Three Ways to Create the Photocopy Glitch Distorted Type Effect

The warped and distorted text effect is a classic technique artists would use when creating collages, posters and flyers with photocopiers in the analog days. The effect is still used today to create abstract art, but we can now also use digital creative software to reproduce the distorted appearance with text, logos and other graphics.

Artists incorporate the photocopy distortion effect into all kinds of art with an abstract style. The warped appearance can be applied to text, logos or imagery to give it a glitched look, often combined with other 'low-fi' aesthetics, such as grainy textures, harsh contrast and bright colours.

In today's guide I show three ways to create photocopy style glitch distortions. Firstly the manual way using a scanner, then techniques to mimic the effect in Photoshop and Illustrator.