Step 12: Creating the Background Shape in Photoshop

To make the tag line and the word "Online.com" more visible, we are going to create a background shape that fits underneath both text.

First turn on rulers with "View -> Rulers". With the "Move" tool selected, draw two horizontal guides as shown. To position the rules exactly, you might have to zoom in and turn off snapping with "View -> Snap".

Now turn on snapping to guide.

Step 13: Using the Measure Tool

Right-click on the ruler to set its dimension units to pixel. Then you can use the meausre tool to in the Info panel that the distance between the guides is 16px.

Step 14: New Guide

We want this same distance when we set the top guide as shown below. Use menu View -> New Guide with the settings shown.

Step 15: Using the Pen Tool

Select the pen tool with settings shown.

Zoom out and click on points as shown. Hold down the Shift key if you want to constrain the lines to the horizontal or vertical position. It is okay to draw outside the canvas as shown.

To get a better view, you can turn off and on the guides with Ctrl-; (press the semi-colon key while holding down then Ctrl key).

Move the shape layer below the two text layers so that the text becomes visible.

Step 16: Keep the Diagonals Parallel

We need to make sure that the two diagonal lines of our shape are parallel -- in other words, that they are sloping at the same angle. We'll call these two lines the left slope and the right slope. We see that they are currently not parallel. I like the slope of the left one, so we will make the right slope match that of the left. Create a new layer. In this new layer, use the line tool to draw a diagonal line matching the left slope.

Move the diagonal line to where the right slope is. Select the layer containing our blue shape.

Then use the direct selection tool to select the corner shown below. This corner by itself will become filled whereas the other corners of the shape are not filled.

Now you can use the arrow keys to move only this corner of the shape.

We can delete are temporary diagonal line by dragging its layer to the trash can.

Step 17: Applying a Layer Mask

The dark blue background shape is a bit too dark especially the middle section just behind the text "Online". It seems that the strong color is competing with the dark text "Web Design". We want to lighten this section of the shape so that the text "Web Design" continues to stand out.

With the shape layer selected, click the Layer Mask icon.

Click on this layer mask thumbnail to ensure that we are painting on the layer mask.

Create a gradient with whites on both ends and grays in the middle. That means that we plan on masking out the middle section of where the gradient is applied.

And we apply the gradient as shown below while holding down the Shift key to constrain it to a perfect horizontal.

Note how it had lighten out (masked out) the middle section of where the gradient was applied. The darker the colors you set in your gradient the more it will mask out the layer -- and hence the lighter then background shape becomes.

Our background shape also looks less flat now due to the gradient.

Step 18: Decrease Opacity

If the background shape still appears too dark, you can decrease the entire background shape layer.

In the next lesson, we will add scan line texture to this background shape.