Make Quick & Easy Websites, Social Media Graphics & Video

Welcome to the course. In this lesson I'll talk about how I will teach you how to make easy but professional websites, social media graphics, and high-quality images using the free tools and programs Wix, Canva, Stencil, Gimp, and online Editors like Photoshop's free tool.

In this lesson I'll talk a bit about how you can find out the best platform for you and your unique and specific needs.

In this lesson we'll talk about the website I am going to design as a case study in this course for an American non-profit organization. We'll discuss gathering content like text and imagery as well as the importance of solidifying your idea and thinking about navigation and what you most want to communicate with your new website.

Many people want to just jump in and start making a website without the preparation. But if you skip the planning stages, you'll actually spend more time later redoing your website, reordering menu items, and fussing with images. Trust me. Let's take a moment to plan our beautiful new website first and make sure the images you want to use are worthy enough to put on it.  :-)

This extra lesson comes from my in-depth full web design course, Web Snax: Super Simple Recipes For Easy Web Design

Here we are going to think about what content we want to have on our new website and what we DON'T want. We are also going to then organize this content to make it easy to find, logical, and user-friendly for our website visitors.

In this lesson we'll talk about ways you can further solidify your ideas and how to think about which pages you'll have and what you most want to communicate via your website.

In this lesson, I'll show you how to clean up and adjust images so they will look professional and sharp on your new website. Your website is only going to be as good as your weakest image, so make sure they all are in top shape before you start designing your new site. In this lesson I use Adobe Photoshop. You can get a free trial of Photoshop from Adobe's website. You can also make similar edits to your image using the free program Gimp or Photoshop's online tool. See the links in the resources section. 

Also look at the extra lesson in the last section of this course to use a free online photo editor made by Photoshop to help you get your images ready for your site.

In this lesson we will set up a brand new Wix account and browse through templates so we can choose one and get started making our beautiful new website.

In this lesson we'll set up our logo and start chipping away at customizing our new home page.

In this lesson I will show you a super easy and quick way to take an existing logo and put it on a transparent background. I normally do this task in Photoshop or Gimp, but after creating this lesson, I'm just going to use the free online tool Lunapic instead. It's a time saver! :-)

In this lesson we will save our work so far, set our site's URL (domain name), and start customizing our main slider on the home page. Good times ahead! :-)

In this lesson we'll start redoing some of the template text and swapping with our own text. We'll also talk about links and how to set them up properly.

In this lesson we are going to add the most important information your website needs to have.

In this lesson we will work with the image galleries on our home page and finalize the home page text. Making progress!

In this lesson I add services to the page and make it link to the contact page. (Case Study)

In this lesson I will show you how to set up your social media links that will appear in the site's footer.

In this lesson we will go edit the mobile version of our site and make sure it appears the way we want to. Then we hit publish and are ready to share the link.

In this lesson we will tidy up our menu, add pages, and redo the menu and stacking order for pages. We will also create a new blog and add it to the site by making our first post.

In this lesson we will edit and format our first blog post, work with pages, swap images, and adjust blog settings.

In this lesson I'll show you how to add free vector art as we customize our contact page. I'll also go over how to set up a Google map and how to make sure your contact form is customized and working.

Let's have a little fun, shall we? In this lesson I will show you how to add cool animated effects to your images to help make your Wix website even more dynamic. (*Use animated effects sparingly so you don't make your web visitors sea sick!)

In this lesson we will talk about finalizing a site, publishing, how to upgrade your plan, how to find free help on every specific Wix tool, and how to get custom feedback and advice from me.

In this lesson I'll show you some samples of social media graphics made using both Canva and Stencil. We'll go over what is possible and how you can already start thinking about which social media platforms you will be making graphics for. 

Make sure to click on resources so you get the links to sign up for the free versions of Canva and Stencil.

In this lesson we'll get you set up with a free Canva account and I will give some tips on getting started making social media graphics that look professional.

In this lesson we'll talk about why templates are so cool and how they can not only help you with layout design, but also help you get ideas for your social media messages. We'll also pop on over to Brainy Quotes to get some inspiration for creating an inspiring message.

In this lesson, we'll add your quote to the template and work with adjusting the font, font color, font size, and spacing. I'll also give you some sage design advice and get into some typography advice and design principles such as hierarchy. (See the downloadable resources for top design principles you can use to make better images...)

In this lesson I'll show you how to add images from Canva's library as well as how to search royalty-free image sites (where images are copyright free and 100% legal to use as your own). From there I will show you how to add and upload your own images as well as hot to adjust them. Make sure to look in the resources section to get my list of places to find free images, music, and videos for your projects.

In this lesson we'll get into some more of Canva's features and tools. We'll also use Filters and settings to tint our logo so it better matches the colors in the overall design and creates more aesthetic unity in our final image.

In this lesson I'll show you how quick and easy it is to download and share your finished graphic. We'll also talk about other collaboration and sharing features as well as how you can use a post planner to help share your graphic across social media platforms.

The focus of this section is mainly on using the FREE features of Canva, however it does have some very cool features available through Canva Pro. If you'd like to learn some of them, have a look at this lecture. Also check the resources tab to get links to the latest Canva Pro features.

