How to Create Floral Typography Designs
We’ve seen floral and typographic design trending for quite some time. But what happens when you mash the two together? You get floragraphic. Or something like that. These types of designs also look great on a wide variety of products such as iPhone cases, t-shirts, and even clocks. To get your started here’s a quick tutorial on how you can create your own floral typographic design. Best part, it’s allergy free.
Set The Stage
The first thing you want to do is build up your floral arrangement. This could be done with photos/illustrations of flowers that have been cut out and placed on the document, or even a well arranged bouquet that you photographed. The key is to have the arrangement on a transparent or black background. This will make adjusting the file for various products easier. Keep in mind, you will want some floral elements to stand out a bit so that you can hide some text behind them.
For the purposes of this tutorial, we’re using a stock photo from Pixabay. Check out this post for more free stock image sites.
Type It Up
Now that you have a nice floral bed its time to place the type. Pick a font that’ll be easy to see among the foliage. Cursive and elegant fonts work well, but make sure they’re easy to read and fit with the arrangement you’ve created. For this design I used a bold font that would make the word “Pollen” stick out, as I wanted to bring attention to this nefarious tool flowers use to prank us every spring.
Depending on the look you’re going for, it might look cool to alter the rotation of each letter. To easily do this, add each letter to it’s own layer and adjust using the transform tools. Once you have the letters arranged you can add them all to a smart object. This will make it easier to mask out elements in the next step. Along with the type I also added a square shape to interact with the some of the leaves.
Mask It Out
The final steps are to mask out the letters and add some shading. Since our type is contained within a smart object, we can add a mask to this layer. To add masks in Photoshop, select the layer and then the “Add Layer Mask” icon next to the FX at the bottom of the layers panel. By default, masks are filled with white which means everything is visible. With the mask thumbnail selected, choose a soft-edged brush and use black to paint away portions of the the text. White will bring it back. Non-destructive and better than the eraser tool.
Once you’ve masked away all of the text and any other graphic elements, create a new layer and add some shading near the areas you masked out. This will make it look like the leaves and petals are casting a shadow. Make your final adjustments, and your design will be ready for products.
