Copycat Design: Recreating the 1962 Moderna Museet Poster in Adobe Illustrator [EP06]

In this tutorial, we dive into the iconic 1962 Moderna Museet poster by John Melin and Anders Österlin, pioneers of Swedish graphic design. This minimalist poster used a single letter — the capital M — and a simple grid to communicate the spirit of modern art. I’ll walk you step-by-step through recreating this poster in Adobe Illustrator, including: --- Setting up the grid structure (manual technique) --- Working with typography and installing Akzidenz Grotesk from Adobe Fonts --- Using clipping masks to reveal letterforms inside grid squares --- Rotation, Pathfinder and Alignment Tools --- Adjusting kerning for professional, logo-ready type --- Inspiration for building a modern layout inspired by a classic design Whether you’re a design student or a creative looking for ideas, this exercise will sharpen your typography and Illustrator skills. ► *Adobe Illustrator Practice Projects* 👉 Download the PDF of the original poster to follow along. https://designertofullstack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/moderna-museet-guide-for-copycat-design-copy.pdf 👉 Read step-by-step instructions on the blog post: https://designertofullstack.com/recreating-the-typographic-grid-posters-for-moderna-museet/ 👉 Watch the next video in this series to explore how to rotate and generate custom grids for your own projects. 🎨 What brought you joy today? Drop a comment below — and don’t forget to like and subscribe for more design tutorials. #GraphicDesign #AdobeIllustrator #Typography #DesignHistory #CopycatDesign _____________________________________________________________ *JOIN MY EMAIL LIST* Love quick, helpful tutorials? You’ll love the emails too. 💌 https://designertofullstack.com/join-the-list/ *ABOUT ME* Hello, world. I’m *Kelly Barkhurst* —an experienced Mac-based full-stack designer, educator, and entrepreneur passionately blending artistic vision and creativity with deep technical expertise. With a BFA and MFA in Graphic Design and a certificate in Full-Stack Web Development, I’m uniquely positioned to work at this intersection of design and tech. My driving force is creating meaningful solutions and helping clients and students do the same. *What’s Kelly’s superpower?* It’s using design thinking to strategically plan the BIG picture, then diving deep into the technical “weeds” to bring that vision to life—through beautiful visual design, compelling writing, or well-crafted, functional code. *What brought you JOY today? * 👇 Share in the comments below *SOCIALS* https://twitter.com/@designer2fstack https://www.facebook.com/designertofullstack https://www.youtube.com/@UCWk0aZ-yFzCQX5bMLaISrog