Tutorial 4 - Learn Amazing Canva features through Funky Dance poster

Practise can make you perfect in any field but if you start exploring different things related to your field, You will become a master in it.

I have been using canva from the last couple of months with my heart. I always try to share my knowledge with those who are interested to learn the same skills.

Recently I have made a FUNKY DANCE POSTER on Canva and learned a few amazing features.

Below are the videos for each feature for your learning.

I have also mentioned some important tips and tricks which can help you while working on various type of designs.

• How to merge two Photos with one look in Canva?
• How to give a 3D look to your text in Canva?
• How to write curve text in Canva?
• How to create a glow around your image in Canva?
• How to create a see-through effect in Canva?

Let's start one by one for each.

How to merge two Photos with one look in Canva?

Step -1- Select any two photos of your choice

Step -2 - Place one picture on the whole canvas and then adjust second on top of it as per your requirement.

Step -3- Adjust the transparency of the second photo till you get the desire results.

Important Tip - Once you will be done with the above steps, Use the lock button to lock both the images. This will help you to work on these photos further without any issue.

 

 How to give a 3D look to your text in Canva?

Step -1- Select Text of your own choice, In my case, I have used the premium text but if you are using the free version, You can still find a lot of options in canva under the free category.

Step -2- Adjust the size of your text as per your requirement, apply any effect, In my case, I applied the neon effect to get the shiny look.

Step -3- Make a copy of your text, change its color, and then adjust it below the first written text as shown in the video below.

Important Tip - Selection of bottom color is very important, try different color options until you see the best results.

How to write curve text in Canva?

You can see the curve text at the right upper corner. For this technique, I will suggest you please watch the Ronny Harmosa tutorial here. I have used the same technique to write this text.

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How to create a glow around your image in Canva?

Step -1- Select any image of your choice, remove the background.

Step -2- Make a copy of your image and then apply a suitable DUOTONE effect.

Step-3- Adjust the Blurr on the image copy as shown in the video or as per your requirement.

Step -4- Place the first copy on top and with the desired adjustment.

Important Tip - Once you will be done with this exercise, lock the image so that you can work on it further without any issue.

 

 How to create a see-through effect in Canva?

This is an amazing feature I discovered while working on Canva. You can create this effect with the help of any kind of frame.

See the below video for your learning. 

Step -1- First save your original canva design and upload it again. 

Step -2- Apply any frame on your design.

Step -3- Place the uploaded version of your design inside the frame.

Step -4- Now double click on the image inside the frame, increase its size, and adjust it with the background design as shown in the video. This is a quite lengthy process but once you adjust it perfectly, apply brightness and blur as shown in the video. 

Tutorial 3 - Design Milk brand Instagram post in Canva

Whenever I design anything in canva, I share it on the Facebook group "Canva design circle". My main purpose is to share my ideas regarding designing in canva as well as get the productive feedback from the canva community. Some of my colleagues usually ask me for tutorials so for all of them I try to gather all important points in one place so that they can learn the same techniques to make similar designs.

Let's start with the steps for the above-mentioned design.

Step 1 - To make this design, first, you need the blue color gradient. See the below screenshot for your quick reference to know How to get this gradient through the search bar. 

Step 2 - For the Blue gradient, Basket, Jasmine flower, and Milk bottle, I used the photos. For the milk bottle, I removed the background and cropped it to place it inside the basket. See the below screenshots for your reference.

Step 3 - Now search for the rest of the elements. See the keywords in the search bar of each below-shared screenshot.

I have changed the color of this gradient with one color.

Step 4 - Fonts, I have used in this design is "Intro Rust" for the BRAND and "Horizon" for the rest of the text, also used line spacing effect for texts.

Step 5 - I have used the shadow effect under the basket, I have shared the links to download all kind of shadow effects in this tutorial already. 

Step 6 - Place all the elements on the canvas as per the adjustments/alignments you see in the final design. 

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Now it's time to show me your creativity :)

Tutorial 2 - Design Travel Company Template Design in Canva

The world is almost recovered from Corona so it’s time to start traveling so that the tourism and hospitality industry can flourish again.

