Website Background Project

Website Background Project

Website Background Project

When it came to my portfolio website, I wanted to be creative, so I pondered and played around for days, coming up with one idea after another. Eventually I landed on this: a poster wall. In movies, I always loved that aesthetic — adverts and clippings and paper layered over each other. I wanted to make something that stands out, and I think this background does the trick.

After some experimentation, I settled on a process. I used the Affinity suite on my Windows 10 desktop. I gathered a collection of old LIFE magazines from various antique malls along with advertisement clippings, and for the brick texture I simply took photos inside one of the antique malls, which had walls I thought had a lot of character.

After some experimentation, I settled on a process. I used the Affinity suite on my Windows 10 desktop. I gathered a collection of old LIFE magazines from various antique malls along with advertisement clippings, and for the brick texture I simply took photos inside one of the antique malls, which had walls I thought had a lot of character.

I started by placing a full-size image of the brick on the canvas in Affinity and setting the opacity to 16%. I then aged each advertisement by hand using coffee and a hair dryer before adding them to the composition. Layering each image beneath the semi-transparent brick wall created a subtle texture that tied the whole aesthetic together, giving it the feel of an old poster wall. Afterwards, I used Affinity's built-in shading to create the effect of a lamp shining down, casting a warm glow over everything.