Graphic Design: Photoshop and Canva for Non-Designers
Make clean logos, social posts and a small brand kit with free tools, with Photoshop as an optional extra.
One payment of $39. Instant online access to the full written course. No subscription. Refund policy.
You make professional-looking graphics, logos and social posts. You finish with a small brand kit of your own: a logo set, a colour palette, two fonts, social templates, a print flyer and a one-page brand guide.
Who it is for. Complete beginners who need to make graphics for a small business, club, event or side project, and who have no design training.
You finish with. A small brand kit. A small brand kit for your own project (real or imaginary). It contains a logo set, a tested colour palette, two fonts with text rules, three social post templates with finished posts, one print flyer, and a one-page brand guide that ties them together. Every piece uses the same colours, fonts and logo, so they look like they come from one place.
Certificate. Finish every lesson, resolve every quiz question with at least 50% right on the first try, and tick the capstone checklist — Apex Flow Academy issues a verifiable Certificate of Completion with a unique ID and a public verification page. It is a certificate of completion, not a degree, licence, accreditation or exam result.
01 · Start here: your project, your pixels and your layers4 lessons
Choose your project and set up free tools. Learn how images are stored, how to pick the right canvas size, and how to build a design in layers.
- 1.1Pick your project and set up your toolsFREE
- 1.2Pixels and vectors: how a picture is stored
- 1.3Pick the right canvas size
- 1.4Layers: build a design in a stack
02 · Four design rules that do most of the work4 lessons
Learn hierarchy, alignment, spacing and contrast. These four habits fix most of what makes a design look amateur.
- 2.1Hierarchy: decide what people see first
- 2.2Alignment: give everything a shared edge
- 2.3Proximity and white space: group and give room
- 2.4Contrast: make sure text can be read
03 · Colour and type: the ingredients of a brand4 lessons
Understand colour codes, build a tested five-colour palette, choose two fonts you may use freely, and set text so it reads.
- 3.1Describe and record a colour exactly
- 3.2Build a five-colour palette and test it
- 3.3Choose two fonts you are allowed to use
- 3.4Set text so people can read it
04 · Working with photos: license, crop, fix and cut out4 lessons
Find photos you may legally use, crop and resize them for their job, fix light and colour, and cut a subject out with a layer mask.
- 4.1Find photos you may use and keep a source log
- 4.2Crop and resize a photo for its job
- 4.3Fix light and colour with Levels
- 4.4Cut out a subject with a layer mask
05 · Your logo: plan, build, vary and save4 lessons
Plan a simple logo, build it from your own text and shapes, make the versions you will need, and save the right files.
- 5.1Plan a logo that works
- 5.2Build the logo in Photopea
- 5.3Make logo versions and set clear space
- 5.4Save the right logo files and name them well
06 · Put the kit to work: guide, social posts, print and the capstone4 lessons
Write a one-page brand guide, build three social templates and a print flyer, review your work, and assemble your brand kit.
- 6.1Write a one-page brand guide
- 6.2Build three social post templates
- 6.3Design a flyer for print
- 6.4Review, get feedback and assemble your capstone
Pick your project and set up your tools
You will be able to
- Choose a small project and write a five-answer brief for it.
- Set up free tools and a tidy folder for your files.
Why this matters
Design is easier when you know who it is for and where it will be seen. A vague project gives vague results. Choosing your project now means every lesson adds one piece to a real thing: a small brand kit you can keep using.
Learn it
A brand kit is a small set of matching pieces. It holds a logo, a colour palette, two fonts and a few ready-made templates. By the end of this course you will have one. Pick a real or imaginary small business, club, event or side project. Choose something you can describe in two sentences.
Here are the tools. You need only the free ones.
- Canva, on its Free plan. It is a design website where you drag text, shapes and photos onto a page. It is good for social posts and flyers.
- Photopea. It is a photo editor that runs in your web browser and opens Photoshop files. The free version shows ads. Its own website says your files stay on your device and are not uploaded.
- GIMP. It is a free photo editor that you install on your computer. Use it in place of Photopea if you prefer. Its download page has versions for Windows, macOS and Linux.
- Photoshop. It is Adobe's paid photo editor. It is a subscription, and Adobe offers a free trial. Check Adobe's page for current plans and prices. This course never needs it. Where its steps differ, you will see a short Photoshop path note.
Screens change often. If your screen does not match a step, look for the same word in a menu or a toolbar.
Next, write a brief. A brief is a short note that says what you are making and who it is for. Answer five questions:
- What is the project called?
- Who is it for? Describe one real kind of person.
- Which three words should the design feel like?
- Where will your designs appear? For example: Instagram, flyers, a website.
- What should a person do after seeing it? For example: call, visit, book, sign up.
Last, make a folder. Name it after your project. Inside it make five folders: 01-brief, 02-images, 03-logo, 04-social and 05-print. Using the same folders from day one saves a lot of hunting later.
