Canva : Graphic Design Theory Introduction

1. Welcome to Canva Course: Graphic Design Theory Introduction: Welcome to this camera course. Graphic design theory and social media introduction. This introductory course is here to teach you about graphic design theory that you can use in your business and brand when you're making social media graphics, e books, posters, presentations or anything visual. These are basic principles that I feel everyone should really understand. And it doesn't matter if you are an artist or graphic designer or if you're just an entrepreneur that is trying to draw more businesses to your company. My name's Jeremy and I've had about 10 plus years in the design field, and I know a lot about things such as color theory and composition. I've used a bunch of different mediums, including photography and three D animation. So I've had a lot of experience to try to pull these elements together, and I want to provide the best information that I can to you. I want to give these courses the greatest value. So if you ever have any questions or feedback, please contact me to start a discussion. Look me up on Facebook or Twitter. I provide that information for you and definitely reach out to me because I'm here for you . And like I said, I want to give you the best value that you're looking for. I want to show you these things so that you can use them to definitely excel your business and brand. Now, as you can see, I'm using a software called Camera, which is a free online software that you can sign up for and use immediately. You don't have to pay for it, and you don't have to download it. You just create account. And this is the main page that you were brought to. And as you can see at the top, you can make all kinds of different pre made layouts. They make it really easy to do this stuff, so definitely follow along. Now. There are certain images, layouts and graphics within camera that you do have to pay for, but they also provide some free content that you can play around with and download and share. So this is the main dashboard, and as you can see, these are some of the courses that I have down here created already. So if I just click on one of these, it will give you an idea of what these courses are going to entail, and I start out here with a basic description of the topic that we're covering, and I give you a little heads up about what it is to look out for. Then I provide some examples so that you can see how these design ideas are being used. And these air pulled straight from canvas pre made library over here on the side. So these these are things created by professional artists within camera, and I wanted to do that to show you the outside view of what they're thinking. So why is this designed the way it is, why it looks the way it does. And how is it drawing your attention to what they want you to see because a good artist is really going to move your eyes around the design and let you focus on certain elements and give you information as they want to give that to you. So and these volumes were really going to go into all these principles and theories so that you can take some away and use them in your designs and your images, and really get that attention of the audience that you're going for So I really hope you enjoy these courses. Definitely. Look in the future for the other volumes that I will be publishing. And like I said, if you ever need anything, definitely send me a message because I want to help you in any way that I can. I'm here to teach you and guide you, and I don't want anyone to feel stuck or left out. So if you have any questions, feedback comments or just want to say hi, look for me, you can find all of my contact information in my profile, so take care. And I hope you enjoy this course. 2. About Canva: So before we get started, I would like to take a moment to look at. This program, called Canvas Camera, is an online tool that you can use to make all kinds of great looking designs. Now I have another course on how to set up this program and use it from beginning to end. I suggest you take a look and find that course and check it out, but basically I'll give a quick rundown of this software. What camera is is. It's a photo and graphic editing software that has a ton of pre made layouts that they use to help you get up and running in no time. And you can choose from these pre made layouts, which makes it really simple. Now, this is the main dashboard after you have created an account, and you can see here that you can easily select one of these objects and it will make a design for you. And if you expand this, they have all kinds of different things. In here you can make events. Ah, blawg and he booked graphics, marketing graphics, um, social media type stuff, different kinds of documents, such as presentations. If you're giving a lie presentation in ads. So we'll just go ahead and pick one of these real quick for this. Sorry. Hit the wrong button there. Um, for this, I've been using the social media graphic just cause it's pretty basic size to using, like Instagram, Facebook and stuff. But you could pick any one of these. Um, you know, you could make a poster. They also just recently added infographics, which is really nice to make those. Ah, if we collect this here, it will open up a new window, and this takes you to canvass designed dashboard. And here you can choose some of these pre may layouts, which I use in examples. In the following courses and volumes. You can add texts at backgrounds. You can upload your own images, and also you can pick from a variety of shapes and illustrations. Now it's free to set up an account, and it's free to use some of their templates and graphics. Sometimes you do have to pay for some of the graphics, and they are $1 each. And so what happens is they put this watermark with a Campbell logo on here, and if you use that element or that template or whatever, When you go to download this or um, yeah, when you go to download this as an image or a Pdf, you're going to have to pay for it, and it'll pop up, Ah, screen there for you to put in your credit card information. You can buy credits to make it a little bit cheaper and everything, but basically some of the stuff is paid for. But there is a lot of free stuff in here. So I wanted to use this software to show you that you don't have to be an experience or