WHAT WE’RE CREATING:
Greetings Design Cutters!
Pam here with a menu tutorial featuring a wild west twist. I was greatly inspired by the wonderful leatherwork elements found in the current bundle and what better way to showcase them than branding a menu for a modern-day saloon?
Quick note: In this tutorial, the term “clipping” or “clipped layer” is used a few times. This means that the layer is only visible/applies to the layer directly below it. You can very quickly do this by holding ‘Alt’ down on your keyboard and clicking between the two layers. Here’s a quick demonstration.
Saddle up and let’s get started!
Follow along with this tutorial: Download the freebies
As always, we have a really amazing freebie pack for you to follow along with. This freebie includes texture and vector files that are sure to come in handy for any design creation!
Remember, this freebie is just a tiny sample taken from the amazing collection: The Mammoth Creative Design Collection (1000s of Best-Selling Items) at just $29 (an amazing 96% Off). This bundle is chocked full with an amazing variety of vector, texture, brush, mock-up and font files for every design occasion!
Step 1:
Before we start on the menu itself, open up Illustrator so we can create a unique vector logo for our saloon. In cases like this when the document size doesn’t matter, I generally just open up a standard letter sized file to create vector elements on.
After reading through some wild-west terminology I came across the phrase “Barber’s Cat” and thought that had a nice ring for a saloon name. To start my logo, I typed the letters “BC” in Corinth size 100 pt.
Select the type and navigate to Type > Create Outlines. This turns the type into a vector object for us to work with. Now ungroup the two letters by navigating to Object > Ungroup so that we can worth with each letter individually.
To find inspiration for the logo, I did some searching through other elements in the typeface. This was when I stumbled on the beautiful “&” symbol in Corinth. To locate it, open up the Glyphs panel under Type > Glyphs. After creating a text box, you can double click the “&” symbol in the panel to create it on the page.
Outline the “&” symbol like we did with “BC.”
I really loved the decorative look of the ampersand and wanted to find a way to incorporate it into the logo. After reflecting it (Object > Transform > Reflect Vertical) I realized it had a very similar form as a B.
I decided to edit the pieces of the ampersand to create the “B” in my logo. To do this, I selected the object so that I could see all of the anchor points and using the scissor tool (by pressing C) I cut off the left-most flourish. I placed a cut at the following locations:
Ungroup the item and release the created compound path (by navigating to Object > Compound Path > Release) so that you can drag the flourish to the side (we are going to use it later).
Using the direct selection tool (A), select the following three points at the top of the letter:
Now, drag the points so that they connect to the swirl beneath.
As much as I love the rough edges of the typeface, there is one more part to fix. Using the “Delete Anchor Point Tool” (-) delete the following point:
Now that we have our finished ampersand “B,” drag down the letter “C” from before and size it so that it is the same size as the edited ampersand. Now, we are going to take the flourish that we previously removed from the ampersand and use it to decorate the “C.” Rotate the flourish 230 degrees by going to Object > Transform > Rotate.
Move the flourish so that the round part sits at the terminal of the C.
Now delete the following points:
Group the two parts of the “C” together by highlighting them and pressing ctrl/cmd + G.
Move the C so that it loops through the B.
For a final element in our logo, use Corinth Ornaments and in the Glyphs panel locate the following glyph and outline the type so that it becomes a vector object:
Scale and rotate the element so that it sits diagonally radiating from the B and C like so:
Duplicate the element and reflect and rotate it so that it radiates from the upper right. Now, we have our finished custom logo that we created using a pre-existing typeface!
Step 2:
Now that we have the lettermark for our saloon, let’s create the full title (also in our illustrator file). In the Corinth Ornaments file, locate the following glyph in the glyphs panel and after selecting it, outline the type to make it vector.
For the main title “Barber’s Cat,” use Corinth 60 pt. and type “arber’s” and “at” separately. Then, outline each to make them vector. Copy and paste the “B” and “C” from our lettermark to use as the leading letter of each word. I scaled mine to be larger than the other letters.
For “Saloon,” use Smitten 130 pt and place it so that it overlaps with the ending of “Barber’s Cat” as seen in the example below:
Make sure all of your type is outlined, and then group the elements of the title together.
