TUTORIAL: 90's inspired DESIGN 💘

Enjoyed our latest May wallpapers and wondered how to achieve the design look? In today’s tutorial, we will show you to recreate designs inspired by the nostalgic 90’s filled with geometric patterns and neon colors!

1. Start with Illustrator or Photoshop. I will be creating my original shapes in Illustrator and then transferring them to Photoshop, but you can also skip Illustrator and make your shapes directly on Photoshop - choose whichever workflow is better for you! 

Next, start building out your shapes. The specific 90’s style that we will be mimicking here is the overlapping brightly colored geometric shapes - think triangles, squiggles, circles, squares, rectangles galore! I am going to start out with black shapes and then add the colors in Photoshop later.

2. Copy and paste your shapes from Illustrator into Photoshop. Paste them as a ‘Smart Object.’ 

Make a copy of this layer (always good to have in case something goes wrong along the way!) Make sure you add a white background underneath your shapes in order for the filters to work and flatten the layers by selecting your shape and background layer and clicking ‘Command + E.’ Next, time to add some texture! Go to Filter > Filter Gallery. I added these three filters:

• Rough Pastels, Diffuse Glow, and Spatter
  • These will help create the home-made on paper effect!
• Tip: You can add all three effects at the same time, simply click on the ‘+’ button on the bottom and you can add on multiple filters at once!

3. After you are happy with the texture on your shapes, find the ‘Channels’ tab. If it isn’t on your workspace already, find it at Window > Channels to activate it. Next ‘Command + Click’ on the RGB channel. This will automatically select each individual shape on your layer.

4. Next, go back to your ‘Layers’ and click ‘Solid Color.’ Choose a color for your shapes! I started with a bright pink. Click ‘Command + I’ to invert the mask and this will fill your shapes in with the color.

5. Duplicate this layer (Command + J) and change the color (I chose a light blue!) Next, change the blending mode to ‘Multiply’ and slightly move this new layer over the bottom one so the edges overlap. Play around with different colors, layering, and blending modes to achieve your final look! Lastly, I added a new background color and some texture overlays to finish off the design!

What do you want to see next? Comment down below and let us know! ✨

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Tutorial by Anna Korol. Anna is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Chicago and a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She loves creating vibrant illustrations that she hopes can positively inspire others.