Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Infographics are Easy With Venngage

Those of you who have followed this blog know that I love infographics. As a media specialist, I used them to create visual tutorials for my students. For those of you who would like to be designers but do not have the skill, Venngage is the answer. With its easy to use interface, anyone can create beautiful posters, brochures, reports, flyers and much more. How about an infographic resume? Currently there are nine designs to choose from; two are with the free account. The one on the extreme right is a premium resume template.

   

The first thing I noticed when logging into my account was that under "templates" there were five main categories: infographics, reports, posters, promotions and social. Each of those categories has several subcategories, and the choices are many! Here's an example on the left of what's under the "infographics" category.

Depending on your level of expertise, you can choose beginner, intermediate or advanced templates. All are labeled so you can choose easily. If you have a free account, the number of infographics, charts, icons, themes, templates and uploads are limited. Venngage branding is also on your final product.

Educators will be happy to know that special pricing of $99.00/year covers premium features, 35 accounts for students and teachers and class sharing. A 14-day free trial is available. Education pricing is here.

Premium accounts have unlimited use of templates, charts, icons, themes and uploads. Pricing is here, and features of the premium account can be found here.

Recently, Venngage introduced Venngage for Business, which is perfect for small businesses which don't have their own graphic designer on staff and normally would have trouble allocating the funds for a company to do all their design work. After all, professional freelancers could charge thousands of dollars to design infographics, posters, promotions, brochures and social media related graphics. Perhaps you own restaurant and need a new menu design?

 


Business accounts also have a Manage Your Team option, where two members of your team are given access to all the features of your premium account.

Business accounts are divided into two categories: for profit and non profit. When paid yearly, the cost for non profits is only $20.00/month. Both types of business accounts have the same premium benefits and a branding kit which gives you the opportunity to save your company logo and special colors, fonts and sizes. Allow me to show you how incredibly easy it is to get started with Venngage.

Before beginning to work with a template, I decided to view the getting started video as seen here:




There is a whole page of instructional videos to help you with every aspect of the program, so you never have to feel lost or confused. I started out with a beginner template and found the drag and drop interface very easy to use. I then tackled an intermediate template and uploaded a few of my own images to the site.


 
 

As you can see from the two examples, I was able to easily substitute the template information with my own information. Between the two infographics, I changed the background color, fonts, moved text, added icons, changed the border size on the circles, and added my own photos. Not bad for the very first time using Venngage!

If you would like to see the terrific projects people are creating with Venngage, all you have to do is click on the community page, and there you will find recently published projects.

Venngage's blog has a variety of helpful articles, such as 7 Mistakes to Avoid When Creating an Infographic, How to Make a Timeline Infographic in 6 Easy Steps and 5 Strategies to Engage Students Using Education Infographics. Whether you're a small business, an educator, or someone who just wants to be creative with social media.....you should give Venngage a try. You won't be disappointed.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Simple Design Can Catch the Attention of Your Students and Teachers

I am a creative sort; I admit it. I love design. Perhaps it's the songwriter/photographer in me, but I always make an effort to make my signs and forms pop. We all know know that people do not usually read signs, but when you make an effort to use simple, eye-catching designs, you have a better chance that your audience will notice. To illustrate this, I've done a few before and after for three different signs in my media center.



This is a simple sign to show students the URL of the media center's webpage.



I added a thick red stripe, our school mascot and a few sentences.  Notice that the fonts are easy to read. No need for fancy lettering.



There is a lot wrong with the sign to the left. First of all, the font comic sans was used. (See my posting "comic sans criminal") The text is not totally centered, and clip art from Microsoft was used. (Microsoft has photo images which are not too bad)











This is the sign I made, using one black and white photo and a second color. Eye-catching, wouldn't you say?





Another simple sign with basic clip art. Ordinary, right? Let's see what adding a photo and little bold text can do to change the sign:










I took the photo and enlarged it to cover the width of the paper and added some bold text with a drop shadow.

Friday, May 31, 2013

The Kids Think Design Collaborative

The Kids Design Collaborative consists of three areas of study:  
1. DESIGN DOSSIERS®, a series of books on design for kids 9+ developed in conjunction with Paintbox Press
2. KIDSTHINKDESIGN.ORG, a website that promotes design thinking and provides a showcase for kids' original projects
3. KIDS DESIGN LAB, a school and museum initiative to connect kids with creative professionals

I had the chance to take a look at KidsThinkDesign and was impressed at how kids in grades 5-9 will enjoy navigating the site. I chose book design, and was then brought to a page where there was a biography about a book designer, with these sub tabs at the top: book arts, meet a designer, think like a designer and design a project. Students can learn about printing, design, (lots of online tools) and how designers see the world.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Time for a New Design!

Thanks to Jo from The Book Bug for introducing me to Pixelista! Jessica Barnard's designs are so "girly-perfect" that I was able to find one to use (yes, it was FREE) on "A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet!"  What do you think?



Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Web 2.0 Tools: 30 FREE Photo Editing Programs


With so many free photo editing programs on the web, why worry that you can't afford to purchase Adobe Photoshop? This listing has programs which are online as well as those you need to download on your computer.



Amazifier- online photo retouching, effects, stamps and seals; free

Animoto- upload your photos, video and music and Animoto makes it into a slick video. Free for 30 second videos; educational prices available for longer video.

Aviary- online photo editing plus much more

Cellsea- draw on images,rotate, resize, fix brightness, special effects including distorting

Citrify-edit photos online using a Flash-based program

CleVR- online photo stitching software; make panoramas

Dr. Pic- basic online photo editing

FlauntR- add effects, blend world famous painting with yours, add fancy fonts and backgrounds

Fotobabble- add your voice to photos; student projects will come to life

FotoFlexer- fonts, effects, doodling, layers, retouching, distortions and advanced effects


Hornil StylePix- download the freeware and use the many editing functions 


ImageChef- customize photos and clip art

iPiccy- edit pictures with paint, text and many tools

Lunapic- supports many image and video types; 200+ effects including reflecting animation, retro color

Pixa-social photo sharing service

Panraven- online editing for photos plus lots of cool stuff

Photoscape- download for Windows only; batch editing, clone stamp, create animated GIFs

Photoshop.com- online version of the popular graphics program

Photovisi- create photo collages

Picasa- Google's photo editing; download for Windows or Mac

Picnik- cool online editor owned by Google

Pixer.us- basic online photo editing

Pixlr- online photo editing

ResizR- easy online image resize

Shape Collage- free automatic photo collage maker

Snipshot- basic adjustments are free; pro account required for most other effects

Splashup- multiple image editing, pixel-level control, and basic Photoshop-like tools. Try Splashup Light if you are a photographer and want more control. (download necessary)

SumoPaint- online interface resembles Photoshop; filters, effects, photo editing, drawing, cloning. blurring and more

Windows Live Photo Gallery- face recognition and retouching; for Windows only

Zoner Photo Studio- view, edit, manage photos; download for Windows only

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