I made this piece for fun in the summer of 2023. I wanted to give people a vibrant and playful cover image to use for their own personally-curated summer playlists.
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The biggest skill I learned was Adobe Illustrators' inflate feature for the text. After selecting an appropriate font and inflating it, I exported the lettering into Photoshop and built the rest of the composition from there. For the background’s foundation, I used a film photograph I shot on my Canon TX—a sunny blue sky with clouds captured on black-and-white film. On top of this, I layered a gradient, painted in different colors using Photoshop’s Color Brush tool, and overlayed a final image of soft, blurry bokeh to enhance depth and atmosphere.
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I absolutely love how bubbly and playful the lettering feels, and the midair suspension really enhances the light, carefree spirit of summer.