Designer Tim Saunders, founder of the UK-based studio Bracken, created the weird and wild Reaction Diffusion action which mutates type and images in unpredictable ways. To show off what Reaction Diffusion can do, we asked Seoul-based design group Everyday Practice—founded by Kwon Joonho, Kim Kyung-chul, and Kim Eojin—to use the action in an original illustration. The poster they designed honors the Year of the Tiger—a theme that’s not just timely but particularly well suited to the action’s distorting effects thanks to the tigers’ stripes.
After setting their images to black and white and flattening them, Everyday Practice used different combinations of the Reaction Diffusion action on each of their tiger images, then layered those results on top of each other to get the dynamic effect they achieved. Download the layered PSD of their poster to see how they set up their file, and check out a progression of their design below. Get the action in the link at the top of the article to start making your own designs.
STEP 1 / 5
Getting your graphic ready.
These actions produce the cleanest and most dramatic effect on a flattened black and white layer. Your graphic or type should be black, with a layer of white below it. (Once you’ve mastered this technique, try it on photos and colored imagery for unique and surprising results.)
STEP 2 / 5
Merge your layers.
Select both your graphic and the white Background in the Layers panel, and Right-click > Merge Layers.
STEP 3 / 5
Play the actions.
Select the newly flattened layer in the Layers panel. In the Actions panel, open the Reaction Diffusion folder and click on one of its 14 effects. Then hit the Play icon in the Actions panel and watch your artwork grow.
Keep clicking Play until you like the results. To create this example, we ran the RD M action 30 time.
STEP 4 / 5
Change the scale.
These actions are heavily affected by scale. Try applying the action to different sizes of text and images to generate different results.
STEP 5 / 5
Colorize.
To add color to your artwork, go to the Layers panel, click the New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon, and select Gradient Map from the dropdown menu. A Gradient Map layer will appear in the Layers panel. Double click the Adjustment Fill icon in the layer to open the Properties panel. From here you can choose presets from the gradient dropdown menu, or you can click on the dropdown menu to open up the Gradient Editor and make custom adjustments. To further tweak the color, click on the gradient map layer and adjust its Blend Mode and Opacity.
Everyday Practice applied different versions of the Reaction Diffusion effect on multiple copies of the tiger images and the background, layering them on top of each other to create a multidimensional look.
ABOUT THE ACTION CREATOR
Tim Saunders is the founder of UK based studio Bracken. He creates tools and training for designers and also offers bespoke design services. Get Bracken’s Reaction Diffusion action using the link above and read on to learn more about how to use it.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Everyday Practice is a graphic design studio founded by Kwon Joonho, Kim Kyung-chul, and Kim Eojin. This small community of designers based in Seoul are always thinking about the role design plays in our current reality. Though their work is based in graphic design, they are constantly experimenting with formats beyond the two-dimensional. Follow their work on Instagram.
