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Create a Mobile Phone Ad Design

In Designing by ViniMan

Let's design a mobile phone advertisement. It's inspired by mobile phone posters, billboard designs, and magazine advertisements. We'll be reviewing using Smart Filters and Objects in this tutorial, as well as multiple techniques to create this design.

Final Image Preview

Before we get started, let's take a look at the image we'll be creating. As always, the full Photoshop file is available via our PSDTUTS Plus membership.

Step 1

We start off by searching for a mobile phone image. Be sure it also has a flat background color. This can be found on stock sites like Stock.xchng. Other images you'll need for this tutorial: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7. There are also some brushes we'll be using in this tut: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4.

Once you've found a mobile phone image you like that has a big enough resolution, go to Photoshop and open a new document (Ctrl+N). Then choose a color for the background layer. I chose a light blue/grey (#cad6dd). Select the Ellipse Tool (U), and make an oval form with it. Then transform it over whole of the image.

Step 2

First, Right Click on the layer in the layers palette and then select Blending Options. Put the Fill Opacity on 0%. Press Gradient Overlay and put the Blend Mode on Overlay, Opacity on 45%. Make sure the gradient goes from White to Transparent. Then set the Style on Radial.

Step 3

Place the phone image into the document. Then use Free Transform (Ctrl+T) to fit the image in the document. Pick the Magic Wand Tool (W), and Click on the background color. Then press Add Layer Mask.

Step 4

Now that you've cut out the phone, turn the layer back on. Then go to Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen. Then go to Blending Options and add an Outer Glow. Also, put the Blend Mode on Overlay with an Opacity of 25%. Pick a color that you want to glow out of the phone. The size of the glow depends on the size of your document; I used 180px.

Step 5

Open your field of grass image. Drag it into the document on top of the phone image. If it's too big use Free Transform (Ctrl+T) to scale it down.

Add a Layer Mask to the layer. Make sure the mask is filled completely with black, set your foreground color on Black (D) and use the Paint Bucket(G) to fill the mask. Then pick a big Soft Brush (B), and paint white on the mask underneath the phone. Also, paint a bit of an overlap as well, as shown in the results below.

Step 6

Find yourself some beautiful flowers. Put them in the document. Then get rid of the background so you only keep the flowers. You can do this by giving it a Layer Mask, picking a Hard Brush (B), and then painting the background away.

Another option to remove the background is to use the Pen Tool (P). This tutorial shows you how it works in case you don't know it. If you're lucky and the image has a flat background color, then use the Magic Wand Tool (W), or Select>Color Range may be a good quick choice as well. Use the 'Blur Tool' (R) where you think it's needed to create more depth.

Step 7

Next go to Filter>Convert For Smart Filter. The mask will disappear, but you can still change the mask and image by double clicking the layers image found on the layer palette. Then Transform (Ctrl+T), and put it on the bottom of the phone. The magic of Smart Filters/Object is that you can always transform an image back to it's original size.

Now go to Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen. Do this twice. You'll see Sharpen two times in the layer palette. At the end of each Sharpen filter you see an icon with two arrows. Click on one of these and a box will pop up. Leave the Mode set to Normal, but put the Opacity at 50%. After hitting OK, the opacity of the second Sharpen filter will automatically be set at 50% as well, due to the awesomeness of Smart Filters.

Step 8

Next we'll change the blending options. For Outer Glow use a Blend Mode of Overlay and Opacity of 75%. Be sure to use a Black color. Note that the Size of 90px depends on what size you're working in on your document setup. For Color Overlay we want to give the flowers a red color. Set the Blend Mode on Overlay and the Opacity on 35%.

Step 9

Find yourself more flowers, plants, and other fun stuff. Then repeat the same process as used on the flower. I added two bunches of red flowers for the background flowers, and in the front some blue ones. I didn't convert them to Smart Filters, but rather sharpened them directly on the layer. It's best to only use Smart filters/objects when you're not sure of the size, filters, or when reusing multiple objects that you may change later. I also found a ladybug image and put it on one of the flowers.

Step 10

You can also do some fun stuff with cloud brushes and air balloons, put plants behind the phone, etc. Keep adding more images and details until you're happy with it!

Step 11

Now to add some brush work to the background. I used splatter brushes and vector brushes on the area behind the phone. Be sure to create new layers when you use brushes. Tip: Most brushes aren't really sharp, so I Sharpen them often.

Step 12

I also made my own brush to add the sparkly design to the screen. Pick the Brush Tool (B). Then go to Window>Brushes (F5). For the Brush Tip Shape pick a hard brush with a Diameter of 35px, Hardness of 35%, and the Spacing of 25%. Set Shape Dynamics to a Minimum Diameter 100%, Scattering, and Scatter of 600%. Set Other Dynamics to Opacity Jitter of 85%.

