FREE Cardboard Sign PSD

POSTED March 7th, 2009 by CampPhotoshop

I received a request to show how to create an image of a cardboard box sign written with a marker...like the ones you see people on the side of the street holding (“Will work for food” or “Hope for Change”). Sounded simple enough and I already have a tutorial that explains the technique. The approach is the same only the surface is different.

I photographed a piece of cardboard recycled from the box my latest issue of Communications Arts (CA) arrived in. Per CA’s request, I recycled creatively (see image of box flap below). I cleaned the image up a bit, removed the background (making it easy for you to use) and added a simple text layer to generate the effect. I created a second version of the type layer with a few additional layer effects added to create the bleed effect that a marker has when used on porous paper like cardboard. My version of a cardboard sign.

The file is FREE to anyone who is signed up here at campphotoshop.com. Our standard License applies.

Some notes about using this file:

To get the free file you first need to sign-up here at campphotoshop.com.
The file was created in Photoshop CS4 but you should have no problems editing in recent version of Photoshop.
You should watch this CampPhotoshop.com tutorial to see how to generate the effect yourself.
I’ve included every layer I used to create the design so that you can see exactly how it goes together. It's actually very simple.
I’ve included a second file for you to use as a distortion map (see the tutorial mentioned above if you don’t know why you need or want this file).
The font I used is Marker Twins by Tom Raaijmaker. It’s free to download.
The file size is the full resolution from my Canon 5D Mark II. So it’s very large. If the file is too large for your use, the first thing I suggest you do is reduce it but keep in mind that you will want to reduce the of the distortion map (see above if you don’t know what that is).