In this optional extra lesson, I'll give you a quick rundown on how I use the free post planner, Buffer to post my Healing Hands social media graphics across platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Google+. I'll show how to make a post, discuss best practices such as adding links and hashtags, and discuss scheduling posts for the most optimum times your target audience is online.

This lesson is a case study and and introduction/crash course in how to use Stencil. We'll make a new graphic and go over some of Stencil's most important features and tools.

Case Study #2. In this lesson we'll make another new graphic from scratch and explore tools and settings as we make informed design decisions. This lesson will help you gain insight into how designers think when moving elements around and deciding on colors, fonts, and layout.

In this lesson I'll talk about finalizing the Case Study #2 image, go over icons and other Stencil features, and invite you to submit your own designs for feedback.

This lecture will help you get off on the right foot and hopefully will answer questions about the best way to proceed.

No matter which imaging program you are using, always make sure to adjust your levels. In some programs it's called adjusting the tone, value, or gain. It's the values in your image and it's crucial for ensuring your images are as crisp and vibrant as possible. Images that don't have levels adjusted often look muddy, blah, and amateurish.

This lecture will give you a quick rundown and heads up on a very important concept and feature that you will find in almost all imaging programs: Layers. In a nutshell, they are like little transparent acetate sheets where you can draw and then stack over and/or under your main background layer. There are many benefits to using layers. Learn more in this lesson.

Learn some essential features you can use to create multiple variations of the same image. Brightness, Contrast, Hue, and Saturation control the lightness and darkness of your image, whether it's black and white or trumped-up technicolor, as well as some cool tinting effects.

In this lesson I'll show you how to scale, rotate, flip, and transform individual layers as well as your entire image if it only has one layer. Please note that actual full image resizes (dimensions, resolution, as well as file size) is covered in the NEXT lesson.

Being able to resize, reformat, crop, and adjust file sizes for your images is a MUST HAVE skill that will free you from waiting around for others to do it for you for a fee. Many websites require images that are under a certain physical size, dimension, or file size. Learn once and for all how to do it yourself quickly, easily, and painlessly.

In a perfect world, people wouldn't care about a little blemish or demonic glowing eyes in a photo. But if you'd like to present your subjects in a professional, flawless way, here are a few essential tools that will help you out.

In this lesson, I'll show you how to whiten a smile and how to apply lipstick, makeup, or other enhancing painting techniques you may wish to add. You can also use these same techniques to tint your background, some clothing, skin tones, etc.

Secret agents, take note. If you need to blur your face out in a photo or the face of someone else, you need this lesson. You can also use these techniques for blurring out backgrounds or logos.

You have the PERFECT image... except for that one annoying thing in the background (a hand, a person, a sign, a fly on the wall, whatever...) Let me show you some tools you can use to make your image the masterpiece it deserves to be.

Welcome to this new video course section. In this lesson I'll let you know what you can expect to learn, who this section is best suited for, and tell you more about how I can help.

This lesson comes from my online course with Anneke Camstra called "Make Powerful Short Video and Animation for Social Media." In it, I'll explain why less is more and why 30 seconds (or close to it)  is an ideal time frame to use when making your online videos.

In this lesson, I will show you the different InVideo plans available and help you understand which is best for you based on your needs, budget, and goals.

The folks at InVideo were kind enough to give me a discount that I can share with students in this course.

In this lesson, we'll complete the case study video we started in the last lesson in Workflow #1. Here we will finish adding video to all the scenes, adjust scene lengths, edit and delete extra scenes, and preview and test the video together with its music.

After this lesson, you will be able to make a simple but powerful video using the built in template, royalty-free videos, and free music that is already provided.

In this lesson, I will show you how to further edit the text, image, and video elements. I'll go over animation transitions and settings and adding and working with shapes and background text bars. I will show you how to upload and use your own videos and images as well as how to adjust and choose music from the sound library.

In this lesson I will show you how to preview, finalize, and then download or share your video on social media.

In this lesson, I will explain what Workflow #2 is all about and why you might use it to get started making your promo videos. I'll show you a Case Study video made for a friend's business for Instagram and social media using Workflow #2. I'll also share some video "dos and don'ts" before we dive into making a new project.

In this lesson I will show you how I make a brand new video using workflow #2. The idea is to not only show you how I make the video (with all the features of workflow 2), but also WHY I make the design choices I do. This lesson is full of useful promo video-making tips on layout, text, fonts, colors, content, themes, etc. In it you will see the design process from idea to (almost) completion. *I tweaked the final video a bit more in the next lesson and you can see the FINAL final there. ;-)

In this lesson I'll show you a few final design tweaks I made and explain why the changes make the video  a bit stronger thematically and also design-wise.

In this lesson, I'll show you how to make a simple square video for use on Instagram, Facebook, and other places using Workflow #3.

In this lesson, I'll show how I am adding voice overs to a project I am doing at work using InVideo as well as with the free sound editing program, Audacity.

Here's an online tool that is fast and easy for converting audio files when all you need is a different format. (InVideo accepts MP3, WAV, and OGG files.)

In this lesson, I'll show you how to easily convert audio files to formats that InVideo recognizes as well as how to alter and edit your sounds and voices.

In this lesson I'll show the final version and give a few more tips on working with other collaborators.