Step 13

Put the Opacity of the new brush on 45%. Then create a layer behind the phone layer, and you'll see you've got to click only once to get that sparkly effect. I used a white color for the brush and put the blending mode of the layer on Soft Light. I also created two other ones with colors of blue and red. I set the blending mode of their layers on Overlay.

Step 14

Almost finished! As you can see, on the finished advertisement I made some line design elements and placed them on the flowers. That was made with Illustrator. To do that let's open Illustrator. Then create a new document, it doesn't matter which size. Pick the Rectangle Tool(M) and black as your Fill. Leave the stroke set at None. Then make your screen entirely black. I do this because we'll be working with white lines.

Step 15

Grab your Line Segment Tool, and create a white line with 1pt stroke. This time use a Fill of None.

Step 16

Pick up the Pen Tool (P) and create a new Anchor in the middle of the line you just created. Use the Direct Selection Tool (A) to move the Anchor Point. Get the Convert Anchor Point Tool (Shift+C) and simply Click and drag your anchor point to another direction.

Step 17

Make another line the same way we just did in the step above.

Step 18

We'll be using the Blend Tool (W) for creating more lines between the two we just made. It's very simple, Click on the first line and then the second. You'll probably see there's only one line between the two you made.

Step 19

Let's correct that. Press Enter, while your Blend Tool is still on and the lines are still selected. A box will appear. Set the Spacing to Specified Steps of 25. And now you have a blended linear design element. Tip: You can play with your anchor points, use more than 2 lines, and experiment to get different looks.

Step 21

Copy (Ctrl+C) the lines, and Paste (Ctrl+V) them in Photoshop. A box will pop up. Choose Paste as a Smart Object.

Step 22

I also made them into brushes especially for this tutorial, so you can download these instead of creating your own shapes in Illustrator. Download them here. Put the line layers blend mode on Overlay. Then place them over the flowers. Make a Layer mask and where the lines stop, and use a Black Soft Brush to make it fade out.

Finishing Touches

Now let's add the final details. Create a title; I used Cicle font for this. Then add a logo for the mobile phone company. The final result is below.

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Comments

Leave a Comment
  1. Nice tut ;)

  2. Fantastic. I love it. Thank you very much.

  3. Interesting effect!

  4. Interesting techniques, thanks for sharing Vincent!

  5. very nice idea, i like it

  6. nice effect!! useful.. thanx

  7. Awesome as usual!

  8. Very very veyr good tutorial. Loved it.

  9. Awesome Tutorial! As always! :D

  10. Ur only 15!!!!!!!!!!! :O

  11. fantastic, thanks! :D

  12. and he is only 15 wow!

  13. Heh… Nice one. I also like mine. ;)

  14. Gravatar

    godonholiday

    Yeah great work! cool design and gives enough room to allow us to develop it further! well done mate!

  15. Gravatar

    Callum Martin

    Brilliant! Thanks for a great tutorial , although I had to improvise slightly as I don’t own illustrator :)

  16. Love to see such creativity from such a young talent! :)

  17. Awesome tutorial. I will try this one!

  18. Wow I really like the end product!

  19. You should send that to a phone compony

  20. Gravatar

    krashsquad

    looks good. hope to see more of work soon.

  21. Gravatar

    Ariful Alam Khan

    Nice tutorial, Thanks

  22. Nice tutorial, some nice techniques.

  23. Very nice, looks great

  24. Really cool !

  25. oh nice, looks good.

  26. great tut…. reminds me of the style of a DeviantArtist - Uribaani…. amazing stuff he has …
    u can chk out his gallery on DeviantArt….–> http://www.uribaani.deviantart.com/

    Thnks …keep tutorializing..!!

  27. nicely done.

  28. Nice tutorial, some nice techniques. I really like the end product!

  29. Very Nice!

    Andrew

  30. Nice tutorial, Vincent!

    One question though - how was the ‘on screen’ graphic achieved? Those specular highlight hexagon shaped spots? By manipulating the brush you made for the ’sparkly spots’ for the background?

    Thanks for the tute!

  31. nice work - thanks for posting. Step 19’s particularly interesting ;)

  32. Great tutorial. Very useful. Thanks for sharing.

  33. Very nice. I believe i could use your clever technique to brush up an on going project.

  34. Nice one Vini!

  35. cool tut.
    amazing techs.
    thanks for that

  36. That’s a nice idea. I love your attention to detail, well done.

  37. Nice trick Buddy

  38. clean and nice

  39. Auch… now this is serious…

    I will let the team know

  40. Thank you Skeku for pointing this out.

  41. Good techniques used. Excellent work!

  42. Hollyyyy!! I always wanted to know how to make these ads

  43. Yeah, this is really cool, and very useful. Thanks for sharing so much!

  44. Really Nice Design!! Let me say it’s “Awesome!!” =)

  45. Skeku dando guerra…….. nice tut!!

  46. @ Skeku & Constantin: I’m not sure what’s going on. Who’s cheating on who? Another tutorial from that website that you just mentioned is actually one that belongs to Nick La - the facebook app. I think this is deeper than it seems… Most likely, this cellphone tutorial can also be found somewhere else other than texturadesign and psdtuts.