I thought to add my part in this campaign so I designed this template for travel companies for their online promotions.

This can be easily designed in Canva.

See the below video for your quick reference that how to make an amazing travel template design in Canva.

Tutorial 2 - Design Travel Company Template Design in Canva by HMS KHALID

Below are some important tips and tricks to follow while making this design.

• The frame I used to add images is stretched and revolved to make the exact required position. To insert your relevant image, you first need to rotate it slightly and then add it inside the frame. You may have to move it right/left or up/down as the whole image may not be fit inside the frame. This is up to you how you want your image to be shown in the frame.

• All the shadow effects used in this design have been taken from Google, for your ease, I have added these in my google drive, you can download these from these links.

• shadow circle
• Line 1 shadow
• Line 2 shadow
• Line 3 shadow

• All the used shapes are available in the elements section. You just need to increase/decrease the size as per the template requirement.

• See the top bar while watching the video for Text effects, sizes, and fonts, etc.

See below same design with just the change of images.

                   

I will be waiting for your feedback in the comments section. In case of any questions, you can write below. I will get back to you asap.

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Tutorial 1- Design Flyer in Canva for Event Announcement

Welcome to the world of Canva Designs!

Made in Canva by HMS

You are here because you saw one of my designs on the Facebook group “Canva design circle “or probably reached here through search engines while looking for tutorials.

Your efforts in this search are admirable. It proves that you have a creative mind that always looks for an amazing platform to portray your imagination.

Canva is one of the best platforms I have ever witnessed for designing anything online. If you are new to Canva then I would suggest you get enrolled yourself immediately in the Ronny Hermosa course at Udemy.

He is the master of Canva and let me assure you that after completion of this course, You will feel the same for yourself.

Avail Limited Discount Offer with this Link

I have been designing in Canva from the last couple of years but couldn’t have any idea about amazing Facebook groups where people share their creative designs made in Canva.

So I decided to share mine as well. I was amazed to see the kind of contributions there from creative Canva designers as well as the appreciation which they share wholeheartedly for each other.

The below design is the reflection of motivation which I gathered through these groups. I finally decided to share my knowledge with my community in return for this appreciation so that many people can become a part of this creative world.

I have split my design into seventeen different slide/steps. Below is the description of each step for your better understanding. I have added the screenshots as well wherever I feel necessary.

I hope that you will be able to create something similar to this if you would follow the same sequence of steps.

My main purpose here is to share those tricks and techniques which I used while making this design so that you can implement the same into your designs.

I would be really happy to see your creativity and if you learn anything out of this tutorial, please do mention your comments below. It will keep me motivated to share such tutorials in the future as well for my various designs. You can also leave your email address in my feed section to receive future tutorials in your mailboxes.

Tutorial 1 - Design Flyer in Canva for Event Announcement by HMS KHALID

Step 1- Go into the photo section and search for the background with the “Purple gradient”. You can search the gradient for your required color as well. Place it on your canvas. In my case, I had selected the flyer but again it depends on your choice.

Step 2- Go into the section of Elements and search for the frame with sharp edges on the upper side like I have shown in the image above. Search the photo with a grey background and add it to this element.

Important Trick here: Do not overstretch the element, duplicate it, and place both parallel to each other. Add grey background photos in both. Once you would have done it, then lock both the frame with the below-mentioned sign. This lock will help you to apply anything on these frames later on.

Step 3,4,5 – Go into the section of Elements, Search the frames of your required letters as I searched for RONALDO name. Add a purple gradient into each frame, adjust it inside the frame by increasing the size or right/left movement. It will help you to get a different appearances in each letter for the same gradient image. Change/adjust the position of letters as per your choice.

Group all the letters so that you can move them all at once. Make a copy of them and add white/grey color inside each letter frame as shown in the slide.

Place the colored frames on the front and move the white/grey ones on the back and increase the size of it slightly to get the background look of letters as shown in the slide.

Step 6,7,8 – Remove the background of your image like in my case, I selected the photo of Ronaldo and removed the background. Create a copy of it.