Step 3:
Time to start really creating our menu! Let’s begin with the menu cover. Open up a new 5.5 x 11 inch document in Photoshop with the following specifications:
From our freebie files, place Genuine-02.png from the extensive leatherworking collection by Ornaments of Grace and scale to fit the page.
Also from the freebies, place Faux-01.png. Photoshop will automatically scale it to fit horizontally, which at the top of the screen you can see width and height at 42.24%.
Change the width and height to 30% and place the piece a little above the bottom of the page and flush left.
Duplicate the layer by selecting the layer and using the drop down menu in the top right of the layer panel to choose “Duplicate Layer.” This can also be done by holding down “alt” and dragging the layer down. Move the duplicated layer so that it fills the remaining space across the bottom of the menu.
Using the rectangle tool, create a rectangle with a 5.5 in width and 3.5 in height. Place this near the top of the menu spanning across the width like so:
Now, place Genuine-03.png so that it covers the rectangle that we just created.
Create a clipping mask between the newly placed leather file and the rectangle.
From the bundle, open up Stitching which can be found under ornaments-of-grace > Textures+PSDs > With-Stitching (NOTE: This file is part of the wider bundle and not the freebie pack accompanying this tutorial).
Under the layers panel, right click the group titled “Stitching” and select “Duplicate Group” from the drop-down menu. In the duplicate menu, choose your menu cover file to duplicate the group into.
Returning to your cover file, the group should be placed at the top of your layers panel and appear like so:
Rotate the group 90 degrees and scale it so that it fills about half of the vertical space.
Duplicate the group and drag it below so that the stitching goes from the top to the bottom of the menu cover.
For our last decorative element, open up the freebie-vectors file and choose the following brad:
Place it in the menu document in the upper left of the top leather patch scaled to 45%.
Duplicate the brad so that you have four going across the top of the upper leather patch.
Duplicate all four brads at once and drag them to the bottom of the upper leather patch so that it looks like it has been attached to the menu using the brads.
Finally, from the freebie pack place 2LO Treasure 7.jpg and scale up to fill the screen. Then, set the blending mode to “Multiply.” This gives our menu a warmer, more realistic tone.
Step 4:
Next we are going to add our lettermark and logo to the cover. To do this, we are going to use The-Leathercrafter’s Sample-template.psd from the wider bundle. Open up the file, which will appear like so:
In the layers panel, hide the uppermost layer to reveal the leatherwork underneath. Then, double click the “Dark Branding” smart object to open it up in another window.
Hide the current layers and copy and paste the group vector of the full name of the saloon that we created in illustrator. Always paste as a smart object when pasting from Illustrator so that the file will continue to function as a vector file.
Save the file and return to the sample template, where the dark branding effect will magically and immediately be applied to our object!
Now, locate the “Dark Branding” group in the layers panel and duplicate it into our menu cover PSD as we did with our stitches earlier. Scale the entire group down 50% and place it so that it fits in the lower leather patch.
Since the leather we placed our saloon name on is so light, we are going to lighten up the type by opening up the group we placed and changing the opacity of the second layer to 60%.
For the upper patch, we are going to use the same smart object in the sample template file. This time, paste in your lettermark as a smart object and scale up like so, leaving room in the upper left:
In Smitten 200 pt. type “Menu” and place it above and to the left of the lettermark.
Now, open up the freebie-vector file and select the following element:
Copy and paste it into the smart object, rotating it -30 degrees and scaling up 360%. Place it underneath “Menu.”
Save the object and return to the sample template file. Duplicate the dark branding group into the menu PSD as we did with the title. Scale it down to 50% and place it centered in the upper leather patch. Then, as with the title, change the opacity of the second layer in the group to 60%. This will complete our menu cover!
Step 5:
Now we move on to the really fun part! To start the interior part of our menu, open up a new 5.5 inch by 11 inch Photoshop document with the following specs:
Next we will create some guides so that it’s easier to follow along with placement. I put a .35 inch border and placed horizontal guides to help break up the different sections of our menu. To place these guides, navigate to View > New Guide and place guides at the following locations. For vertical, place guides at .35 and 5.15 inches. For horizontal, place guides at 3.5, 10.65, 2.5, 6 and 9.2 inches. Your final guides should look like this example:
Now we are going to create the background for our menu. First, download this wonderfully Grungy Paper Texture from Deviant Art. When you place the file, it will be at 20% so that it fits horizontally in the page. Scale it to 43% and move it so that it aligns with the bottom right corner of the PSD. The crease from the page should align with your 2.5 Inch horizontal guide like so:
From your freebie files, place 2LO Captivate 9.jpg and scale it so that it fits vertically on the page.
