Designing and creating a poster is fun. You are free to express your creativity in a lot of different ways. Poster design provides a wonderful opportunity to practice and improve your Photoshop skills. There are a number of outstanding poster design tutorials that will take you step-by-step through the process of creating something special. In this post we’ll feature 55 tutorials for creating amazing posters in Photoshop.
The tutorials featured here will show you how to design posters in a variety of different styles.
Photoshop tutorial: Create punk poster art
This tutorial reveals how artist Dan Mumford creates a poster for a special show by the aggressive and spittle-flecked Watford punks Gallows, where the band played their debut album, Orchestra of Wolves, in its entirety. The poster was a new take on the albumundefineds front cover, which Dan designed back in 2006.
Read Tutorial : Photoshop tutorial: Create punk poster art
How To Create a Retro Style Race Poster in Photoshop
I recently put together a little vintage style poster to let my friends know about a karting event I’m organising for my stag do. I know lots of my readers are also big fans of the retro style and I had loads of fun creating the design, so I thought I’d share the process as a tutorial to give an insight into the techniques used. We’ll use Photoshop to put together the poster layout with various textures and brushes, but also switch back and forth to Illustrator to create the typographic elements.
Read Tutorial : How To Create a Retro Style Race Poster in Photoshop
Poster Mockups in Photoshop
I shared some posters awhile back on Abduzeedo and got a few emails asking how I created the application mockups for the posters so I decided to post about the process. There are several ways to go about and of course you can find templates online, however, today I’ll show you an easy way to create simple mockups that you can reuse for your projects in order to give them a more realistic and professional look.
Read Tutorial : Poster Mockups in Photoshop
Create a Cosmic Sci-fi Poster Design in Photoshop
I’m a great fan of sci-fi art. Have you ever seen a Metallica cd cover? Simply amazing. This kind of design inspired me to create a cosmic sci-fi scene. Today I want to show you how to create this image in Photoshop. This tutorial is for intermediate users who know how mask and selection tools work. We will use also a bit of Illustrator and Cinema4D. Have a try!
Read Tutorial : Create a Cosmic Sci-fi Poster Design in Photoshop
Create incredible B-movie poster art
This spoof movie poster design is a simple but effective way of tackling those graphics challenges where there seem to be too many thoughts to fit in: it enables the designer to combine slogans and other textual elements with the bare bones of a storyline and striking images, all bound up in an iconic format that everybody will recognize.
Read Tutorial : Create incredible B-movie poster art
Create a dark, creepy movie poster
In this tutorial we are going to create a movie poster based closely on the movie poster from The Last House on the Left. This tutorial will show you how to create a simple yet effective movie poster with a photo and some typography.
Read Tutorial : Create a dark, creepy movie poster
Gig Poster Design
A lot of people are making them. A lot of people suck. We don’t suck, and neither do you. This tutorial requires NO drawing talent… so don’t trip folks. You will however need Adobe Photoshop 7.0 or higher and Illustrator CS2 or higher.
Read Tutorial : Gig Poster Design
Soul Rebel Poster Tutorial
In this tutorial I will show how to create an awesome illustration that can be printed as a poster to hang it on your wall. I broke down step by step from the beginning to the end so you can follow and understand exactly what I went through while making this piece, and you get to download the .psd at the end.
Read Tutorial : Soul Rebel Poster Tutorial
Creating the Step Up 3D Effect in Photoshop
3D is taking over the film industry, with more and more movies, games and magazines being released in 3D I thought I would share the secret with you on how to achieve 3D effects in your photos using Photoshop. I am going to use Step Up 3D’s Movie poster and then transform it into a 3D image using Photoshop. This is a easy tutorial to follow and I am sure a lot of people will find it very useful. You will now be able to turn any photo into a 3D image. Let’s get started.
Read Tutorial : Creating the Step Up 3D Effect in Photoshop
Super Cool Retro Poster in 10 Steps in Photoshop
So in this tutorial I will show you how to create a very cool poster in just 10 steps. We will use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, but you may use other tools. I’m working on the Pixelmator version as well.
Read Tutorial : Super Cool Retro Poster in 10 Steps in Photoshop
Create a Retro Urban Gig Poster in Photoshop
Digital graphics are largely dependent on the software used to create them. Given the clean, pixel-perfect nature of Photoshop, artworks always risk looking too perfect therefore it’s important to learn how to bring nature’s random variations into our digital creations. In this tutorial we’ll create an atmospheric poster for a dance party using the textured, retro look that’s so popular nowadays.
Read Tutorial : Create a Retro Urban Gig Poster in Photoshop
How to Create a Retro Sci-Fi Computer Game Poster
Combine stock photos and design resources to create an awesome retro sci-fi themed game poster that takes inspiration from Atari games of the 80s. By mixing up bright and vibrant cosmic designs with old, distressed and grungey textures we’ll create a retro futuristic poster design for ‘Galactic Attack’.
