Readers' Request: Create Your Own Subway Art

Subway art is hot, right?!  

Well even I didn't realize how hot.  

My inbox is FULL of comments and questions concerning this birthday subway art for Little Man's big Toy Story birthday bash. 

 

Well, you asked for it... you got it!  

Here is a little Photoshop tutorial.  You can easily create your own subway art with just a basic knowledge of Photoshop.  (By the way, I use Photoshop Elements, and love everything about it!  I don't think I will ever upgrade to the full version of Photoshop... Elements does the job for me!)

Start out by creating a new blank file in Photoshop.  You can customize the size.  I made my file 16x20 because I wanted to print it at this size.  I set it at 300 ppi (pixels per inch) so I was sure to have high resolution.

 This is how your file will look.  I chose not to have a background color, so I left the background as is.  You could certainly have a colored background by filling it with the Paint Bucket tool.

Using the text tool, I started typing the lines.  I chose some Toy Story slogans as well as some slogans unique to Little Man.  I chose to type some lines in a "rainbow" effect with all 3 colors.  (You can change the colors as you go up at the top of your screen.) But most lines just use one color--the red, yellow, or blue.  

I didn't pay a lot of attention to sizes of my fonts as I went along.  I would type my line, and then use the "Move" tool to drag my words to the proper size.  I was just careful to line up the beginning/end of each line so they were flush with each other so it would look like this...

I continued typing in all of my phrases and slogans, a line at a time.  I varied my colors in a pattern of blue-yellow-red with a few rainbow lines thrown in here and there.  It was a matter of trial and error to see how many total lines I would have room for.  I knew I wanted his name to stand out a lot, so naturally this was easy to make larger because it was so short.  I tried to vary the longer/shorter lines to get the right flow. 

I actually decided to make one more NEW blank file (also 16x20), dragged my completed image inside, and then adjusted the size so it was just barely smaller.  It was important for me to have a bit of "wiggle room" around those edges.  I wanted the whole image to be centered on the page and I definitely did NOT want the edges to get cut off when printed.

 

Last step:  Just save the file as a JPEG image and save it in a location you can find easily when uploading it to your favorite photo printing shop!  I printed my image at Costco, threw it in a frame, and I was done! 

Several of you have asked what fonts I used for this project. Here is a font profile from the project:

 

If you google any of these fonts, you can find them easily available for free download. I am a font-a-holic for sure.  Isn't it wonderful that so many are available for FREE?!

If you are creating your own Toy Story themed subway art (like me), here is the color profile I used for this project.  You can use the color codes to get the same exact shades I used.  (I matched mine to a digital Toy Story scrapbooking kit.)

Let me know if you still have any more questions.  I hope this helps you to venture out and create your very own subway art!  You can do it!

Have a great weekend, my friends!

P.S.  Today is the last day to use promo code "Daisy" for 10% off at www.ruffle fabric.com to order yourself some ruffle fabric.  So hurry!!  Don't wait.... Skip on over and order yourself some adorable ruffle fabric! You'll love it.  Promise!