Set the blending mode of the layer we just placed to “Multiply” and the opacity to 80%.
Place 2LO Treasure 7.jpg from the freebie files, scale up to fill the page and set the blending mode to “Soft Light.”
Since our tone is looking a little too warm, create a Hue/ Saturation adjustment layer on top of all of the background images we just placed. To do this, click the “create new fill or adjustment layer” button at the bottom of the Layers panel (Visually it appears as a half-filled circle), select Hue/ Saturation, and set the Saturation at -40 and the Lightness at +10.
Finally, create a group for our background layers by clicking the drop down in the top right of the Layers panel and selecting “New Group.” Then drag all of the layers we just used into this group (just to help keep our file less cluttered!)
Step 6:
For our next step we are going to create the header of our menu. I created a new group titled “Header” to keep all of my header layers in. Then, from the freebie files, place Ink_4.jpg and rotate it 90 degrees, placing it so that it bleeds off the top of the page and the ink stops right at the 2.5 horizontal guideline. Then, set the blending mode to Multiply and the opacity to 65%.
Return to your AI file that we used to create our lettermark and logo for the menu cover. Copy over “The Barber’s Cat” lock-up that we created earlier, minus “Saloon” as we will need that in a separate layer. Paste it into the PSD and scale to fit horizontally between the guidelines.
To give our type a worn look, we are going to use the American Wood Type files from retro-supply-co that can be found in the full bundle. To do this, we first need to load in the textures supplied in the bundle. Navigate to Edit > Presets > Preset Manager. Under Preset Types choose Patterns and click the load button. Locate the American-wood-type-patterns.pat file in the bundle under “retro-supply-co > American-Wood-Type > Textures.” Once loaded they will appear after the standard PSD patterns like so:
Next, open the Action window by navigating to Window > Actions. Under the drop down menu, choose “Load Actions.” Select the American-wood-type.atn file in the bundle under “retro-supply-co > American-Wood-Type > Action.” Retro Supply Co makes it incredibly easy to apply wood textures to your type, which makes perfect sense for the worn, western look we are going for! All you have to do is select the layer with our “Barber’s Cat” type and hit play on the action.
Part of the way through the action, you will be prompted with a message. Click “continue” and a screen will appear where you can choose your desired pattern. I used the following selections, but feel free to play around as there are a huge variety of options!
After the action is completed, there will be a new folder above your original smart object titled “AWT-1.” I renamed mine “Barber’s Cat.” The action will automatically apply a color overlay fx. Double click on this fx and change the color to R: 205, G: 188, B: 165.
Right click on your “Barber’s Cat” group and select “merge group” so that it becomes a single layer. There is no need to keep the original vector smart object, but I always keep mine and leave it hidden just in case I decide to make edits later. Now, copy over “Saloon” from your AI file and scale it interlock as it did on the cover of the menu.
Apply the same action with your choice of pattern to “Saloon” changing the color overlay to R: 164, G: 66, B: 39 and merging the group into its own layer.
Open up your freebie-vectors file and select the following flourish:
Paste it in your Header group in your PSD file, rotating -30 and scaling to 160%. Place it so that it sits underneath “Barber’s” and the loop overlaps the loop of the “B.”
Apply a black color overlay to the layer (R: 0, G: 0, B: 0) using the “fx” button at the bottom of the Layers panel.
Step 7:
Now we are going to move into the next section of our menu, the drinks. I created a new group titled “Drinks” in my layers panel. Starting with the type, create a text box spanning between the vertical guides under the header and in centered Garden Essential black 40 pt. type “DRINK SPECIALS.”
Directly underneath in centered Garden Slab 22pt type “PICK YOUR POISON” leaving “PICK YOUR” in black and changing “POISON” to the orange we used on “Saloon” earlier (R: 164, G: 66, B: 39).
For the next line of type, create another text box and in Corinth Regular 34 pt. type “35 WHISKEY BRANDS.” This time, apply the orange color to “35” and for “WHISKEY BRANDS” use a rusty red R: 91, G: 28, B: 25.
