Techno Tuesday: Promotional Flyers, Canva, and Twitter, Oh My!

I am officially on Twitter.  I was avoiding Twitter like some people avoid clowns, dark basements, or lima beans (I avoid all three).  I decided to face my fears and try it out. Just kidding: I signed up because I had to as part of an assignment for school.  To my surprise and begrudging delight, Twitter is turning out to be a great networking tool that I think can use as a resource for finding new ideas in Libraryland.

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Our assignment this week was to design two different promotional flyers: one digital and one printable.  I decided to make my promotional flyer for an upcoming special program that I am co-leading in May called “Artsy Babies”.

I used Canva to make the digital version of my promotional flyer.  This was my first time using Canva, and my experience with it makes me believe I would use it again in the future.  The layout of Canva is pretty straightforward; everything that you need to create your design sits in an easily navigated tool bar on the left side of the screen.  I decided to create my flyer from scratch rather than utilize one of Canva’s pre-made layouts. I liked the variety of design elements: lines, frames, shapes, illustrations, and photos.

Two drawbacks to Canva for me are the organizational system for the illustrations and photos and the lack of a grid or ruler.  I would have liked to see all of the free illustrations and photos separate from the Canva Pro and paid art. I ultimately signed up for a free trial of Canva Pro because I really liked some of the artwork and wanted to use it.  I would also like to see Canva incorporate a grid and ruler feature so that designers can ensure that the elements of their designs are lining up. I am not gifted in the area of spatial reasoning, so I appreciate when a design program has the option of gridlines or a ruler.  

Artsy Babies Flyer by Nicole Lawton

To make the printable version of my promotional flyer, I used Adobe Spark.  This web based program is pretty sparse compared to Canva. The design elements are shape, color, and font. If a designer wants to create a design with images, they need to upload their own images.  I did not mind this because I have a ridiculous amount of previously purchased clipart, including clipart from my favorite clipart artist, Krista Wallden of Creative Clips on Teachers Pay Teachers.  One function I particularly liked on Adobe Spark is a little wheel that you can “spin” to show different layouts and colors for the text on your design. I would have liked to have seen a grid or ruler in Adobe Spark, which really help non-designers like me feel confident and ultimately give the final product a more polished look.​

I enjoyed using Adobe Spark and Canva to design my promotional flyers this week.  It was nice to try a new web based design program. My go-to program is PicMonkey, which is where I create images for my blog and website.  While it would have been a walk in the park for me to use PicMonkey to create my flyers, I think that it’s good to try some new programs every now and then.