Important Trick Here: To make a shadow on the background, apply the below adjustment on your image copy, increase its size, and then place the original image on top of it. You can adjust it a bit to get the perfect result.

Make a third copy of the image, crop the hand, and place it at its location to get the look as shown in the slide.

Step 9 – Just search the “Football” in the element section, You will see the image I placed at the right upper corner. Just increase the size of it so that you can place the text in the middle of football easily.

Important Trick Here: Reduce the transparency of this football, I brought it till 27 but again it's up to your choice. 

Step 10,11 – Write your Text in white color, I used Font “Benedict” with size 140 for Cristiano. Scroll it and place it at an appropriate location. I placed it in the right upper corner. Make a copy of Cristiano in black color and place it on white to get the look as shown in the slide.

Step 12,13,14,15 – For all other text, I used the font “Open Sans”. For Date, time, and CANVA CLUB, I applied the Neon effect from the text bar with intensity 38. See the below screenshots for your quick understanding.

To create extra space between the website address, Use the below option as shown in the screenshot.

Important Trick Here: Add the shadow effect at the bottom of the image, You may not find it in Canva as you need to download it through Google. I am sharing my google drive link, You can download it through this link.

Step 16,17 – Remove the background of your second image, Like I did for the second image of Ronaldo, and placed it at the right bottom. Make a copy of it and flip it vertically. Reduce the transparency and bring it up to 17 to see the look as shown in the slide.

I hope I have explained the design techniques in detail but still if you need to know anything else, write in the comments, I will get back to you with the answer as quickly as possible.

Thanks for your time here.

How to become an effective contributor for Freepik and Shutterstock ?

Are you a passionate photographer or a graphic designer? If yes then have you ever thought to make money online with your passion?

If not, then you are missing a big opportunity despite having a lot of online platforms to earn money with such skills.

If you are thinking about freelancing then yes, this is one of the ways to explore online earning opportunities for your relevant skills. But in this case, you are bound to work for others, need to restrict your creativity up to their requirements or demands. You may not feel satisfied with this kind of working online and probably you will quit it very soon. I am talking about online freelancing platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, Peopleperhour or freelancer.com, etc.

But there are some websites where you can become a contributor and submit your creative work. You can earn money on each download. Some of the websites have very tough criteria to accept you as a contributor but once you will be accepted. There would be a lot of opportunities for you to show your talent to the millions of users online who visit those websites daily for their relevant items.

• How Smaha Jahangir has become a proud lady for Pakistan with one Photo !

Below is the list of some websites but in today’s article, I will be discussing Shutterstock and freepik only. I will infact share my recent personal experience which will be very helpful for you in case you want to become a contributor for any of these websites.

• Shutterstock.com
• Freepik.com
• Canva.com
• Istock.com
• Adobestock.com and many more……

Both Shutterstock and freepik have different criteria’s for contributors. I have been uploading my work on Shutterstock from the last two to three years but occasionally. Whenever I upload anything, I always learn a lot of new things that help me to correct my mistakes, especially in photography. Their AI-based system is quick and authentic, it always accepts the best quality work from the contributors.

In the case of freepik, They have strict criteria for contributors in which you will be given only two chances, and for each time, You must submit twenty of your best photos or illustrations at once. They have a manual process to check every photo as they claim. That's why they take almost a week in the review process. I have tried my first attempt but couldn’t get any success. For my next turn, I have been working on different projects and will do best to be accepted this time. You can visit the freepik website and witness the quality of work there.

Both freepik and Shutterstock have a membership program for users which has a nominal fee but in return, members can get the best quality photos with proper license or source files.

Every download does not only incur money for contributors but also becomes a source of motivation for them. In my case, I have earned $4.38 so far but all my eleven downloads are a proof that people somewhere in the different parts of the world really liked my work. It keeps me motivated to share more and more work on this platform.

Click Here to Become a Contributor for Shutterstock

Check my Portfolio Here

As mentioned above, when I faced rejection for my first twenty images on freepik, I thought to upload the same images on Shutterstock. Surprisingly my twelve photos out of 20 have been accepted by Shutterstock.

Today I will share the screenshots of my rejections from both sites for your reference and learning.

