Annapurna Expedition 1970: Design Beautiful Retro Poster in Photoshop

    written by Nikola Lazarevic

    Combine stock photos, triangle shapes and textures to create an awesome retro poster that takes inspiration from climbing expedition to Annapurna in 1970. By mixing up simple shapes with old and grungey textures we’ll create a retro poster design for “Annapurna 1970″.
    Let’s not waste any more time and get started!

    Tutorial Outcome

    This is what we will be designing.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Research and Inspiration

    From wikipedia: Annapurna (Goddess of the Harvests) is a series of peaks in the Himalayas, a 55 km (34 mi)-long massif of which the highest point, Annapurna I, stands at 8091m, making it the 10th-highest summit in the world and one of the 14 “eight-thousanders”. Annapurna I was the first 8,000-metre (26,200 ft) peak to be climbed.
    The south face of Annapurna was first climbed in 1970 by Don Whillans and Dougal Haston, members of a British expedition led by Chris Bonington.

    annapurna

    I knew from the start what style of poster I wanted to create, but to further develop my ideas I did web research in order to pick up more ideas and inspiration which would help tailor my design.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Setting Up The Document

    Open up Adobe Photoshop and create a document with desired poster dimensions. Remember to use a high DPI (150-300) and CMYK Color Mode if you are planning on sending the file to press.

    Step 1: The Background

    Fill the background with white color (#ffffff) using Paint Bucket Tool.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Create new layer, set the Foreground color to #99dbfb and Background color to #b4e4fb. With Gradient Tool (G) fill the new layer using gradient from Foreground to Background.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Duplicate this layer by pressing Command + J on keyboard and then change the Blend Mode of duplicated layer to Multiply and lower the opacity to 50%.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Reset the Foreground and Background colors to Black and White by pressing D on keyboard. Create new layer, then go to Filter -> Render -> Clouds.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Change the Blend Mode to Screen and lower the opacity to 50%. Background is all set up.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    To avoid mess, select all layers, except first white color layer, and press Command + G to group them, and name this group “Background”.

    Step 2: Creating First Peak – The Highest One

    Pick up Custom Shape Tool (U), from Shape menu choose triangle, set color to #3383a8, draw the highest peak and place it in the middle of the page. Name this layer “highest peak”.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Command + Click on Vector Mask Thumbnail to make a selection.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Create new layer and use Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) to create selection like on the picture below. Make sure that Intersect with selection is selected.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Fill the selection with #316378 color. Give this layer a name – “shadow”.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Now let’s create snow on the top of the mountain.

    Once again, Command + Click on Vector Mask Thumbnail of “highest peak” layer to make a selection, then with Plygonal Lasso Tool (L) create selection on top, create new layer and fill selection with white color. Name this layer “snow”.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Final touch – add subtle shadow on snow. Command + Click on “shadow” layer to make a selection, with Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) create new selection, again create new layer and fill selection with light gray color #dce8ea. Give this layer name “snow shadow”.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Here is how our highest peak look now. Not bad huh?

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Once again to avoid mess, select all peak layers (highest peak, shadow, snow, snow shadow) and group them into “Highest Peak” group.

    Step 3: Create Next Peak

    Our poster design is going to be made up of mountain peaks, and therefore we’re going to need a lot of them. Let’s add another peak to poster.

    Using techiques described in Step 2 we will create next peak, but with different colors for peak and shadow. To make your work little bit easier hide “Highest Peak” group before start drawing new peak.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    I used #5ca9cb color for the peak, #396f86 for the shadow, white for the snow and once again #dce8ea for snow shadow.
    Again group all this layers and give it appropriate name.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Step 4: Create Even More Peaks

    We now need to create more peaks. Repeat the above steps until you are happy with composition. Use different shades of blue for peaks and shadows,

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    keep adding …

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    and play with order of peaks.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    At the end you should have something similar to this.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    It’s time to move on.

    Step 5: Smallest Peak And Climber

    With Custom Shape Tool (U) create small triangle filled with #2f799b color and position it like shown below.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Create tiny shadow on this peak (I used #336c83 for the color).

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Jump over to Shutterstock and download Silhouette of a mountaineer standing on the top at sunset image.

    Open up the shot in a new document and clip out the mountaineer with the Pen Tool.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Paste the silhouette into the document and scale into place. Position it in the bottom right corner, so it looks like the mountaineer stands on the smallest peak. Name this layer “climber”.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Open Layer Style for this layer, open Color Overlay and set color to #2f799b (the same color that we used for smallest peak.)