Read Tutorial : How to Create a Retro Sci-Fi Computer Game Poster
Inception Poster with Repousse in Photoshop CS5
So in this tutorial I will show you how to create the effect of one of the Inception posters, the one with the word Inception made of buildings on an aerial photo of a city.
Read Tutorial : Inception Poster with Repousse in Photoshop CS5
Create a Vintage Art Deco Poster with Illustrator’s Grain Effect
Illustrator users can keep our hands clean and duplicate this technique with various texture effects. This is a beginner tutorial, which starts with basic shape-building methods. More experienced users can skip ahead to the texture part. Let’s get started!
Read Tutorial : Create a Vintage Art Deco Poster with Illustrator’s Grain Effect
Create a Stylish Grunge Poster with 3D Typography in Photoshop
In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create a cool grunge poster in Photohop. We will play in particular with blending modes to mix stock images and with some filters to create nice effects. Also I’ll show you how to integrate 3d text into your compositions and how to replace existing colors using adjustment layers.
Read Tutorial : Create a Stylish Grunge Poster with 3D Typography in Photoshop
Create a Variety of 3D Lettering Effects for Poster Design
I will start off by drawing the letter-forms for the three words “ONWARD,” “AND” and “UPWARD.” From there I will show three ways to create simple, yet interesting 3D effects. 3D is the latest craze (See: nearly every movie that has come out in the last two years) but my interests are in 3-Dimensional lettering that has old school, subtle, simple, imperfect, more humanistic qualities. Drawing inspiration from vintage poster lettering, and overall aesthetics, everything will be wrapped together to create the full poster design.
Read Tutorial : Create a Variety of 3D Lettering Effects for Poster Design
How to Create a Retro Boxing Poster in Photoshop
As it’s Graphic Design Week here on Psdtuts+, let’s take a look at some basic Graphic Design principles and cast an eye over the Boxing Poster aesthetic from yesteryear.
Creating a retrograde look is nothing new, but there are some things to keep an eye out for when mimicking Graphic Design from any decades past. We’ll be drawing inspiration from Poster Design from the 1960s, particularly Boxing Posters from that era. Let’s get started!
Read Tutorial : How to Create a Retro Boxing Poster in Photoshop
How to Create an Ice-cold Poster with 3D Text
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to combine stock images and 3D text into a cool poster. We’ll use an icy theme for it and color it the way we want. You’ll see it’s not that hard to create a simple appealing poster with effective use of text and imagery.
Read Tutorial : How to Create an Ice-cold Poster with 3D Text
Designing a Typographic Concept Poster
In this tutorial I will take you through a few steps that will show you how I created a poster design. This illustration was created for a contest started by UPrinting Design over at You The Designer. I was one of the lucky winners. Also, because of the requests to write a tutorial on this design, I made some changes to it, and I decided to show you the design process behind this piece.
Read Tutorial : Designing a Typographic Concept Poster
Create an Intense Movie Poster in Photoshop
Designers love to be critical about movie posters, and while you may think you have better ideas about how to sell a movie to an audience, how many times have you actually tried doing it? In this tutorial, we’re going to create a poster for a fictional movie called “Fugitive.” The movie is meant to be a suspenseful thriller that features one’s escape under the cover of darkness, despite man’s attempt to capture the lone hero. Thin and cheesy plot? Check. Awesome opportunity to better your PSD skills? You got it!
Read Tutorial : Create an Intense Movie Poster in Photoshop
Create and Then Shatter a Grid, while Making a Typographic Poster
Let’s get our own share of typography with this dark and grungy poster. No, this is not your typical design, as we’ll be ‘breaking the grid’ in hope of creating a dynamic and exciting layout. So grab the usual tools of the trade, Photoshop and Illustrator, and follow these steps into creating your own solution.
Read Tutorial : Create and Then Shatter a Grid, while Making a Typographic Poster
It’s Time to Create a ‘Neo-Constructivist’ Poster with Photoshop
Constructivist graphic design is often associated with communist politics and propaganda, but it’s more than that, Constructivism is about using bright colors, playing with lightness, perspective, geometrical forms, besides photomontage techniques and digital collage. This time I’ll dare to name this tutorial a ‘Neo-Constructivist’ design. It’s time to get started!
Read Tutorial : It’s Time to Create a ‘Neo-Constructivist’ Poster with Photoshop
Design Striking Stencil Art for Posters
Digital artist Ian Keltie reveals how to composite elements in Photoshop and create a poster that deploys stencilled art to promote your message.
Read Tutorial : Design Striking Stencil Art for Posters
Luxury Retro Car Poster with Paint Splashing Effect
In this design tutorial I will be walking you guys through the design process for creating a cool looking car poster in Photoshop!
