Graphic Design 101 for Teacher Sellers

Kirsten 0:04

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kirsten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together. Hey there, and welcome to another episode of the creative teacher podcast, I wanted to kind of give you a little sneak peek into one of my courses graphic design for teacher sellers. This is a pretty popular course because I think a lot of people want to know and are curious about graphic design in general and how we can best use graphic design and those principles to help us design better resources, help us design better product covers, marketing materials, all that good stuff. So I am going to share with you a little part of a lesson. It's a very first lesson, or I think the second lesson, actually, from the graphic design for teacher sellers. And it's all about the seven principles of design, I'm going to share with you each of those design principles and an example just kind of to balance that out. Of course, with the actual graphic design for teacher sellers course, you're gonna see a whole videos all there for you. So you'll be able to visually see these examples that I'm describing. But of course, with podcast episodes, we can't do that. But I will say that the course is very reasonable. So if you are interested in learning more about graphic design principles and seeing an example in real time, with also information about color and typography and layout, and just helpful tips and tools to help you design better graphics that I highly recommend you check out graphic design for teacher sellers. So without further ado, I'm going to share with you those seven principles of graphic design. Welcome to lesson two principles of design. I can't wait to share with you the seven principles of design that are basically the foundation of what we need to know about designing our TPT resources and branding. Just pretty much anything in our business. Alright, so there are seven common principles and we're going to talk about them I'm going to list them out and then we'll describe them in more depth. The first one is balance, proximity, alignment, repetition, contrast, whitespace and hierarchy. Let's take a look at the first one Balance. Balance in design refers to the distribution of visual elements to create equilibrium. This can be achieved through symmetry or asymmetry that ensures that no single element overpowers the overall composition. Symmetrical balance is when the visual weight is distributed evenly between both sides of the graphic. And a symmetrical balance is when visual weight is intentionally unequal between the two sides. Usually we can use whitespace as visual weight to balance the other side of our designs. Proximity is the principle of design that will relate to the arrangement of elements in close proximity to one another. It's used to group related items and create a visual connection between them. As you can see in this example, each part of this design is in proximity, so we know they are connected. The whitespace can help group the like elements together. So we can see that at the top you've got the shape with the number inside, and you've got the heading in the middle and the body text at the bottom. Alignment involves arranging elements along a common axis or edge to create order and organization in a design. Proper alignment can help guide the viewers eye and it will improve readability especially for creating resources for students, which are a primary target as we are creating those resources as a TPT seller. left aligned text is great for longer text it adds more stability. Centered text is great for shorter words or phrases. And right aligned can be used sparingly but it really li depends on the design, you can make it look good depending on what it is. Repetition involves the consistent use of visual elements, such as shapes, colors, or patterns throughout a design. It can provide unity and it also reinforces the overall message or theme. Contrast is the juxtaposition deliberately of different elements such as colors, shapes or sizes. This can create visual interest and make certain elements stand out. It adds emphasis and it draws the viewers attention. whitespace, also known as negative space is the area around and between elements in the design, it's intentionally left empty to provide some visual breathing room, it makes it easier on the eyes, it improves readability and it creates a sense of balance. You can see the square elements are surrounded by the whitespace in it, it can give it a little bit of balance and intentional ly pleasing to the eye. The last principle of design is hierarchy. Hierarchy is the arrangement of elements in a design to indicate their importance, or the order in which they should be viewed. This can help guide the viewers eye, and it also establishes a clear structure within the composition. You can see the heading in pink is what we naturally gravitate to. And then the smaller, thinner weighted font is what we would read next. All right, well, that's the end of this episode. I hope you enjoyed the content and just kind of learning a little bit more of graphic design 101 And the seven principles of design. And if you are interested in taking a little bit of a deeper dive into graphic design, you can always go to the southern teach designs.com forward slash and roll and click on lab number two graphic design for teacher sellers. Alright, that's it for the week. I will talk to you again next week. Thanks for listening to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also follow me on Instagram at the southern teach dot designs. Have an amazing day.