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Step 6: Typography

    Go ahead to The League Of Moveable Type and download League Gothic font, which fits perfectly into our design.
    Grab Horizontal Type Tool (T), choose League Gothic font and type the word “ANNAPURNA”. Use the following settings and place it like shown below.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    With the same font type “1970″, use following settings and place it close to word “ANNAPURNA”.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Take a look at result so far.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Step 7: Making Borders With Layer Mask

    This step is going to be very easy. Select all groups (background, peaks, climber …) and group them into one big group.
    Using Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) make selection smaller then canvas.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    With big group selected, go to Layer -> Layer Mask -> Reveal Selection.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Step 8: Adding Texture

    Pick wrinkled paper backdrop texture from Shutterstock, and insert it at the top of your layers palette.
    Scale it down to fit our document and desaturate (Shift + Command + U). Run a quick Sharpen (Filter -> Sharpen) command to give more definition to the texture.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Change the Blending Mode to Multiply and lower the Opacity to 60%.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    Conclusion

    All done! We now have a quite awesome retro poster, made entirely out of basic shapes (triangles), simple blending techniques and spiced up with some textures.
    Take a look at the final result below.

    retro poster photoshop tutorial

    I hope You enjoy reading this tutorial. Thanks for reading!

    Our self paced MB3-462 training courses and high quality MB7-221 provide you definite guarantee for passing the real MB2-228. If you get through this exam, you will find MB7-849 also.

     
    Authored by

    Web Designer, Blogger, M.Sc in Electronic Engineering from Nis, Serbia. Founder of webexpedition18.com. You can find me on Twitter.

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30 Comments
ADD COMMENT
  • vanrzr says:

    July 28, 2010

    usuful, simple, great tutorial. Gotta try it later.
    cheers

  • Tim Jones says:

    July 28, 2010

    Nice tutorial, and very detailed. Easy to follow. Got this website link from your Twitter feed.

  • Sergei Tatarinov says:

    July 28, 2010

    Damn sexy and so much to my taste! Simple = genious! inspiring as hell! Way to go, Nik! Bravo!

  • Simone D'Amico says:

    July 28, 2010

    Nik, awesome tutorial! :)

    Great work!!

  • Pfaudere says:

    July 28, 2010

    Extremely nice. Very clean and simple.

  • Radu says:

    July 29, 2010

    Nice tutorial, Nikola! I like that you stayed true to the 70s design patterns (like using a pure gothic font, for example). I think it’s very important for everyone learning design to understand some of the paradigms that come with certain styles.
    I would’ve used vector shapes via the Pen Tool exclusively for the mountains but hey, as long as it works, who am I to argue?
    Again, nice tutorial!

    • Nikola Lazarevic says:

      July 29, 2010

      Thanks Radu! Your opinion is very important to me. I decided to go with custom shapes instead of using Pen Tool because these are really simple shapes.

  • Nikola Lazarevic says:

    July 29, 2010

    Thanks for positive comments guys

  • Federica Sibella says:

    July 29, 2010

    Hi Nikola! Well done! The tutorial is clear and well written and the idea is really nice, moreover using only simple shapes teaches how to design beautiful things with basic tools. I like it a lot, keep it up!

  • TwitterBackgrounds says:

    July 29, 2010

    Nice tutorial :) Your explanations are really easy to follow and the end result looks great. Keep up the good work!

  • Duane Kinsey says:

    July 29, 2010

    Well done mate, great tutorial. Love this poster.

  • sandesh says:

    July 29, 2010

    Nice tutorial. Simple,easy to follow and great. Love it.

  • Pablo Lara H says:

    July 29, 2010

    Nice article. And it looks like a seventy poster!!!!

  • Marcell Purham says:

    July 29, 2010

    Great Tutorial! Out come was very clean

  • PVMgarage says:

    July 29, 2010

    Great Article.

  • Holly says:

    July 29, 2010

    great stuff! Thanks for sharing!

  • Milos Sutanovac says:

    July 30, 2010

    Have to agree with what Sergei said… Damn sexy. ;P

  • sriganesh says:

    July 30, 2010

    Thanks for the tutorial, i must say this tutorial is great

  • Rocky says:

    July 30, 2010

    The 70′s and 80′s pattern have always been inspiring. For any photoshop learner this tutorial is really easy to follow and know the design of the past. Brilliant Post, Nikola!!!!

  • Richie says:

    July 30, 2010

    League Gothic Kicks Ass….. I love the font… and this tutorial :)

  • Michela says:

    July 31, 2010

    Love this poster!

  • Jovan says:

    July 31, 2010

    Awesome work man! I like the idea and the classy “execution” ;)

    Keep up the good work! I am looking forward to more of these!

  • xavi says:

    August 2, 2010

    Great work!!
    is difficult to find work like this, so easy and so complete at the same time.

  • Rock Photo Star - concert photog says:

    August 8, 2010

    Great tutorial. Very easy for me to follow along (though I already have photoshop knowledge). What a great tut for someone to look like a pro. Looks great but really simple techniques.

  • sarath says:

    August 11, 2010

    nice n useful tips thanks

  • Laura says:

    September 18, 2010

    I’m new to this site. And from what I’ve seen from this tutorial, I’m impressed! Simple yet effective – beautiful! Well done! I can’t wait to give it a go =D

  • Atlanta Web Design Company says:

    November 2, 2010

    Nice tutorial!quite effective and creative.thx for sharing.

  • Logomondo says:

    December 31, 2010

    Another fantastic tutorial . Your site is always fascinating. Keep it up. =D