Art Deco is an iconic design style from the 1920s that was recently given a new lease of life thanks to the movie The Great Gatsby. Geometric, angular shapes and symmetry are some of the key features of the art deco
Art Deco is an iconic design style from the 1920s that was recently given a new lease of life thanks to the movie The Great Gatsby. Geometric, angular shapes and symmetry are some of the key features of the art deco style, which produce some beautiful graphic designs when used as backgrounds, frames and patterns. In today’s tutorial we’ll use Illustrator to create a detailed art deco pattern, then we’ll switch over to Photoshop to polish it up with shiny brass metal effects.
The design we’ll be creating in this tutorial is an intricate mix of angular lines to create a complex art deco style pattern. To really give it the extravagant Great Gatsby treatment we’ll use Photoshop to add realistic shiny metal and lighting effects. Use this tutorial to create frames and backgrounds for your art deco themed designs for classy wedding invitations, leaflets, business cards, etc.
It is possible to create geometric designs directly in Photoshop, but since Illustrator is designed specifically for working with vector shapes, why not make use of its powerful tools? Create a new Illustrator document and begin by drawing a horizontal and vertical line across the artboard. Use the Align panel to centre them to the Artboard to form a perfect cross.
Copy (CMD+C) and Paste in Front (CMF+F) one of the lines, then rotate it by 45°. Hold the ALT key and extend the lines to match the width of the original cross. Copy and paste a duplicate and rotate it to intersect in the opposite direction.
Drag a selection around all the lines then right click and select Make Guides from the menu. Deselect everything then right click and select Lock Guides to avoid accidentally moving them.
Select the Pen tool and remove the default white fill. Increase the stroke weight to 20pt and draw a path between the diagonal and horizontal guides. Hold Shift to keep the lines straight.
Reduce the weight of the stroke to 10pt and continue drawing lines that flow in random directions. Holding CMD and clicking the artboard is a quick technique to finish a path before starting a new one.
Bring down the stroke weight further, then use the Pen tool to add finer details. Remember to hold the Shift key to constrain the angles to 45° or 90°.
Select and Group (CMD+G) all the paths, then go to Object > Transform > Reflect. Select the Vertical option then click Copy.
Hold Shift while rotating this duplicate of shapes to 9