professional graphic designer to come up with awesome images and logos and things of that nature. So basically, what I've done is I've pulled information from canvas, such as their shapes and icons and text and pre may layouts to describe the fundamentals that I'm teaching in this course now. Like I said, if you want to go further deeper into how to actually use the software, I have a separate course on that, and I would advise you go look that up and and take a look at it. Um, it's it's definitely really helpful, and it covers everything about camera from beginning to end, and it shows some short cuts. So these courses all kind of go together. You have the course shown you how to set it up, and then this course here will teach you how to, um, use design principles to make those graphics awesome. And I really hope that, um, this helps you out. Check out this software. I love it. It's really great to use. It just integrates so well into social media. When you create one of these pre may layouts, if it says Facebook or Twitter, they're actually using the dimensions from those social media platforms. So you know that the dimensions are going to be correct, and that is just awesome in itself. Just toe have that at your fingertips, and they're constantly updating stuff, adding new stuff, So check him out and let's continue with the course 3. Elements of Design: elements are the basic building blocks, including everything in the positive and negative space. So in design, this will be everything that you see objects, typography, color things of that nature. And it's also going to be everything. Contrast ing to the positive objects in the scene, which we call negative space or white space. So in design, this could be lines which is basically two points making a stroke. It could be shape, such as a cube or circle or a human form. It could be direction which is pointing away towards something or leading your eyes in a certain direction. It could be size, which is how big or small an object in your scene is. It can be scale which is basically the distances of objects compared to each other, so some things can be large scale. Some things can be small scale. Some things can be in small scale to other objects and the scene, and you can use scale to create different kinds of feelings and moods. You also have texture and texture is when you have different values and colors, making up patterns for use in your designs, and when we think of texture we things such as rock textures or skin textures. You we have color, and these are the basic principles of color, fearing, including its hue, saturation and value. We have typography and text, and it's not just the words that are being shown on the screen. But typography also has to do with how they're being presented their visual aspects. We have value, which is opposite ends of any type of element value, um, property. So, for instance, you can have high and low contrast ing values of brightness and darkness, and this helps create focal points. There can also be opposing values and sizes or opposing values in textures. And then we have space, which we talked a little bit before, and space refers to the positive and negative areas of your design. The positive areas air usually your focal points, such as the cubes in this first slide here and then the negative space would be everything that is surrounding those cubes. So let's take a look at a couple examples and see what some of these things look like. So in this first example, we have things such as lines at the top that create a nice border. We have typography in the middle, and we have some movement going on with the line in the middle. We also have some color in space, so all of these elements create the design and the feeling that you're going for. Same thing. With this design, we have contrast ing values of lightness and darkness. In contrast, in colors, we have the negative space around the text, and we have shapes such as the rectangle to block off the typography and ah shape in the middle to be used as a logo. This also provides some texture because of the background that it's being used gives a certain kind of feel like it's painted like a painted type texture. And in this last image you can see shapes being used. And also there's some direction with the, um, little line appear at the top, there is typography and color, space and value. There's also a little bit of what could be considered texture right here on these top symbols, and there's ah feeling of scale in this image. We know that discount tags like these are usually a small scale item compared to when other objects in the real world, so you might see this tag on an article of clothing and it might be a small scale tag. But in this particular instance, we don't have any other objects to compare it to. So it's scale could really be anything. This could be a 10 foot large billboard showing this kind of graphic. So those are some of the elements of design. And like I said, it's going to be everything that you see in your design. It's going to be the symbols of the space, the colors, the texture that is going on, and this creates the image that you're going for. And once you understand the basic elements and what they're used for, you can use them to your advantage because different elements are going to give you different feelings and moods in directions for the eye to look at when you're trying to present your idea in your design. So definitely learned the elements. Take a look at him and I go into these elements and greater detail and the following volumes of this course, so I hope you check that out 4. Principles of Design: principles. Take the elements of design and combine them cohesively to relay a certain message. So principles of design are taking the basic building blocks, which is your lines, colors, shapes and adding these properties to them to create a visually appealing design and image . So some of the examples of principles our proximity and this is when you have distance of elements in relationship to one another contrast. And this is when you have opposing values, so you can have contrast with dark and light values or contrast of something being in focus and out of focus. There's emphasis, which is when you're really drawing the viewer's attention to something certain in your scene. There's proportion, and this is, ah, size of