Wednesday 04 Jun 2008
The pop art movement of the 1950s celebrated the birth of consumer culture, taking mundane things like the humble soup can out of the supermarket and into art galleries – often for the very first time.
It’s a distinctive, tongue-in-cheek style that’s still relevant today – after all, our society hasn’t got any less consumer-oriented. This means that pop art is a useful, versatile visual shorthand for 21st-Century designers, instantly evoking kitsch, with a sharp note of satire. In this masterclass,
Mark Mayers shows you how to get that pop art look using layering, the Live Trace tool, filters and some cleverly chosen images.
01. In Photoshop, open Bubble_car.tif from this month’s CD and clean up any stray pixels with the Brush and Eraser tools. Draw a closed path around the people, make a path-based selection and then hit Delete. Next, erase the number plate and bonnet logo and save the image to a convenient location.
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What is this?
Tips
Placing or embedding RGB JPEG files in Illustrator documents destined for commercial print will cause your printer major headaches. Also, if a linked file isn’t supplied to your printer as a separate file, it can’t be printed properly. However, embedding larger images means larger file sizes – forcing you to link them. Unlike embedded images, linked images can be revised via the Edit Original button in the Links palette and updated automatically.
OId magazines are an abundant source of copyright-free images and illustrations. Simple black-and-white line art was popular because it reproduced cleanly. Line art makes a fantastic starting point for pop art inspired illustrations and can be picked up for pennies in secondhand bookshops and car boot sales. I’ve supplied all the scans to complete this masterclass, but feel free to source your own material. Scanning at them as 1200dpi Bitmaps is usually sufficient.
Who: Based in Cornwall, Mark Mayers is a freelance illustrator and designer with over 18 years’ experience. He’s worked for the likes of American Express, British Gas and Euro Disney. He also writes tutorials for many leading publishers worldwide. Past accolades include: ‘MetalFX Designer of the Year 06’ as well as Highly Commended ‘MetalFX Designer 07’.
Contact: www.markmayers.co.uk
Software: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
TIme to complete: 2 hours if using the CD files
Download: All files for this tutorial can be downloaded here or are available on the cover CD.
