This originally started as a black-on-white piece I did simply because I liked the contrast between the formality of the letters and the "street"-ness of the wording. When it was done, I thought it would look a lot better on a wall. Since I'm not the sort to go around tagging walls, I opted to do it digitally.
Here's how I did it:
- I used a vector app called Xara, but the same basic steps should work in Photoshop or Illustrator as well.
- First I got rid of the background by making white transparent
- Then I changed the colour of the letters to dark red.
- I found a suitable wall texture to use as a background.
- I then created a new layer, on which I placed the lettering.
- I adjusted the lettering's transparency until it looked right.
- Lastly, I changed the transparency type to "fractal" to get the uneven fade effect.