an object relative to other objects around it. So when we talk about size, it's you know how big something is. Scale has to do with its relative size to other objects, but proportion has to do with how those objects are relative to each other, so something might be of small scale, such as a toy or an action figure. But it can have disproportion. If that toys head was really large, there could be harmony which is achieved when all elements and principles of the design are working together and just creating a visually pleasing design. There is rhythm in shapes and lines and patterns, and this helps create movement around the design. And then there was also movement, which is used to show the viewer where to look in the design, and this could be done a number of different ways. We have the principle of balance, and this is when something can be balanced, as if on a scale were fulcrum and it can be balanced vertically or horizontally, and it can give you visual weight of importance in a scene. If something is unbalanced, there's also unity, and this creates a feeling of wholeness in the scene when you have the same kind of colors or the same kind of graphics and then finally, repetitions or patterns. And these air usedto also help guide the viewer through the image by placing continuity between objects in the scene. So let's take a look at some of these principles in action, and I have a couple examples here and here. You can see that there are things such as contrast and unity and balance within the scene. It's It's creating a certain look that the artists want you to focus on and draws your attention to key elements in the scene, such as the word aesthetics. This is done with contrast and emphasis and proportion. Let's take a look at another example, and in this example, you can see things such as rhythm and proximity going on because of the cookies in the background. There's also high contrast between the text and the white rectangle. There is definitely some balance also going on horizontally and vertically with those cookies and makes a nice, pleasing image to check out. And then finally, if we look at the last image here, you can see these same kind of ideas. Some things are in focus. Some things are out of focus, so that's creating contrast. There's a little bit of movement with the way that the flowers pointing down to the text, and there is high contrast within the text, and there is a little bit of balance going on here to, with the way that the objects in the elements in the scene our line, so where you have your elements is being the basic building blocks. The principles of design is what's telling those building blocks how to line up and react and give that feeling or mood or message that you're going for. You can have things that are say in balance and create a nice, pleasing effect to the viewer. Or you can have things that are out of balance and create a discomfort for the viewer. And it depends on what you're really going for. Most of the times, maybe you want everything to be in balance. But then maybe you might have an image where you want to actually kind of make the viewer feel uncomfortable, and you could put things out of balance to achieve this. 5. Color Theory: color helps add feeling, emotion and mood to design element or image. Color can play a very crucial role and how your design is portrayed. And the reason for this is because colors give different meanings to different things. In colors can have different meanings through different parts of the world, based on culture or religion or political views. So when we have color in our design is very important to keep in mind who your audience is , so that you are providing the right kinds of colors to portray the right kind of message that you want to get across to the audience. You don't want to use something with a negative connotation in an image that is going to go out to someone where that might color might actually mean something positive. It will send mixed messages so some of the properties of color is Hugh, and that is the actual name of the color that we use. So something is blue, green, red, orange. Then you have value, which is the brightness and darkness of a color, and you have saturation, which is the intensity of a color. Something that is de saturated doesn't have a whole lot of intensity or high contrast ing values going on. We talk about warm and cool colors and those air color temperatures giving two different types of color to describe them. So, for instance, warm colors are your reds, oranges and yellows, and you're cool colors. Air your greens, your blues and your lavenders, and that just helps to describe the temperature of a color. And you can use these two together warm and cool colors to portray different meanings. And also it's important to note to not send a mixed message when you are trying to portray something cool by using a lot of warm colors and vice versa, Colors have meanings. And like I said before, different colors can mean different things to different people. And knowing the different color meanings can really help get your image across. So when you see something read, what kind of feeling does that make you feel when you see something green? What do you take that as an A brand or logo where identity and finally we have color schemes and these are patterns of colors that are put together to basically give some continuity or balance to the image things that make it easy for you to pick when you're trying to go for a certain feel and the color scheme. Examples there is monochromatic, and this is when you're using the same color but varying values and saturation. But it's all the same color. Then you have something that is called analogous, and this is when you have adjacent colors on the color wheel, so your your reds and your oranges and your yellows might actually make up your color scheme. You have complementary colors and these air when colors are opposite one another on the color wheel, then you have split complementary. And this is when you have one color on one side of the wheel and then on the other opposite side, just like a complimentary. You split the two and it creates a three colors, and then finally you have a triad, and this is when you have three ah equivalent colors on the color wheel. So let's take a look at just a couple of designs here, and you can see that