7 pt.
Our last bit of type will be: The Brute Squad kindly request that all weapons be checked at the door. Change the font to Fresh Script at 8 pt in Dark Gray.
To separate this last line about the Brute Squad, we’ll add a dotted line above it. Select your Pen tool (p) and click once above the first letter in the sentence. Hold shift down and click once again above the last letter of the sentence.
Open the Swatches palette and change the foreground color to None. Then click on the stroke thumbnail and change it to Dark Gray.
Open your Stroke palette (Window > Stroke). Illustrator has a great trick for making dotted lines. Next to Cap, click the middle icon for Rounded Cap. Now check Dashed Line. Change the first dash to 0 pt and the first gap to 4 pt.
Note: This will only work with the Rounded Cap option selected!
Use your Selection tool while holding Shift to select everything on the page except Buttercup, to, and Westley. At the top of the artboard, select the Horizontal Align Center icon.
The last thing we’ll do for our copy layout is to apply an Aquatype graphic style to our names.
Select Buttercup and Westley. Open your Graphic Styles palette. Click the arrow on the top right of the palette to access the flyout menu and choose Open Graphic Style Library > Other Library. Navigate to Vintage Design Co’s Aquatype Graphic Styles and click Open.
In the Graphic Style pane that opens, choose the Poppy swatch.
Aquatype also comes with actions to turn this style into vector art, but we won’t use that now since we’ll just be copying it over to Photoshop.
Step 4: Bringing our words into Photoshop
Select everything except Buttercup and Westley (do select “to”). Press cmd/ctrl + c to Copy.
Open Photoshop and on the main layout file, press cmd/ctrl + v to Paste. In the popup, choose Smart Object and press OK. In the Layers palette, change the layer name to Words and drag it to the top of the Layers palette.
Go back to your Illustrator file and select Buttercup and Westley. Press cmd/ctrl + c to Copy. Then open Photoshop and press cmd/ctrl + v to Paste. Use the “to” as a guide for correct placement of Buttercup and Westley. Change the layer name to Buttercup Westley.
At the bottom of the Layers palette, click the FX icon and choose Color Overlay. When the Layer Style dialog box opens, choose a Blend Mode of Color. Click on the color swatch and use the eyedropper to sample Light Green from the swatch palette or the light green border. Press Ok.
Step 5: Watercolor and Ornaments
Create a new Group and name it Flowers-Of Florin.
Go to File > Place Linked and navigate to the Woodland Watercolor Set. Select Green Leaf 02 and click Place.
In the toolbar at the top of the artboard, change the width to 35% and click the link icon to the right of the width to maintain aspect ratio. Next, enter a rotation of 40 degrees and press enter to complete the transformation.
Position the leaf to the right of Of Florin
In the Layers palette, duplicate the layer by dragging it down to the Create a new layer icon. Go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Then hold down Shift and drag the duplicate leaf to the left of Of Florin.
Go to File > Place Linked and in the same Woodland Watercolor Set, choose Lemon_Flower-01.
At the top of the artboard, change the Width to 20% and click the link icon to maintain aspect ratio. Press enter to complete the transformation.
Position the flower over the left side of the right leaf.
Now we’ll repeat on the left leaf, but with a slightly different flower.
Go to File > Place Linked and in the Woodland Watercolor Set, choose Lemon_Flower-03.
At the top of the artboard, change the Width to 20% and click the link icon to maintain aspect ratio. Press enter to complete the transformation.
Position over the right side of the left leaf.
Drag the two lemon flower and two leaf layers into the Flowers-Of Florin folder.
Create a new folder and name it Rose Divider. Go to File > Place Linked and navigate to Yellow_Rose in Wedding Watercolor Vol 2.
In the toolbar above the artboard, change the width to 18%, click the link icon to maintain aspect ration and enter a rotation of 20 degrees. Position above The Chapel.
In Illustrator, open the Signage Elements file (or in Freebies, the LisaGlanzOrnaments_Freebies file) from the Lisa Glanz 450 Hand Sketched Megapack.Select this ornament, then press cmd/ctrl + v to copy.
Back in Photoshop, press cmd/ctrl + v to paste into the Rose Divider group.
At the top of the artboard, enter a width of 35% and click the link icon. Position to the right of the yellow rose. Name the layer Ornament Right.
In the Layers palette, click the FX icon and choose Color Overlay. For the Blend Mode, select Normal. Click the color swatch and in the Color Picker, enter a CMYK value of 35/35/75/5.
In the Layers palette, duplicate the layer by dragging it down to the Create a new layer icon. Go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Then hold down Shift and drag the duplicate ornament to the left of the yellow rose. Rename the layer Ornament Left.
Create a New Group and name it Ornaments-The.
Go back to Illustrator and copy this ornament.
Back in Photoshop, press cmd/ctrl + v to paste into your layout file. At the top of the artboard, enter a Width of 15% and Rotation of 35 degrees. Position to the right of “the” towards the top of the artboard.
We want to use the exact same Color Overlay effect that we used on our previous ornament, so we’ll just copy it. In the Layers palette, locate the Effects under the Ornament Left layer in Ornaments-Rose Divider.
Hold down opt/alt and click on Effects, then drag it to the new ornament layer in Ornaments-The.
Duplicate the layer by dragging it to the Create a new layer icon in the Layers palette. Then go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Hold shift and drag the duplicate ornament to the left of “the”.
To duplicate these same ornaments for either side of The Chapel, drag the entire Ornaments-The layer to the Create a new layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.
