“How I started designing on my own from Posters to infographics!!!”
Tags: Learning, Design, Beginner, Design Process, Design Thinking

Just a year back I was doing great in marketing and sales for some sports company. But then I realize that for every event or some new activity to be highlighted we always have to look for designers to help in communications. It’s true no one in our company at that time had a sense of designing or how to make communications look attractive.

Then I decided to learn design but at that time I had no place to start from. So I called up my friend (Vishakan) and asked him to help me to learn communication designing. As Vishakan was a Pro in designing he directly started with Photoshop and illustrator, which I tried and it all bounced above my head as it was soo technical for me to understand.

Then some of my friends suggested me to use canva.com and that changed my thinking towards designing. The very first time I was able to design a poster by myself although it wasn’t that good as you can see in the video….

Sample designs on Canva with ynotpics.com & freepngvectors.com

But in Canva to there are some restrictions like Limited FREE images and Transparent icons until you are using a Pro version of Canva which is costly.

I was looking for something cheap and reliable on the internet I came across ynotpics.com, pexels.com, unsplash.com, pixabay.com these all websites basically provides really high-quality real-life images for FREE!! and that was really amazing for me. Now I can use High-quality images in my designs without paying anything.

The same case was with Icons as well there are many icons available on Canva but again most of them are chargeable for this problem I used freepngvectors.com, pngtree.com, freepik.com these all provide more than 500 png vector icons for FREE!! which is easy to use and of good quality as well. This makes the designing part really cool and Free of cost as well

Steps for designing in Canva



1. Choose the right dimensions for your design

To begin, choose your design type from the Canva homepage. These are set in different dimensions for each kind of graphic like Social media Post, Flyer, Youtube, or more. Or you can use custom dimensions by searching “Custom size”.

2. Choose a background

The background of your design can be a color or an image. For images, you can check out different Free image platforms like Ynotpics, Pixabay, Unsplash, Pexels, etc.

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. For different Free elements like icons, vectors these are the platforms Freepngvectors, Pngtree, Freepik, Vectorstock, etc.

4. Choose the right fonts

The look of your fonts can have a huge impact on your design. Canva has hundreds of pre-set font combinations to choose from. You can find these in the Text tab in the side panel.

For mode details on how to start check out canvas tips for beginners “Here”

Tips from my end —

1. Keep the design simple and easy to understand

2. Before downloading make sure the correct format is being selected

3. Use of attractive color scheme

All in all, you can start basic designing anytime with all these great tools like canva.com, ynotpics.com, freepngvectors.com which will surprise you with the outcome. Go try out some and share the experience.