color is used everywhere. Um, in this image, color is used in the background to really make it lively, and you could see there, using warm and cool colors. They got some greens in there and maybe even some blues and lavenders in the shadows. And then, ah, lot of warm colors, probably more warm colors and cool colors. So you get the sense it It's more of a warm or spring kind of day. In this image, you can see that the background has been de saturated, the color has been taken out, and you have some strong values of darkness and lightness within that background, which kind of looks like a microchip or something of that nature. But then there's color in the foreground, and that's providing contrast. So you have the purples on the top and bottom and the kind of bluish screens in the middle . And then here is another example of warm and cool colors being used. You can see in the sky that you've got these nice, warm colors at the bottom, and they gradually go into cooler colors at the top, and that also gives you a certain kind of field. Even if the words weren't there, you're going to get that feeling of a sunset or maybe even the sunrise. But with the stars, there probably going to be a sunset, and that provides a certain kind of feeling for you. So make sure that you definitely take a look at the different properties of color and understand them, especially their meanings and what different colors mean to different types of people. And then, and future volumes of this course we're going to talk about in depth the different types of color schemes and how they're used in design and an artwork, so be sure to check that out when those courses come out. 6. Typography: typography is away. Texas, shown in a visual medium by using style, spacing, mood and wait typography has a whole lot of properties associated with it and could really be a masterclass all on its own. Typography is very important in graphic design in visual mediums and art forms. It really helps portray your message not just by what's being red, but the way that is presented to you. So some of the properties of typography are. It's fun type. And this is things such as the fonts that are used in graphic design based on its classification, spacing, mood and wait. So you have different types of fonts, including things like Helvetica and Ariel, and you have the font size and this is measured in points and basically tells you how big that font is. Then you have the classification, these air things such as being it script or serif, and this is a class of how the typography looks, and there were five classes that are shown there, and based on those five classes, you can categorize the type of fonts that are being used. Then you have things such as the letter spacing online, haIf and this is how much space and negative space is created within the actual block of text. There's mood, and this describes the typography or fonts being used. Things can be classical or they could be serious, or they could be, you know, rigid or elegant. After that, we have weight. And this is when the typography or text has thickness or its thin, medium or bold. It tells you how much emphasis that typography has by its thickness. Typography can be italicize, and this is when it is put at a slant, and this can also give emphasis. There's justification, and this is if the typography is centered or it's justified on this left and right hand sides. And then, finally, it's case, whether it's upper case or lower case or all uppercase or all lower case. So let's take a look at some examples, and in this first design, you can see there's a couple different types of typography being used. There's this kind of font here, and then there is a different kind of font down here, and the third kind of fun and their sizes, you know, big fonts, medium fonts and little fonts. There's emphasis based on the thickness that is being used in the weight of the fonts. So this has a very thick weight, and this is kind of a thinner. Wait here, and you can see that by using different types of typography within your designs, you're going to get some different feelings expressed. And by using sizes, you can generates, um, different scales and direct the viewer with what you want to see in order using a hierarchy . Let's take a look at another example here and here we can see that we have some italicized typography. This is put as slant to try to give a little emphasis to it, but there's high emphasis on the clothes because it's using a different color, but it's also thicker. It's boulder. It's using a sans serif, which is very easy to read from the distance where the script this kind of fun might be a little harder to read. If everything was this, you might not be able to read the sign when driving by in your car. And then in this image, you can see that the typography presents a kind of mood. Also, Mother's Day and you know, the loving of a mother with the flowers. So you have this nice script font that goes along with mothers and things that you would think of that nature. But then there is some basic science, their fonts down here, a little smaller that are easy to read. So you get the beautiful graphic design in the Mother's Day sale. But then the things that you really need to know, such as the code to use is done in a very easy toe. Understand font tight. So those are the different properties of typography. And like I said, it can really make or break your design. Sometimes it's good to try to use maybe some different fonts within a graphic design such as they have done here. It helps break it up a little better and makes it a little easier to read and categorize how your graphic design is going to look so in the other courses. Within the volume of this graphic design and social media course, we go deep into typography and talk about how it's really used 7. Composition: composition is the layout of elements in the scene to provide the look or feel you're trying to portray. So as we know, elements are your basic building blocks, such as lines and shapes and principles, or how those building blocks and elements react to one another within the scene. Composition, on the other hand, is the actual layout that you used to guide the viewers attention around the scene. So some examples of composition is hierarchy, and this is putting elements in a certain order that you want the viewer to see. So