  47. I’m just asking ;) I can’t say if it’s a rip because I don’t know. But I saw this tutorial here and I remembered the link I’ve put.

  48. @Skeku: I’m the original creator of this tutorial. You can check my Behance and my Deviantart account. There you’ll find the original Sony Ericsson version I made.
    I had to change the mobile phone and logo for the tutorial. I don’t know how this person gets my tutorial, but as you can see it’s an unfinished version of it.

  49. Interesting, and as it’s a weird Monday, let me point out that these types tutes can be valued not only for the compete package, bit for the intrinsic pieces parts.

    Although it now seems like 60Minutes will be doing an expose on wanton MTU (multiplicitous tutorial usage), it was an interesting and enlightening read.

    Thanks

  50. Roger! Congrats for your great tut ViniMan :)

  51. Gravatar

    Pravin Potdar

    Very nice idea!!!!!

  52. Very Cool!

    I had liked very much to have my Mac and Photoshop to work with when I was 15…
    I would love to know how you can afford Photoshop, Cinema 4D, Illustrator, etc…?!!! or you say you are 15 when in fact you are 40 haha LOL…. just a joke… please bring your work more often here.

    aGS.

  53. This is so cool ! :D Thnx!

  54. Really Nice Design!! Let me say it’s “Awesome!!” =)

  55. good job. nice effect!

  56. Amazin tut, I already put what I did in the flick group!

  57. my attempt

  58. Nice tut !specially the flower effect.

  59. I found this google cached copy of the original tutorial posted on photoshopblog.net on 2/17/2008, but it has since been removed. There is a link to Vincent’s Deviantart account in the tutorial, so it appears that textureadesign.org ripped it off.

    http://tinyurl.com/3zlknv

  60. I like the color of the background..

  61. Hey everybody,

    Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Eric hit this one on the head. The tut was published elsewhere briefly and then it was taken down. ViniMan thought it was worth posting here and took it down to submit here. In the time it was up, someone scraped it.

    ViniMan did a great job on this tut. He worked with me to change things and improve the tut before posting it here. He’s a pleasure to work with. I also see how the community likes the tut and has learned a lot from it. We’ve decided to keep the tutorial here.

    Just a note to others for the future. If you submit a tut that has appeared elsewhere (even if it has been taken down) do let us know. We should be informed of this up front. And again thank you to those that brought this to our attention.

  62. That sounds great Sean.

    I also like the tutorial. It is really clean and look very nice.

  63. I love the design drama. What loser would event WANT to steal someone’s tutorial and then give themselves credit? What’s wrong with people? Great TUT BTW! =)

  64. What could be a possible work around for not having smart filters??

  65. Yes Jeff, you may rasterize a smart layer and apply a standard filter. Or apply a standdard filter to any layer.
    Hope that helps.

  66. very nice

  67. muito bacana, belo tuto :)

  68. Gravatar

    Ruth Lopez

    Can u plz explain clearly how does d blend option work? I wasnt able 2 create dat effect :-(

  69. Very Nice..

  70. great tutorial!

  71. Nice tute, Thanks

  72. very good tutorual
    i send my work

  73. Hey, great tutorial. Very easy to follow.

    By the way, thanks to PSD TUTS, I am starting my own website called PSD FREE

    In this site, I will be offering free PSD files, both originally created by me, and also, files based on the PSD tutorials I learned here from PSD TUTS.

    Thanks PSD Tuts and Collis, and all the contributors to this site. By the way, EDEN is the next google.

  74. awesome! fantastic and easy for practice. thanks PSD TUTS for sharing the tutorial.

  75. Excellent tutorial!!! Great resources as well.

  76. Gravatar

    Nysuatro

    Thanks for great tutorial. I learned a lot

  77. Nice tutorial. Actually, I made my Sony Ericsson ad. in complitely different way. I only cropped out 3 flowers and plants from the background, and rest I blended with blending mode and blur to fit to the background. It also gave a nice focus for the phone. As a personal opinion of the piece, not the tutorial, I´d say that the clouds and balloons wont fit in very well. It unbalances the feeling of “size” there. I suggest to use rather butterflies, ladybug´s , or eny smaller, but beautiful animals/bugs etc.

  78. I couldn’t get past step 5 at all, any tips?

  79. Thanks for Posting.
    Great Tut.

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