Canva is a very well-known design app that made it possible for hundreds of thousands of users to create nice looking graphic content without hiring a designer. As much as it’s a very intuitive and easy app to use, there’s always some learning curve for newbies. This is why I’m launching my Canva…
I’ve always been an Adobe girl ever since I had my internship at Walt Disney. I put many hours into mastering all their design apps and never regretted this investment. Adobe is one of the leading providers of industry standard design software. In fact, if you check any graphic designer job postings,…
I know, I know. You read the title and thought “hey, it’s not even Halloween yet, why should I care about Christmas and Holiday graphics?” I agree, that seeing the Christmas décor appear in stores right on November 1 is a bit overwhelming. But on the other hand, you can never get ready enough…
Here comes the 3rd and final episode of my Getting Started with Pinterest Series in which I showed you fundamental techniques on how to gain more traffic on Pinterest. In the previous episodes you’ve learned: How to create more Pinterest content with one simple design trick How to do Pinterest SEO effectively to gain more visibility Today, I’m going to show you how I schedule my…
Let’s talk about Pinterest SEO as the next step in the Pinterest Tips Series (see the first post here). I know, I know. You got all nervous and uncomfortable as soon as you heard the word “SEO”. As a creative entrepreneur, I can tell you that I also can’t feel much passion for analytical things…
You’ve just created an awesome blog post. It has everything: helpful content for your ideal customer, reference to your services, a more than inviting call to action to subscribe and a stellar cover image. You’re ready to shout “hey, come and read this, you’ll love it!” So you log in to your social media profiles in a hurry. You post about your…
Have you ever wanted to learn design? Maybe become better in branding or marketing? Nowadays, you don’t need the traditional school setting to achieve this. In our digital age, anyone can acquire new skills and learn to use new tools without attending a costly university. I know this from experience, because I’m a self-taught…
It’s always fascinating to see how a product comes together. Let it be a physical or digital product, the way it slowly manifests from a bare idea to a real-life thing that people can buy and use always mesmerized me. But I hardly thought that one day I’m going to…
In this post, I’m going to teach you how to create mockups in Photoshop and use them to present your products, brand or artwork. If you already heard about mockups, you can scroll down to watch the video tutorial and grab the 3 free mockups that come with this post. But if you say “mock whaaat?!” then the next few paragraphs…
Last week I showed you the 3 key rules of choosing the right fonts for your brand. This week, I’m still talking about typography, but we go one step further. We’ll talk about an important and often ignored step in brand identity design: defining your brand typography system. But what is a brand typography system? –…
I’m bit of a font hoarder. I think I mentioned this before, but currently I have more than 500 font families on my iMac and even more that I purchased and not yet installed. As a logo and brand designer, I know that my work depends on high-quality fonts. Why? Because the right font can easily…
When we think about philanthropy and giving back to society, we often associate it with giving or raising money to solve an issue. But building a socially responsible brand can be achieved in many more ways than just filling empty pockets. In this post, I’m going to talk about a topic that’s very close to my…
We got to the final part of the Brand Colors blog post series. You’ve already learned about the emotions that colors can trigger and the 4 easy steps to build your unique brand color palette. In this last blog post you’ll learn about color codes and how they can help you get the best result when using your brand…
Last week I showed you the effects and psychology of each main color group. If you haven’t read that article, you can find it here. Today, I go a step further: in this article, you’ll learn how to create your brand color palette. This post comes with an inspiring freebie: 50 beautiful color palettes for feminine brands. These color…
Colors have an important role in brand identity. Depending on what brand colors you choose you can affect your audience and customers in different ways: you can cheer them up, calm them down or stir up feelings of nostalgia in them. Your brand colors also build brand recognition. Just think about the red and yellow…
In my previous post, I taught you how to create your own animated GIFs from illustration elements in Photoshop. Now it’s time to put them in use. In this post, I’m going to show you how to add your own GIF stickers to Instagram Stories – which is one of the coolest ways to use animated GIFs. This…
Back in the early years of the internet when we had to type in html codes to design our websites (= horrible IT class memories), there was something that everyone went obsessed with. Animated GIFs. Soon, every page had 100 hundred different animated gizmos jumping and looping around, fighting for attention and aiming to meticulously kill our eyeballs….
You went to watch a movie with your spouse. The theatre is filled with the rich scent of popcorn and the noise of chatting people and arcade games. You find your room and seats, watch all the trailers – and some annoyingly dumb ads – and then it comes. The logo of the movie studio glides into the center of the screen with heroic music…
As a designer, I don’t have a problem when I have to open a new type of design app. After a while they all seem similar and I can easily find the features and tools I’m looking for. But when it comes to newbies, or business owners who want to buy only…
In my previous blog post, I shared 5 money-saving options for obtaining a logo for your new business. It was a good start to show you, that no matter where you are in your entrepreneurial journey, you can have a nice logo and visual identity. However, cheap pre-made logos and logo templates can come with limitations if you don’t purchase them from a trusted…
Almost every time I attend to a networking event and tell others that I’m a graphic designer specialized in branding, I get the same question: “Can you make me a logo for $100?” Of course, sometimes the other person says a different amount, anywhere between $0 to $200 or even asks if we could “barter…
In today’s post, I’m going to share with you my mood board creation process. First, you’re going to learn about the steps I do to choose the right images for my mood boards. Next come 2 videos, where I’m going to show you how to build your brand mood board in Photoshop or…
I wrote about the importance of mood boards in a previous post, but I thought it’s time to revisit this topic. In that post, I quickly listed what I usually include on my mood boards. Since then, my process evolved a bit and I’m ready to share the improved version. I…
Every industry has its fancy terms, and this is true for branding too. Experts like to throw words like “positioning” or “brand personality” at us but this doesn’t mean we have to feel intimidated. Actually, these branding terms can be explained in everyday language and this is what I attempt to do in this post. Not fun enough?…
If you’ve ever worked with a designer or design agency, you might have heard about the “creative brief” document. Now tell me honestly: did you think that you definitely need that document, or you started questioning your designer. “Is she just trying to overcharge me for something I don’t need?” No worries, a creative brief is a legit and important document that you need before every…
Is it possible to learn from your competitors without feeling envy or the urge to copy them? I’m sure you faced this situation before. We all do. We see someone successful on the same market that we try to cater to. Her business looks like the perfect example of where we would like to see ourselves in the very…
In my previous post, I showed you how to define your Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA) when you’ve just started your business and you haven’t had any clients yet. But after a while, you’ll start working with customers and gain real-life insight onto their life, their struggles and dreams. These are invaluable information that you can benefit…
In my previous post, I wrote about the meaning and the importance of an Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA). Today, we go one step further and I show you how to define yours when you are just starting out. When you are new to business, and haven’t had any clients yet, or only had bad clients…
Who is your Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA)? If you haven’t answered this question yet, or if you wonder “what the heck is an Ideal Customer Avatar?”, my next few posts are for you.WHO IS THE CUSTOMER?I was on a meeting with my boss, the product developers, the marketing director and category manager back in my package design job. We had…
“Niche Down!” – I heard from one of my favorite business role models plenty of times and nodded in agreement. Serving a smaller market was something I could easily accept… well, up until I started building a strategy and not just doing things as they randomly appeared in my mind. That was when I realized, that I liked…
