People have been asking me how I make my digital designs visually appealing to my audience. I always say it's a work in a progress but I love spending time in creating these social media posts and website designs. But I still share my joy in creating and graphic designing and so I wrote this blog to help other people like me who have no design background whatsoever to start with.

This post contains affiliate links to products I sincerely recommend, that at no extra cost to you, I may earn a small percentage which I will use to feed my two wonderful pups.

So how did I become a Graphic Designer?

People knew me as a Real Estate Salesperson for a long time and I always work as a freelancer. Freelancer is a word we use to certain people who have no specific company employed at but still do amazing jobs and earn commissions or service fee. As a freelancer, I have all my time on my own so doing other businesses on the side is always possible. That's the reason why Sparkstreet Creatives was born in April 2018. It first started as a hobby of my husband Marlon and after a year, I decided to register our company name and complied with the City and tax requirements.

While I also manage the social media pages of Sparkstreet Creatives and the Real Estate page which is now known as Sparkstreet Realty, I consistently post and create copies online. I use Canva, an online web collection of templates for graphic designers, especially for newbies like me who had no previous experience with photo and graphic editing programs.

Canva has always been a user-friendly platform, and what I like about it is that it has a downloadable mobile application so I can also work while I wait for my clients during tripping days. I felt empowered because even if I have actual work outside, I can easily access my previous works and go back to it even without my computer. I just need my mobile internet and there I go! I can download the finished design on my phone and post it instantly on my social media pages. How cool is that?

Over the years, I knew I needed to improve my graphic designs so I decided to enroll to Lindsay Marsh's online course in Graphic Design Masterclass using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator (I couldn't understand these programs before).

I haven't finished the entire Graphic Design course but I say I get familiar with Photoshop by using it everyday. My husband has also taught me some photo editing tools which we also use in our studio portraits. I honestly find it hard at first because I'm not that tech savvy and learning at your own pace sometimes not work on everyone, right? But as I practice everyday, I get to remember which tools to use and how to use them for photo editing and manipulation.

While these sound overwhelming for many, I recommend using Canva for free and upgrade to Canva Pro over time as the need to certain effects and professional tools arise. Did you know that you can now remove a photo's background just by a single click of an effect called Background Remover? Yep! In less than a minute, you're no background photo is ready. Imagine the long and winding road you have to take to remove a background using Photoshop. I bet it would take me an hour or so to finish. But with Canva Pro, everything seems perfectly easy.

What is Canva?

Canva is an Australian online design and publishing tool to empower people to design and publish anything and anywhere. It has website and application platform both for desktop and mobile devices designed to create social media graphics, video, marketing ads, office documents, and other visual presentations. It has tons of pre-made templates which were also created by other Canva users and share for others to use both in free and pro versions.

Are you ready to use Canva?

I told you that Canva is free and you can immediately start creating your account when you click here which opens another tab that shows like this:

On the upper right corner, click Sign Up button and a pop-up window shows which account you want to use to register. I recommend clicking continue with email and provide the email address that you'll be using, and follow through all the necessary steps that they'll be asking.

You might need to verify your account by clicking the button from the email that you'll be receiving from Canva. Once done then you're good to go!

Sample Canva Templates

Here are some of my original canva templates that I use in designing my social media assets, which you can use and redesign as well:

Go on and try the free features of Canva until you're ready to upgrade for more premium tools for your designs. Most likely you can do everything with the free version and you can download and save your design as photo. For your future designs for transparent logos and higher resolution images, you may try Canva Pro for free for 45 days (this varies depending on Canva Pro promo). Monthly subscription is 299 pesos but you can also pay 2,490 for 1 year subscription and invite 4 other friends who also might be needing Canva Pro and you can share the subscription fees.

More details and tutorials about Canva on my next blog. See you there!

Look more professional with Canva Pro.

Try the online design tool that everyone is raving about.