Free tools to get you designing FAST
There are SO many great tools out there nowadays to get your church or business popping with eye catching and modern social media or web content, that it really is staggering! Here are just 3 of the best tools possible that you can use literally today to get social videos, posts and over art into your hands (then to the world)
1) Canva.com - Canva is a free to use, free to download and free to print graphic design service that has gone gangbusters since Melani started the company from Australia (yay). Just about every single youtuber, influencer and savvy business owner I know and follow uses Canva for multiple things. For a start, you can create ANY sized print media you can think of, from business cards to flyers, fold out brochures to a4 posters, and then save them as PDF's for sending to the printers. But more than that, their graphic design team has created ALL of their templates, ALL of which you can use for free (the pro ones just need an image change if you see crosshairs on the image).
This program literally lets you make a company logo, facebook headers, twitter headers, email footers, signage, CD album covers and even powerpoint presentations with GORGEOUS templates that are very, very easy to use and edit. You can even create work groups for your church or business to share and edit designs together over time, or create your own brand kit, and the app is so, so easy to use that anyone with fingers can design something brilliant with a few clicks and taps.
Seriously, there's actually NO reason why everybody isn't using this thing. Check it out at the link www.canva.com and design away. You'll never leave the site again!
2) Adobe Spark: As a social video editor, this program is superb. It lets you make dynamic videos with instant free image databases for changing imagery, a free music library with themed songs, and with simple clicks you can edit text, put photos behind dynamic moving templates, and all in all create beautiful presentations that everybody watching will STAY watching. The social post editor is extraordinary, with the freedom to create themed text with a "design wheel" that you can simply spin and watch the design magic happen, and you can even create websites for free using Adobe Spark Web Pages. I literally use one of these for a lead sales page I've created for a book I'm working on. All with parallax scrolling and access to thousands of free images for your viewing and designing pleasure. The possibilities are endless with this app. Use it here: www.spark.adobe.com
3) GIMP image manipulation - For photoshop lovers who don't want to pay the ridiculous prices Adobe puts up for their software, look no further than GIMP. It's open source, which means it's totally free and ALWAYS updated, and has a super strong community of designers that do tutorials and run help services on it, and it can do basically everything Photoshop does without the hefty price tag. You can distort images, use layers, do gradients for text, make text clear and use an image behind it, and even create background free images for any reason you like. It's powerful, and can be used to make professional logos and flyers very, very easily. There's a huge amount of support for it, and a huge youtube and search engine pool of information on how to use it. Definitely check it out for advanced photo editing. Grab it free here: https://www.gimp.org/downloads/
Of course, there are thousands more apps and websites you can use for your business and social pages for free, and a bonus one is: desygner. This app is a canva alternative if canva is too steep a learning curve to learn and you just want great looking images right out of the gate for all purposes. Find it here: www.desygner.com
For more software, tips and strategies on how to boost your business profile or get your church popping in the modern age: visit: www.facebook.com/breatheindesign and check out my videos and tips on design! Blessings all, Luke