I am sure it would be very helpful for you all while working on your portfolios.These points will keep you on the right track.

You can see below screenshots from my Shutterstock contributor account. Out of twenty submissions, twelve photos had been accepted. The detailed reasons have been mentioned in front of each photo for your better understanding. It becomes 60% approval rate whereas on Freepik, all these photos have been rejected by the company.

Below are screenshots from my Freepik contributor account where you can see that all my above pictures have been rejected by Freepik due to various reasons. You can check the detail description of of each rejection here.

In the end, I would recommend all those photographer or graphic designers who want to be a contributor for shutterstock or Freepik, download above screenshots and check the reason of rejection for each photo individually. It will help them to make necessary corrections in their projects practically before final submissions and hence it will increase their approval percentage. 

If you want to become a graphic designer but have a very little knowledge of Adobe Photoshop or illustrator then you must subscribe below YouTube channels. These are amazing resources to learn Photoshop online free of cost.

• GFXMentor (In Hindi / Urdu)
• Photoshop Training Channel (In English)

If you feel Photoshop very technical then learn the canva which is an excellent alternate for designers.

There is a discount offer on below course on canva, avail it immediately if you are interested to earn money online through freelance designer on Fiverr or peopleperhour etc.

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What I’ve learned within one month on Fiverr ? Tips for Sellers through my Case studies

Fiverr is one of the best online platforms for freelancers around the world. It is also helping buyers globally to select the best people for their relevant tasks out of a sufficient pool of talent. They also have the option to set any predefined budget for particular jobs. Proposals from freelancers to buyers keep them engaged as well in this open job market. Once they acquire any order, on-time fulfillment with the best quality submission becomes their top priority. 

I had joined Fiver almost five years back but not as a seller. I was looking for some content writer as well as a logo designer. I found a couple of other places as well like Freelncers.com and Peopleperhour.com. I found Fiverr a great platform for freelancers. It was more convenient to select the right person for any Job at Fiverr.  At that time, I had only two payment options PayPal and Bitcoin but unfortunately, both were not working in my country and still with the same status.  I managed Paypal somehow through my uncle from Malaysia. 

In the recent lockdown situation, when most of the people are working from Home and exploring different options for online business or freelancing. I thought to keep my fiverr account alive again. I felt happy to see the debit/credit card option in Fiverr. I have been observing different Fiverr success stories through social media as well. I decided to become a seller on Fiverr. I learned Adobe Photoshop during my lockdown days and made myself good at it. I also had been using Canva for different purposes from the last one year so thought to make few gigs related to designs.

Below are the Gigs I created on Fiverr. So far within one month, I received four orders and one inquiry. Every order was unique in its requirement and helped me to learn a lot of new things. I did mistakes while doing all these orders and even got a 3.7 rating in one of my orders.

• I will design anything in Canva pro in 24 Hours  

• I will do a professional logo design for every business in 24 Hours

• I will replicate your logo or Brand name into an amazing 3D format

Made in Canva by HMS

My aim here is to tell you people those mistakes so that you won't do the same while working on Fiverr and can develop your career in a better way as a freelancer. We should always learn from others' mistakes because learning through your own mistakes can be too much costly for you.

• 10 issues I faced while working on Fiverr

Before I moved on, Let me show you my one-month income on Fiverr. I earned a total of $24 so far out of which $20 is from my June earnings.

Let's start with our three Case studies

Case # 1

I used to watch videos and tutorials on different online platforms where people ask about tricks to get first order on Fiverr. In my case, I felt lucky because I received the order as soon as I prepared the seller account. It was the logo design order from a German client. She was also new on Fiverr but explained her logo requirement in detail. I understood and started working on it immediately. I finalized one logo, prepared a couple of mock-ups, and sent the delivery within two to three hours. Then I started waiting for her reply which took my whole night. The next morning, I was shocked to see her reply which was not good. She was requesting me to relook her requirement and my given design was not suited to her business. All my work went in vain and I had to start my work from zero. This time I decided to share a couple of options with her to select from. I searched on the internet for some designs related to her concept, gather some ideas, and prepared 4 to 5 designs. I sent her all options at once to select anyone out of them so that I could send the selected logo in all formats but she did not only accept the order as is with all the options but gave me five start rating. See her feedback below.

