DD Tutorial: From Start to Finish

As the blog has picked up over the past few months, I’ve received tons of messages asking for advice and tips on how to create hand-drawn type designs. So I thought it would be fun to give you guys an inside look as to how a Daily Dishonesty goes from a sketch to published piece on the blog. Enjoy!

1. I always start with a pencil sketch in my grid paper journal.

2. Using a fine ink pen, I trace and fill in my sketch. I always feel like a tattoo artist whenever I do this haha.

3. The drawing gets scanned into the computer at 600 DPI and then is brought into Photoshop.

4. I adjust my Levels to knock out the grid pattern, really brightening the whites and slightly darkening the blacks.

5. Making sure my layer isn’t locked, I use the Color Select tool to select the whites.

6. I press “delete” and now I have lovely, isolated type!

7. Then I place a filled white layer underneath my type and pixel lock my type layer.

8. I fill both layers with color (it’s chocolate-themed, so a sweet blue and milky brown felt just right). Since the type layer is pixel locked, the brown will only fill the drawing.

9. Since this design calls for shadow type, I make a copy of the type layer and lower the opacity to 50%.

10. I place the this layer underneath the original type and position it to the depth I want.

11. Using the Brush tool, I complete the shadow.

12. I add some chocolatey elements (drawn with the Brush tool).

13. And of course, I get a little bit crazy and change my mind about the “with” graphic at the very last moment haha.