Next we are going to put the prices. In 60 pt. Corinth Regular type “$5” with the “$” in black and the “5” in our same orange from before. Place it to the left just above the middle horizontal guideline like so:
To the right of “$5” we are going to put “beer on tap” (in all lower case) in Corinth Regular. The effect we are going for is justified type like you would see on a type specimen poster in the Wild West era. To do this, type “beer” on one line in 40 pt, the press enter and type “on tap” in 26 pt. Your type should look similar to the following:
To fix the type the way we want, we are going to have to delve into the character panel. Open this up by navigating to “Window > Character.” Highlight both lines and change the leading from (Auto) to 20 pt.
With the same specs as “$5,” type “$7” and place it to the right of “beer on tap.”
For “gin & tonic” we want to access that same ampersand that we used for our logo back at the beginning of the tutorial. Unfortunately this is inaccessible from Photoshop, so for now we will leave an empty space for the ampersand. With the type left justified (instead of center) type “gin” in 40 pt. Corinth, press enter and then type “tonic” in 26 pt. type. Change the leading to 20 as we did with “beer on tap.”
In the same Character panel that we changed the leading in we are going to edit the tracking for “gin” and “tonic” separately. Highlight “gin” and kern the type to -75 like so:
Now highlight “tonic” and track the type to 50.
Next we are going to add some flourishes to our drink section. The flourishes we are going to use can all be found in the Corinth Ornaments font. The easiest way to look through the glyphs in the font is return to your AI file and open up the Glyphs panel with the typeface in question selected. The first glyph we are going to use is the one we used in our logo, as shown below:
Double click to type the glyph and outline it to make it a vector object, then rotate 180 degrees.
Navigate to “Object > Compound Path > Release” and then ungroup the object and delete the uppermost shape.
Copy the object and paste it as a smart object into your PSD. Scale it down similar to the image pictured below and place it up against the vertical guide to the right of “PICK YOUR POISON.”
Create a color overlay to change the flourish to our previously used orange color. Then, duplicate the layer and navigate to “Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal.” Mirror this object across the way against the left most vertical guide.
The next glyph we are going to use is the one featured below. Type it in Illustrator, then create outlines to make a vector object and paste it into your PSD document in the following location:
Apply the red color we used previously and duplicate/ reflect the item across the way.
Now we want to create a divider line in the same style as the glyphs in Corinth. The easiest way to do this is select the following glyph in 80 pt type:
Outline the type and using the direct selection tool, select the points on the end of the object that complete the swirl and delete them. Now we have a line with the same texture as our type! Copy and paste it into Photoshop like so:
Duplicate the line twice so that you can move each piece over until it spans the full width between the vertical guides.
Place the line one more time, this time rotating it to be vertical and placing it between the $5 and “beer on tap.” The line will be a little too long, so select the eraser tool (E). When you first try to use it you will be prompted to rasterize the layer before editing it. Rasterize and then use the tool to shorten the line. Duplicate the line so that there is also one between “$7” and “gin tonic.”
In Illustrator, locate the & in the glyphs panel with Corinth Regular selected as the typeface. Outline the type and paste the object into the PSD, scaling it to fit after “gin.” Apply a color overlay with the orange color.
For the final step in the drinks section, select the “Drinks” group as a whole and set the blending mode to “Hard Light.”
Step 8:
Next we are going to tackle the food section, titled “Vittles” as an old western reference to snacks. Create a group titled “Vittles.” From your freebie-vectors file select the following ribbon:
Paste it in the PSD and scale up 215%. Place it directly underneath the “Drinks” section.
Use the American Wood Type action on the ribbon and apply a color overlay with the orange swatch. Remember to merge your group after applying the action. If you do not merge and try the action again on a different layer, it will affect this one as well.
Now, we want to put the type for “VITTLES” inside of the ribbon following the same curve. The best way to accomplish this is do type on a path. To do this, return to the freebie-vectors file and duplicate the ribbon shape. Then, remove the fill color and apply a black stroke.
Using the direct selection tool, delete everything but the bottom curve.
Now, select the type tool and place it at the front of the line. You will see the tool turn into a cursor with a curved line. Click and type “VITTLES” in Garden Slab 12 pt centered type. The line will disappear and the type will adhere to the same shape that the line created.