How to use this course: every lesson has the same six parts. Read them in order. Do the task at the end of the lesson before you move on. The tasks build your kit one piece at a time.
See it in action
Example (illustrative numbers): Juniper Lane Dog Walking is an imaginary business we made up. We use it in every lesson. Here is its brief.
- Name: Juniper Lane Dog Walking.
- For: busy people in one neighbourhood who work long hours and own a dog.
- Feel: friendly, calm, trustworthy.
- Appears: Instagram posts, a flyer for notice boards, and a profile picture.
- Action: send a message to book a free meet-and-greet.
The folder is called Juniper-Lane. It holds 01-brief, 02-images, 03-logo, 04-social and 05-print. The brief is saved in 01-brief as a text file called brief.txt.
Common mistakes
- Choosing a project that is too big, such as a whole company. It feels exciting, but you never finish. Fix: choose one small offer.
- Skipping the brief because it feels like homework. It takes about ten minutes and stops endless redesigns. Fix: write all five answers.
- Paying for tools before you need to. The free plans cover every core lesson. Fix: start free and upgrade only if you hit a real limit.
- Naming files final, final2 and final-really. Fix: use clear names and the five folders.
You are done when
You have a written five-answer brief. You have a project folder with five subfolders. You can open Canva and either Photopea or GIMP and start a blank design.
You finished the free lesson
That is one lesson from the course. The full course gives you every remaining lesson, a quick check and a hands-on task in each one, and the workbook of templates and checklists.
Full course$39
- A laptop or desktop computer with a modern web browser. A phone is handy for checking how your designs look, but the steps assume a computer.
- A free Canva account on the Free plan. Everything in the core lessons works on Free. Some Canva features are paid, and the lessons say which ones and give a free way around them.
- Photopea (free, runs in your browser, shows ads in the free version) or GIMP (free download for Windows, macOS and Linux). Pick one photo editor and stay with it. Photopea is the one used in most steps.
- Optional and paid: Adobe Photoshop. It is a subscription and Adobe offers a free trial. Check Adobe's page for current plans and prices. Nothing in this course requires it. Short 'Photoshop path' notes show where its steps differ.
- Three to five photos: your own, or ones with a free licence that you check in Module 4.
- A notebook or a text file for your brief, notes and licence log.
- Optional cost: printing your flyer at a shop. A home printer and plain paper are enough for the tests in this course.
- You can use a web browser, save a file and find it again.
- You have a real or imaginary small project to design for (a small business, club, event or side project). Lesson 1 helps you choose.
A small brand kit
A small brand kit for your own project (real or imaginary). It contains a logo set, a tested colour palette, two fonts with text rules, three social post templates with finished posts, one print flyer, and a one-page brand guide that ties them together. Every piece uses the same colours, fonts and logo, so they look like they come from one place.
- A one-page project brief (name, audience, three feel-words, where designs appear, the action you want).
- A logo set: primary logo, stacked or horizontal version, icon-only version, light-on-dark version and one-colour version, saved as PNG with transparent backgrounds plus a vector file if you can make one.
- A five-colour palette with hex codes, roles and a contrast table that shows which colour pairs are safe for text.
- Two fonts with written text rules: sizes, line spacing and alignment.
- Three social post templates (portrait post, square or photo post, and a tall story) and three finished posts made from them, exported as PNG or JPG.
- One print flyer, sized and exported for print, with bleed and margins handled and a home-printer proof checked.
- A one-page brand guide exported as a PDF.
- An image source and licence log that lists where every photo came from and the licence terms you checked.
- A tidy export folder with clear file names.
- Pixel
- One tiny square of colour. A photo is a huge grid of them.
- Raster image
- A picture made of pixels, such as a photo. It goes soft if you enlarge it.
- Vector graphic
- A picture stored as shapes and lines. It stays sharp at any size. Logos are often vectors.
- Resolution
- How many pixels a picture has, or how many pixels are packed into each inch when printed.
- Aspect ratio
- The shape of a rectangle, written as width to height. A 4 to 5 rectangle is a bit taller than wide.
- Canvas
- The blank page you design on, set to a size in pixels, inches or millimetres.
- Layer
- One see-through sheet in a stack. Each object in your design sits on its own sheet, so you can change one without touching the rest.
- Hierarchy
- The order in which the eye reads a design: first thing, second thing, then the details.
- White space
- The empty room around and between things. It does not have to be white.
- Contrast ratio
- A number that says how different two colours are in lightness. A higher number is easier to read.
- Hex code
- A short colour name for computers: a hash sign and six letters or digits, like #1F4D3A.
- RGB
- The way screens make colour by mixing red, green and blue light.
Browse the full Academy encyclopedia
21 checks were run and recorded while writing this course (code, formulas, commands and facts), and it lists 44 official sources it was checked against. Prices, features and policies of outside tools can change, so check each tool's own website.
Created by Apex Flow Academy with AI assistance. For education only; not legal, tax, financial or medical advice. Results depend on your effort and circumstances.
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