Hello, everyone! My name is Rachael, and I’m here to show you how to create subway art using digital products created by Echo Park. Because I live in San Diego, and summer is my favorite season, I decided to make a summer-themed project using the gorgeous kit Summer Bliss, by Echo Park.
I started with a blank, paper-sized document, using the default settings for the preset “U.S. Paper” in Photoshop.
Next, I opened one of the multi-colored word strips from the kit, to use for color sampling.
I selected the type tool and proceeded to type various summer-based phrases and words. For each new phrase, I selected a new color from the word strip file and created a new layer. Eventually, I had a good selection of phrases and decided I was ready for the next step.
To help with alignment, I turned on the grid (ctrl+’ in Windows; command+’ in Mac), and added some guidelines. To add a vertical guideline, simply click your mouse on the vertical ruler and drag to the location you wish to add the guideline. To add a horizontal guideline, simply click and drag from the horizontal ruler.
After setting the guidelines, I then edited each phrase to adjust the font size and tracking (spacing between characters) until the phrase fit exactly within the two lines.
I repeated this adjustment for each layer, leaving an occasional space for graphics.
I wanted to use a heart in one of the phrases, so I found this cute heart in the Echo Park element kit “Life is Good”. To make sure the heart matched the rest of the elements, I clipped the red paper from the Summer Bliss kit to the heart layer.
After adjusting each of the phrases and getting the placement right, I was ready for the final step: adding a few stickers.
Once I was happy with the final result, I selected all layers and resized the art to fill up more of the document space. That’s it! The subway art is now ready for printing and framing, or can be resized and used on a digital layout. To download a pdf copy of this subway art, click here.
