The value of Graphic Design is something that I don’t think many people would dispute. It can help with many stages of a business such as designing logos, content posts, announcements, leaflets and brochures. However it can become frustrating to outsource when you are needing these services every week.
Take our company for example, Paradox House, a film production and marketing company that needs a visual pitch deck to accompany every potential project we have in development and visual marketing campaigns for external companies or films further down the line. As someone who was always interested in the art of graphic design I prided myself on being self taught. I spent hours watching YouTube tutorials on In Design & Photoshop and any success I had was largely due to trial and error. However, what was frustrating for me was that these programs were so vast and detailed that it sometimes became overwhelming when a little something looked off in my design but I wasn’t proficient enough to know how to change it… or at least how to change it quickly. The game changer for me was a little program called ‘PicMonkey.’
When I stumbled across this program I thought to myself, ‘it cannot possibly be this simple.’ But I assure you, it is! It is user friendly and intuitive and perfect to elevate any graphic or design you are working on. If I’ve managed to peak your interest I urge you to have a little play around yourself but I will also go through some of the highlights below:
Dimensions: You can begin the design by easily setting your dimensions from the outset. You can also easily change the dimensions afterwards if need be under the ‘edits’ tab.
Fonts: You have a variety of great fonts to choose from under the ‘text’ tab and helpful lines will appear when positioning your text box to ensure it is aligned or centred. If you upgrade to pro you can also upload your own font options if they are not available. Something else that we often do is use the site: https://fontmeme.com/ and you can add these options to the document by uploading the saved sentence or word to your design as an image.
Images: You can upload any image and resize, align or centre it easily with the rest of the elements in your design. You will also have the ability to ‘blend’ it creatively into your canvas using ‘blend mode.’
Blend Mode: This is one of my personal faves which really does make a difference! For text and images you can change the ‘blend mode’ to have your text or image more emphasized or subtle depending on your desired aesthetic.
Effects: There’s a plethora of effects that will elevate any design. These range from color effects/filters to texture effects. When applying these effects you will also be able to ‘fade’ them so you can have them more emphasized or more subtle depending on your desired aesthetic.
Layers: To those of you with some Photoshop experience you know how useful layers can be! But PicMonkey does it automatically with every element added to your design so you can easily click on one of your layers to alter, edit or delete any of them quickly without affecting the rest of your design.
Shadows: Extremely useful to add a 3-D effect for frames or text. Color Picking: Similar to Photoshop where you can match a specific colour from an image exactly for your text colour.
Saving & Copies: When you are finished designing you will have the option to save your design as a high res jpeg or png. You will also have the option when designing to ‘edit a copy’ in case you want to compare little tweaks and changes from your original design. I have also attached some examples of our previous brochures, posts & announcements we have made completely through PicMonkey. Happy Designing Folks!