Rename the duplicate group Ornaments – Chapel.
On the artboard, use your Move tool to drag the whole group down to The Chapel.
Open the group in your Layers palette. Select the left ornament layer. On the artboard, hold shift while dragging the ornament to the left until it’s the same distance from the edge of “The” as the original ornament was from the left side of the top “The”.
Repeat for the ornament on the right side. Select the layer in the Layers palette, then use your Move tool on the artboard to drag the ornament to the right.
Step 6: Final Touches
In the Layers palette, open the folder called Flowers-Of Florin. Duplicate the layer Lemon_Flower-03 by dragging it into the Create a new layer icon. Drag the duplicate layer out of the group and to the very top of the Layers palette.
Go to Edit > Free Transform. At the top of the artboard, change the Width from 20% to 60% and click the link icon to maintain aspect ratio.
On the artboard, use your Move tool to drag the flower to the open space at the right of Buttercup.
Go to File > Place Linked and navigate to Yellow Flower from Watercolor Wedding Vol 2. Click Place.
At the top of the artboard, enter a width of 40% and click the link icon to maintain aspect ratio. Then position the flower in the space to the left of Westley.
This seems a little bright compared to our other flowers, so we’ll tone it down with an adjustment layer.
Open your Adjustments panel (Window > Adjustments) and click the Hue/Saturation icon.
In the Properties palette that opens, change the Saturation to -18 and click on the far left icon at the bottom of the palette to clip the adjustment to the layer directly below it (in this case, the flower) so it doesn’t affect anything else.
For our final finishing touch, we’ll add a little texture to give the effect of an expensive paper.
Select your Brush tool (b). At the top of the artboard, click on the arrow to the right of the brush thumbnail to open the Brush Preset Picker.
Click on the gear icon at the top right of the Brush Preset Picker to bring up the flyout menu and choose Load Brushes.
Navigate to Retro Supply Co’s Standard Issue Subtle Brushes. Click Load.
In the Brush Preset Picker, select Subtle Brush #2. Enlarge the size of the brush by pressing the right bracket on your keyboard three times (until the brush size is 1100).
Now click on the foreground color swatch at the bottom of the tools pane. In the Color Picker popup, use the eyedropper to sample the tan color from the vector ornaments we pasted in earlier.
In the Layers palette, click the Create a new layer icon and name the layer Texture.
Click once on the artboard with your brush. Now release and click again in a different area. Do this several times until the majority of the artboard has some of the speckled texture over it.
In the Layers palette, change the Blend Mode of the layer to Multiply and the Opacity to 30%.
And we have our finished invitation!
Video Bonus: RSVP Card
Check out the video tutorial to see how easy it is to make derivative pieces like this RSVP card once you have your initial design completed.
Remember that whether it’s your outcome for this tutorial or something new you’ve made, we’d love to see your designs on our Facebook page.
Please leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions. I always look forward to hearing from you!
Don’t forget to check out the awesome new Marketplace to create your own perfect bundle and stay tuned for our usual fortnightly bundles starting again next week!
Renee, why in the very first step do you use Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color? Just wondering what the difference between this method and another you’ve used in other tutorials — filling the layer with the foreground color by hitting the Option-Delete combination. Is one method better than the other, or are there benefits to doing it one way over the other? Photoshop is so confusing sometimes.
Great question, Rebecca! Like most everything in Photoshop, there are so many different ways to accomplish the same basic thing. I try to use a mix of techniques. One big advantage of using a fill layer is that the color will fill the entire background even if you change your canvas size or duplicate the layer to a different document. When you use the opt + del method, the color area is limited to the original canvas size.
If you want to see a demo of that, create a Photoshop doc at 5″ x 5″. Create a fill layer with one color and a layer above it that you cover with a different color using the opt + del method. Now go to Image > Canvas Size and change your height to 8″. Your color fill layer will continue to fill the entire artboard while your other layer will only be 5″ tall. I hope that helps :)
Thanks for the great explanation, Renee! That helps so much; you’re a really good teacher. I always enjoy your tutorials and learn a lot from them.
There are so many ways to do the same thing or get the same result in all the CS programs. I never know which method one to use or which one is better, but I guess it depends on what the goal or final outcome desired is. Thanks for showing us so many different techniques!
That really means the world to me, Rebecca. I learned entirely by watching others, reading books, tutorials, etc., so I’m very grateful for the opportunity to pass it on! And as far as the different methods, it was just an awful lot of trial and error. Heck, you might find ways to do things that no one thought of yet! :D
Super cute wedding invites! These would look great printed with letterpress on some sturdy 600gsm card stock.
I think this might be my favorite tutorial thus far DC. Great job!!! :D
Thanks so much, Joe. I totally agree with you on the letterpress—so super dreamy but I rarely get to utilize it! Thanks again for the awesome compliment!
This is really cool! I never thought to use Buttercup and Wesley as stand-ins for wedding invitations, but I love this! Now I’m going to have to come up with other nerdy combinations for my invitation templates :)
Thanks Beth! I had fun coming up with a list of couples, but there was no turning back once I thought of Buttercup and Westley. It’s one of my all-time favorite movies. I hope you’ll share some of your fun, nerdy combos with us!! :)
Wow, looks fantastic! Love the coordinating pieces.
Thanks so much, Lisa! It’s all possible because of your amazingly gorgeous pieces! I can’t get enough of your work! <3
This is a gorgeous invite. Really great job on this one!! <3
Thanks Denise! <3 back atcha! :)