Copy and paste the type as a smart object into Photoshop and scale up 275%. Place it on top of the ribbon.
Next, in Corinth Regular 30 pt. type BBQ in the red swatch. Rotate it -90 degrees so that the type reads upward and place it below the ribbon and to the left-hand side.
Next we are creating the type for three different types of BBQ. In one large text box, type “RIBS-$10 (enter) BEEF-$8 (enter) PORK-$8” in Corinth Regular 22pt in the same red swatch. Set the leading to 25 pt instead of Auto, and then change the tracking individually for each line. “RIBS-$10” can stay on 0, “BEEF-$8” at 40, and “PORK-$8” at 18. Below shows an example of the character panel for the line “PORK-$8.”
In 36 pt Corinth Regular type “$3” with the “$” in black and the “3” in the orange swatch. Place it like so:
Apply the same size and color to “$5” below the “$3.”
Next, in Garden Slab 16 pt. black type “BEANS OR (enter) COLESLAW” with the tracking at 0 and the leading at 15 pt. Place it next to the $3.
Using the same specs, type “BISCUIT (enter) & GRAVY.” For “BISCUIT” set the tracking at 50.
Next I applied some of the same glyphs we used previously in the tutorial and placed them in the following colors and locations:
Finally, set the entire “Vittles” group on “Hard Light” for the blending mode, like we did with “Drinks.”
Step 9:
For this step we will complete the footer of our menu. First, create a “Footer” group and copy over the lettermark that we used on the menu cover. Place it like so:
Apply the American Wood Type action with the pattern of your liking, and then merge your group into one layer.
From your freebie-vectors file, select the following object:
Paste it into your PSD to the right of our lettermark, then duplicate it and reflect it. Merge the layers into one by highlighting both, right clicking and selecting “Merge Layers.”
Apply the American Wood Type action one more time, changing the color overlay to the orange swatch and merging the group.
In Garden Pro 12 pt. left justified type “The Barber’s Cat Saloon on Wilderness Road (enter) Open Sunset to Sunrise Tueday-Sunday” and align it on top of the bottom horizontal guideline.
Select the entire “Footer” group and change the blending mode to “Hard Light.”
Step 10:
We are almost done! For the final step, select the following splatter object from the freebie-vectors file.
Place the object in your PSD, rotate 90 degrees and scale up 625%.
Set the blending mode to “Overlay” and the opacity to 25%.
And we’re done!
I hope you learned a few new tricks following through this tutorial with me! The Wild West had some really incredible mixtures of design and I certainly loved sharing a few elements with you. That being said, we barely dived into this extensive bundle!
Remember to share your designs on the Facebook page too, as we love being inspired by the way you make these tutorials your own.
Hopefully this tutorial inspires you to come up with new and creative ways to use your bundle. This amazing design resource is available for 96% off this week; Grab your bundle now while you still can!
The Mammoth Creative Design Collection (1000s of Best Selling Items)
Pam, this is a great use of the leathercrafter within a larger project. Sweet piece.
I second this. Amazing work Pam! Thanks for your comment, Simon!
Is something wrong with Genuine-03.png? I can’t open it, says there’s a problem with the file :/
Hey Ella,
Thanks so much for the comment and my sincere apologies for the delay in coming back to you about this.
I have popped you over an email with the freebie pack and I have checked this to make sure it has everything for you and it is working! I really hope this helps and i would love to see your finished design if you would like to share this Ella!
Great tutorial. I’ve worked my way through half of it to try and get more used to using Illustrator. Very good instructions. The stitching file has a flaw I’m afraid. Both stitches are missing color and shadow at one end.
Hey Roxanne,
Thanks for the heads up, I’m emailing you now to help :)
Lovely tutorial and a beautiful piece; however, the misspelling of Vittles made me wince a bit. The correct spelling is Victuals.
Hey Sherry,
Thanks so much for your comment! We’re so pleased you enjoyed Pam’s tutorial.
I am really sorry if you winced at the use of ‘Vittles’, I think Pam used the slang version of ‘Victuals’ for a more authentic feel on this one! But thanks for bringing this to our attention :).
Great!
Hey Carlos, thanks for the awesome comment! :D
We’re really happy you enjoyed Pam’s tutorial – she’ll be so pleased to hear this!
Please feel free to share anything you’ve created, we’d love to see it!