Learning from this order:

• Always be patient upon receipt of any order and do proper research for any design related requirement.
• Try to fully understand the requirement of the client before you start converting it onto your canvas. 
• For logo design, It's better to submit a couple of options to the client before the final submission.

Case # 2

I had received the order from my local account for the 3D logo. Upon asking some idea, he sent me a 3D picture of a home. He wanted his logo to look like this home. I thought to make it on photoshop with adobe dimensions but I failed to do it. I tried but couldn't make it as per his requirement. I decided to delegate this work to someone expert on Fiverr. I published the job request with all the relevant details. I received a lot of inquiries where many were claiming to fulfill my requirements and most importantly within my budget. I carefully selected the seller and asked him again and again if he could make my logo as per the Home picture I shared. He did not deny but my mistake was that I didn't get 100% confirmation for this idea. Surprisingly when I received the logo, there was nothing as per my requirement. Although his work was superb that's why I accepted the delivery and gave him a five-star rating to avoid any impact on his Fiverr profile. separately I asked him to check again if he could fulfill my requirement as requested initially. He did not cooperate in this matter further and even shared the png file upon my request. 

I downloaded some good 3D mockups from freepik.com and gave my client a better 3D logo which was quite close to his requirement. I faced a hard time to convince my buyer to accept it and finally got success after several attempts. 

Learning from this order.

• Don't try to be over-smart and understand buyers provided sample clearly, ask them for any clarity upfront to avoid any issue at the time of delivery. 
• Don't be greedy, delegate the order with a little margin to someone more expert in it on Fiverr if you can't fulfill the requirement. Experts also call it best practice for "How to earn money without any skills"
• Explore different options for order completion

Case # 3

My second order on gig related to Canva designs helped me to learn a lot of design-related things. 

One day I received an inquiry from a client who was from Singapore. He was not a direct buyer. Infact working as a middle man. I checked his profile and saw many good remarks about this buyer from different sellers. His profile title was also indicating about his job as a middle man on Fiverr. 

He asked me if I could make a three-page ebook kind of design on canva and submit it in a pdf form. It was downloadable marketing material for one of her clients in Singapore. This had to be used through Facebook advertisements. I accepted this inquiry and gave my offer of $15. He sent me a couple of samples before I started work on his designs. 

I worked for the whole day and submitted my first design copy which he rejected with a lot of comments but most importantly with a solution. All these comments were worth reading. I am sharing all here as-is for everyone's learning so that you can avoid the same mistakes while making any ebook, catalog, brochure designs, etc for your clients on any freelance platform. 

Problem(s): 

The whole design is “too busy”.

1. (click here to see what we mean - #2, #3, #4 are very important.)
2. The text in the middle is very hard to read. Darken the background so that the text is easy to read.
3. Create much, much, much more space between the words. Reduce the font sizes.

Solution(s): 

Be clean. Minimalist. Focus on words. Space between text.

Problem(s): 

1. For the 4 boxes, they are too square and sharp-edged. This makes them too unfriendly.
2. The font for the 4 boxes are also too small and hurts the eyes when reading. Please increase the font size.
3. Please also bear in mind that 95% of our readers are using smartphones to read this - for best understanding, download your PDF into your phone and try to read it.

Solution(s): 

1. Try to use a friendly design. Here’s an example

Download the PDF on your phone and see if you and your friends can read it comfortably. If not, increase the font size until it’s comfortably readable.

He gave me a 3.7 rating which was not justified but I did not argue with him because his feedback was not bad as well as the learning I received through this order, couldn't be grasped through self-learning. I loved to learn these things practically.  

I shared my one-month experiences on fiverr with all of you and would love to hear from you as well. Do share your feedback, working experiences in the comment section. Your comments will help the freelance community at large. 

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• Complete Guide to Freelance Working from Home (or Nomadic!

• Fiverr - Master Selling Gigs & Become a Top Rated Seller 

• Freelancing: Start Earning on Freelancer/ Fiverr Now