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Job 02 · The Event Poster · Photoshop warm-up

Poster Lab

A finished poster, taken apart. Every piece is on its own layer. You'll switch them on one at a time, find three planted mistakes, then make it yours.

00What done looks like

At the end of this you have your own Photoshop file, saved under your name, that looks like a real event poster. Not mine. Yours.

Your event name is the biggest thing on the page. Your date is second. The place and the one reason to go sit underneath. Every word is still editable type, not pixels. Everything important sits inside the safe zone, and the background runs all the way past the trim.

Open your Layers panel and every layer has a name that says what it is. No "Layer 7." No "Layer 7 copy 2."

You're done when

  • You clicked every layer on and said out loud what it does
  • You found all three mistakes in the MISTAKES folder
  • You turned on BLEED CHECK and nothing important is red
  • Your file is saved as job02-practice-yourname.psd
  • Your invented event is on it: name, date, place, one reason to go
  • Screenshot posted in #dsn-standup: canvas plus Layers panel
The finished demo poster: NIGHT MARKET in huge cream letters, an orange sun cut by navy stripes, and the date, place and details in a dark band at the bottom.
The demo file, every layer on.

01Grab the files

job02-poster-DEMO.zip job02-poster-BASE.psd (blank setup)
  1. Download the DEMO zip. Open your Downloads folder, right-click it, Extract All. The PSD is inside.
  2. Open it in Photoshop. If it asks about color profiles, click Keep.
  3. Find the Layers panel. No Layers panel? F7 brings it back.

02Build it from zero

Close every folder's eye so the canvas goes blank. Now turn layers back on in number order, bottom to top. Watch what each one adds. Say it out loud to the person next to you.

01
BACKGROUNDFull bleed. It runs past the edge on purpose, so the cut never shows white.
02
GLOWA soft blur of pink at 55% opacity. Mood, not information. Turn it off and see how flat the page gets.
03
SUNThe one big shape. Your eye lands here before it reads a single word.
04
STRIPESBars in the background color, cut across the sun. Now it's a sunset, not a ball.
05
GROUNDA dark band so the details have a quiet place to sit.
06
RULEOne thin line. It splits "look at me" from "here's the info."
07
EVENT NAMEThe loudest thing on the page. Readable from across the room.
08
DATESecond loudest. If they remember two things, it's the name and the date.
09
PLACEOrange, to tie it back to the sun. Color can connect things across a page.
10
WHY GOOne reason. Not five. Five reasons is a paragraph, and nobody reads paragraphs on a wall.
11
SMALL PRINTGrey and tiny on purpose. It has to be there. It doesn't have to shout.
The pointCount the sizes. Name, date, place, reason, small print: five levels, each smaller than the one above. That staircase is hierarchy, and it's most of what Job 02 is graded on.

03Find the mistakes

Open the MISTAKES folder and turn its eye on. Then turn on one mistake at a time. Each one is a real way posters get ruined at the print shop. Figure out what's wrong before you open the answer.

X1

The headline moved. What happens to it after the paper gets cut?

Answer

It's outside the safe zone. The trimmer is off by a hair on every cut, so the edge of the M gets chopped. Keep important stuff inside the inner guides.

X2

There's a second date on the page. Can you even find it?

Answer

No contrast. Navy text on a navy background disappears. If you have to squint on a screen, nobody will read it across a hallway.

X3

This one covers the whole poster with a new background. Forget the middle. Look at the very edge of the page.

Answer

The background stops before the trim. After cutting, you get a thin white edge on one or more sides. Backgrounds go all the way to the outside edge.

04Run the bleed check

  1. Turn the MISTAKES folder back off.
  2. Turn on BLEED CHECK. It's the red layer near the top.
  3. Red means it gets cut off. Background in the red? Good, that's what bleed is for. Words in the red? Bad.
  4. Turn it off again before you do anything else.

05Make it yours

  1. File → Save As → job02-practice-yourname.psd. Do this first, before you touch anything.
  2. Grab the Type tool (T) and click into the words. Swap in your invented event: a name, a date, a place, one reason to go.
  3. Select the sun layer and change its color. Change the place color to match. Notice how they still connect.
  4. Rename a layer by double-clicking its name. Keep the names honest.
  5. Run the bleed check again.
  6. Screenshot your canvas and your Layers panel. Post it in #dsn-standup.
Heads upThis is practice, not your Job 02 poster. Your real poster starts from a blank document you set up yourself:11.25 × 17.25 in · 300 dpi · CMYK · guides at 0.125 and 0.625

Take it apart first.
Then build your own.