it might be typography where text is larger in the center and smaller at the bottom and tops. So you draw the focus to the center first, for the most important part, the text. Then we have guiding lines, which are lines within an image that can help point the viewers attention and a certain direction. You have the focal point, and this is the main thing that you want the viewer to see, and you can use things such as movement and contrast to to draw attention to the focal point. They're framing elements which are things like borders and vignettes around an image to kind of keep the viewers attention within the center of that design. Alignment helps put things in a nice, neat and organized manner, and you can also have dis alignment to create chaos or to make the user feel uncomfortable . Their similarity when you're using the same types of shapes or colors or values within an image to create cohesiveness and clarification, there is closure. And this is when you leave the design kind of up to the viewer's imagination by not completely enclosing the design or having closure, which helps fill in the information that you want the viewer to see. There are designed types such as single visual designs, which is just one element or one image within. You're seeing to convey the emotion without giving a bunch of information. There's the divine proportion, and this is when we talk about things like the golden ratio and mathematics and things that are a number that is visually pleasing in nature that we see and have used in designs. And this is used a lot and and brands more than you would know. And finally we have the rule of thirds, and this is splitting the design into thirds both horizontally and visually and placing visual interests where these intersections happen. This has done a lot in advertisements and movies and film to definitely give this nice ah, balance within the design. So let's take a look. It's amendment some design images and examples here. So here you can see we have things such as alignment and we have hierarchy. You can see that based on the hierarchy, we seem midyear sale first, even though naturally we would read top from bottom in time for a would be first. You can also see here that they have the focal point for that's being in the centre based on the contrast being used within the typography. Let's take a look at another example. Here we can see guiding lines that are things such as these mountain ridges pointing down toward the typography or this river or lake shadows, which are kind to help point toward inward of the design. And you have framing elements such as the rocks and the lease in the tree to help keep your focus in the center here. There's also nice alignment on the left and right hand sides of this textbook, based on the big text and thought that they used here and then the multiple words down here . They've aligned this very nicely and helps create a nice, pleasing look. And then finally, we have an example of alignment where things are center aligned, such as the texts and this star. But then, on the outside we see things that are misaligned, and this gives a certain kind of feel to this image. If these doughnuts were equally spaced in a line top to bottom and to each other, it would give you a different kind of feel than what you're seeing here. So composition is the way that we arranged the elements in a layout of the scene to pull the viewers eyes around that we want them to see. It helps create the emphasis and provide the movement and use those principles so that you're drawing attention to the most important things in your document, or what you want the viewer to feel. So definitely learn these composition tips and tricks because they will really help. Just excel your graphics and images to a new level that a lot of other people aren't using right now, and future volumes of this course we go deep into this stuff, especially things like the golden ratio and the rule of thirds and those tricks that you really need to learn. So I hope that you will check it out, and I look forward to seeing you in the future. 8. Thank You for Watching!: so I hope you enjoy this camera course. Graphic design theory in social Media introduction I've tried to give you just a basic grounding of the principles and ideas that we're going to talk about and future volumes, and we're going to get deep into each one of the principles that I explain within each of these sections. I've started creating some of the other courses, as you can see, and I'm just going to try to provide as much content and value to you that I can. So I hope that you find these courses useful. And I hope that if you have any questions, comments or feedback that you definitely send me a message. Hit me up on Twitter, Facebook or what have you and tell me how it's going. If you're stuck or you don't understand anything, reach out to me because I want you to walk away with a better understanding of how all of these principles can be used in your designs. They're going to help promote your business or brand by engaging with the audience visually . And if you just take away a couple of these ideas and use them in your graphics, you're gonna be well ahead of the curve versus ah, lot of people out there who have no idea about this stuff. I know you've seen images and graphics before. That just looked terrible, and you immediately turn them off for you. Don't even look at him. You just keep passing them on the page. And on the other hand, I know that there is something unrelated to what you care about. But you have to stop and look at it because it's so visually pleasing. Ah, lot of big businesses in this world. Companies like Apple and McDonalds definitely use these fundamental principles when they're trying to promote their brand. That is why they're so successful, because they have a deep understanding of these elements and principles. So I hope that you can also start off here as your basic foundation and building block and learning so that you can start making your brand more powerful in reaching more people, because that's what this is all about Now, Like I said, if you have any comments or feedback or questions, definitely send me a message and I will get back with you as soon as possible because I want to be here for you. I hope you enjoy this course and look forward to seeing you in the future volumes.