Read Tutorial : Luxury Retro Car Poster with Paint Splashing Effect
Perfume Commercial
After the huge success of my previous Photoshop Tutorial for perfume commercial poster, I received so many requests asking to make more tutorials in this nature, so it took a while but finally I had a muse and I came up with a nice idea for a modern, not realistic, perfume advert, you see something like this in girl’s glamorous magazines, but this is my original and hopefully successful work.
Read Tutorial : Perfume Commercial
Airplane
In this tutorial we will use the noise and blur filters to create a brushed metal effect, then a few layer styles to create a cool little airplane graphic.
Vintage Truck Poster
Read Tutorial : Vintage Truck Poster
Skateboard Poster
This tutorial will teach you some important techniques to help create high impact images. Follow the steps to create your own high impact Skateboarding poster.
Read Tutorial : Skateboard Poster
Old poster effect
One of my favorite ‘looks’ is the sort of old-collage feel of old photos and old paper. It’s a favorite because it lets you work images and text together really easily. In this tutorial we’ll put together a poster where there is a main photograph and a lot of text using the old-collage feel.
Read Tutorial : Old poster effect
Sin City Style Poster
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create that effect in Photoshop, but this time we’ll use Illustrator to create the perspectives and text. I’ll walk through the process of creating the effect; However, it’s always good if you play around and test different settings to see how it works. That for me is the best way to learn.
Read Tutorial : Sin City Style Poster
Jumper effect
At the end, I’ll show you how a technique like this can be used in a variety of different ways to make stunning images.
Explosion cover
In this tutorial, we’re going to make a creative illustration in a style meant for a video game cover or sci-fi book cover. We’ll create this with mostly photo manipulation techniques. With some cool Photoshop options you can turn all the photos you chose, into one stunning looking explosive cover.
Read Tutorial : Explosion cover
Awesome snowboard poster
Through this tutorial I’ll be teaching you how to create this cool looking poster design using some real simple techniques. We’ll be learning how to use different types of brushes effectively and also stock images.
Read Tutorial : Awesome snowboard poster
Retro curves
I’m a huge fan of James White’s work. I love the way he plays with geometric elements and colors. It gives a retro feeling to the design, but at the same time he uses a modern approach. In an interview, he mentioned that he uses a Flash script to generate the vector shapes. Then he does the rest of the job in Illustrator and Photoshop.
How to Design a Great Movie Poster
A question I asked myself a couple of weeks ago was how do you design a great movie poster? Recently you might of noticed from my posts that I have been involved in movie poster design. Below is one of my latest creative works which, albeit isn’t as detailed as some of my other designs. However, I thought I would take you through some tips of good poster design with the steps, inspiration, resources and techniques used to create this poster from scratch.
Read Tutorial : How to Design a Great Movie Poster
Create a Professional Romantic Comedy Film Poster in Photoshop
Movie posters are often amazing pieces of art. What we see as a seamless design however is often a combination of several different images carefully blended and manipulated to produce a desired result. In today’s tutorial, we will demonstrate how to create the key art for a romantic comedy movie poster using a handful of photographs.
Read Tutorial : Create a Professional Romantic Comedy Film Poster in Photoshop
Create a Fun Horror Movie Poster Design in Photoshop
Read Tutorial : Create a Fun Horror Movie Poster Design in Photoshop
Designing a war movie poster
In this tutorial I will show you guys some simple but efficient techniques that will help you make great movie posters.
Read Tutorial : Designing a war movie poster
How to Create an Intense Movie Poster in Photoshop
In this tutorial I’ll show you how I created my Invasion movie poster in Photoshop. For quite some time now I wanted to create an action-movie poster tutorial and I thought this would be the best time to do so. It is a lengthy tutorial and I have worked a few days on this tutorial so I really hope some of you find it useful!
Read Tutorial : How to Create an Intense Movie Poster in Photoshop
Making a Superhero Movie Teaser Poster
In this tutorial I will give you an example of how to create a movie teaser poster. It will show you how to draw a mask for your character using the pen tool , blend modes and textures. Also, I will be talking about usage of color for your environment, how to make your images sharper and I will give some tips on how to add more detail to your work.
Read Tutorial : Making a Superhero Movie Teaser Poster
Inception Poster with Repousse in Photoshop CS5
So in this tutorial I will show you how to create the effect of one of the Inception posters, the one with the word Inception made of buildings on an aerial photo of a city.
Read Tutorial : Inception Poster with Repousse in Photoshop CS5
Create a Gritty, Action-packed Movie Poster
In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through the process of creating a visually striking design using a limited color palette. First, you’ll assemble a collage from various source files, then use some grungy, real-world ink stains and brushes for added grit. Next, you’ll work in tandem with Illustrator – using a combination of Live Trace and Pathfinder commands to create the distressed movie title.
Read Tutorial : Create a Gritty, Action-packed Movie Poster
Thanks for this very extensive list of tutorials. Such a wide range of design techniques. Personally I’m a fan of the sports design, but they’re all very useful.