Course Content
1. Introduction to Visual Identity and Branding
General Overview & Theoretical Framework of Visual Identity and Branding: Branding is the marketing practice of actively shaping your brand. That’s the basic definition, but there is so much more that goes into it. Branding is what your business needs to break through the clutter and grab your ideal customer’s attention. It’s what transforms first-time buyers into lifetime customers and turns an indifferent audience into brand evangelists. It’s what you need to stand out, make an impact and take your business to the next level
2. Introduction to Graphic Design
General Overview & Theoretical Framework of Graphic Design: Graphic design plays a vital role in the modern marketing environment and creates a competitive edge for companies and organizations. You only have to think about brands that have conquered their graphic design such as Apple, Tesla, and Coca- Cola, to know the power of design. Not all of us are Apple or Tesla. So what? We can learn from them. We can learn how to join up all the elements of our brand from the best design we can afford. From branding to graphic design can be used by any business organisation to communicate concepts and ideas visually. In a changing world where business is done online, and on the street, great design can set even a small business apart from a major brand. You only have to look at Instagram to see the creativity pouring out of small artisan businesses setting out their stall of products and services to create their following. Every company today needs the services of a graphic designer not only to create impressive marketing materials like brochures, posters, websites, and social media designs but also to effectively communicate the message to the target audience. So, even if you’re not Apple (and let’s face it who is?) let’s brush up on the role graphic designing plays in digital marketing. Graphic design is more than just aesthetics — it’s a form of communication between your business and your audience. Businesses use graphics in every stage of the marketing funnel to inform, engage, and eventually persuade prospective customers to make a purchase or take the desired action. A flyer design can inform local audiences about an upcoming workshop. An attractive email series can upsell new services to current customers. A well-crafted sales page can effectively announce your new product release.
3. Introduction to e-mail Branding (Newsletter)
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4. Introduction to Video Animation
General Overview & Theoretical Framework of Video Animation: Animated video is an engaging instrument that can help you tell your story more comprehensively. Here’s some statistics that will make you want to use more video in your marketing: Including video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80%; After watching a video, 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online; 1/3 of all online activity is spent watching video; 50% of executives look for further information after seeing a product/service in a video; YouTube users watch over 3 billion hours of video per month, according to YouTube.
5. Introduction to Podcasting Online
General Overview & Theoretical Framework of Podcasting Online
6. Conclusion
There you have it! The steps to a successful content creation and management process. It requires consistency and a holistic approach. It’s easy to get lost with the myriad of steps and factors you need to consider before you can actually start creating your own content. But with this content creation guide, you can get a head start in generating valuable and engaging content that your audience will love and can help you grow your brand and business. Being authentic and relatable with your audience through honest content helps the reader to connect with your product/service, but also with your brand and its values. Content creation does not stop when you press publish. You should also set time aside to analyse the data that you have available and strive for improvements and optimisation on your work. Ultimately, the true secret to successful content creation is simply experience. The more you do it, the more benefits you’ll see, and the better you’ll become. That said, educating yourself on how to work better, smarter, and more efficiently will only help you get to expert level faster.
2.4 Design with Canva
Design with Canva
Canva is a starting point for anyone with no prior design knowledge at all, looking to create something quickly and easily. It offers a wide selection of templates, fonts and images, some of which are free to use, others need to be purchased. Choose from existing templates or create your own from scratch, then use Canva’s drag- and-drop editor. Sure, it won’t offer the customisation potential of Photoshop, but it’s a great alternative for absolute beginners. Canva uses the freemium business model, meaning you’ll need to upgrade to the pro version to get all the bells and whistles.
You’ve got the vision, and Canva is an easy-to-use tool to bring it to life. Turn imagination into a finished design in minutes with this step-by-step guide for designing from scratch in Canva.
Canva’s templates provide a shortcut to good design: they’re fully customisable, so you can change the colours, images and more to suit your taste. We’ve got tens of thousands of templates for every design need.
But sometimes you need something completely custom-made. How do you ensure what you create actually looks good?
Design tip: Sketching a rough outline of your design on paper before you begin can help you bring your vision to life. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Consider what you’d like to include in the design, and where it might look best.
Ready? Let’s get started.
1. Choose the right dimensions for your design
To begin, choose your design type from the Canva homepage. These are set to the optimal dimensions for each graphic, whether it’s a social media post, flyer or more. Or you can use custom dimensions by searching for “custom size”. You can choose from pixels, millimetres or inches.
2. Choose a background
The background for your design could be a colour, or an image. Background colours
Design tip: Different colours tell different storeys. Purple is associated with individuality, orange relates to activity, and green conjures images of nature. Think about what colours best suit your needs. Find a good colour combination with our color palette tool.
Background photos
To use a photo as a background, first add a grid. Once placed on a grid, photos can be resized, cropped, flipped and layered to create a variety of visual effects.
Next, search Images or upload your own. Then drag and drop your image onto the grid: it will snap to fit.
You can add filters to change the brightness, saturation and clarity of the photo. This can help when layering text and elements.
Design tip: You can add background images or feature images to your design.
A background image supports the message of the content. If there’s too much going on in the background, it’s hard to overlay things like text or illustrations. When you are choosing a background image for your design, consider texture over structure. You can crop images to find pockets of texture that will work better—this way you can also remove any space or features in the image that creates too much noise.
The image below uses a close up photograph of a rose to add textural interest to the design, but its main role is to act as a vehicle for the text.
A feature image becomes the focus of your design: this image sits high in the order of visual hierarchy. Use a single, or split-cell grid to apply clever feature images and help your content sing.
3. Add your elements
Your design might include text, icons, photos or illustrations. These need to be combined in a way that is visually appealing.
Canva graphic designer Lynneal Santos says it’s a matter of balance. “Consider the balance and composition of all the elements in the design. When you’re laying out your elements, ask are the elements balanced? Are they centered? And ensure they’re not too close to other elements or the edge of the page.”
Her number one tip? “Keep it simple.” Don’t overload your design with too many elements, as it can confuse the visual message of the image. This is something designers call visual heirarchy, which involves the arrangement of elements according to their importance. Try playing with size, colour, and placement in order to see what works best.
If you want to add a photo to your design, try using one of Canva’s frames. You can find these under “elements” in the side panel.
Design Tip: Harness the power of negative space. Negative space, also known as white space can be any area within a design that is free from text, images, or embellishments (it doesn’t have to actually be white). Designers love it because it can help create grouping, add emphasis and improve legibility.
4. Choose the right fonts
The look of your fonts can have a huge impact on your design. Take a look at this playful typeface: perfect for a fun beauty brand. Not ideal for a law firm.
Choosing one font is hard enough. But your design may need more than one typeface. Canva suggests never using more than two fonts in a design, as too many fonts tends to make a design look “messy”. You’ll want to choose complementary fonts, which add visual interest while working well together. You can learn more about which fonts look good together with tips on font pairing.
Canva has hundreds of pre-set font combinations to choose from. You can find these in the Text tab in the side panel.
Or you can create your own combination. Again, simple is best: if you’re choosing an elaborate font, ensure you pair it with a simpler font so your design is balanced. Canva’s Font Combination tool can help, and Traditional combinations like a sans serif font and a serif font can be very powerful.
Don’t forget about readability. If your fonts are too complicated, they can detract from your message.
Design tip: Typographic hierarchy establishes the order of importance given to different design elements. By applying different fonts, colour and scale to your text, you can dramatically change the way your message is received.