Professional Diploma in

Graphic Design
Starter Pack
 Annerie obtained her BTech in Graphic Design (Cum Laude)
with a photographic approach back in 2010. In 2010, she got
the award for best BTech Graphic Design student as well as
best overall Graphic Design student.

She has been lecturing since 2009 to various groups of students,

ranging from certificate courses to degree courses.
Along with her partner at the time (now husband), Annerie has
successfully also run her own design and photography studio
focusing mostly on wedding photography. After 10 years and
hundreds of weddings later, she felt it is time to advance her skills
and moved on to a different area within the same field.
With both her industry and lecturing experience, Annerie soon
Graphic Design found herself fascinated by the e-learning industry.

Starter Pack ‘With the experience I have gained throughout the years, within the
industry as well as lecturing, I have done vast research and gained
a lot of knowledge on the topic of creative thinking. Realising that

Meet your educator my passion lies in stimulating and motivating others creatively, I
am privilege to share this with so many people.’
Annerie du Plessis
Design is so much more than making something look amazing
or aesthetically pleasing. It is the ability to improvise and move
forward, to solve problems. You need to keep on improving and
learn new skills otherwise you will be left behind. As difficult as it
is, try being a trendsetter, rather than a follower.

Enjoy the course!

 Module 1
Lesson 1 What is Graphic Design?
Lesson 2 The Foundation of Good Design
Lesson 3 An Introduction to Adobe Illustrator
Lesson 4 Flyer in Adobe Illustrator
Lesson 5 Photo Manipulation in Adobe Photoshop
Lesson 6 Movie Poster Design in Adobe Photoshop
Lesson 7 An Introduction to InDesign
Lesson 8 Summary of Print & Pre-Press Basics &
Brochure Design in InDesign

Module 2
Lesson 1 Advanced Colour Theory & Print Terminology
Graphic Design Lesson 2 Mood Board Creation
Lesson 3 Advanced Anatomy of Typography
Starter Pack Outline Lesson 4 The Basics of the Pen Tool
Lesson 5 Mastering the Pen Tool
Lesson 6 Magazine Cover in Adobe Photoshop
In the Graphic Design course you can expect 4 Lesson 7 Advertisement in Adobe Photoshop
modules consisting of 8 lessons each. Lesson 8 Magazine Creation in Adobe InDesign

Each module consists of: Module 3

8 lessons Lesson 1 Creative Thinking
8 post-lesson quizzes Lesson 2 Corporate Identity & Mock-Ups
4 practice assignments Lesson 3 Interactive PDF & e-Publication
1 module assignment Lesson 4 Advanced Photo Manipulation
Lesson 5 3D Rotation & Design in Adobe Illustrator
As an extra, you will be able to purchase the toolkit: Lesson 6 Packaging Design
Webinar slides Lesson 7 Designing for Web & Social Media
Summary notes Lesson 8 Infographics
Bonus content
Module 4
Lesson 1 Design on the Go
Lesson 2 Create Your Own Font
Lesson 3 Advanced Digital Illustration
Lesson 4 Essentials for Design Businesses
Lesson 5 Résumé Creation
Lesson 6 Power Tools in Photoshop
Lesson 7 Getting Your Foot in the Door
Lesson 8 Portfolio Creation
 What is graphic design?

Graphic design, also known as communication design, is the art and

practice of planning and projecting ideas and experiences with visual

and textual content. The form of the communication can be physical

or virtual, and may include images, words, or graphic forms. The work

can happen at any scale, from the design of a single postage stamp to a

national postal signage system, or from a company’s avatar to the content

of an international newspaper. It can also be or any purpose, whether

commercial, educational, cultural, or political.

What designers do

Graphic Design
Graphic designers work with both text and images. They often select the

Course Starter Pack type, font, size, colour, and line length of headlines, headings, and text.

Graphic designers also decide how images and text will go together on a

page or screen, including how much space each will have. When using text

in layouts, they collaborate closely with writers who choose the words and

decide whether the words will be put into paragraphs, lists, or tables. Their

work typically involves a process known as the design cycle.

 The design cycle

The design cycle consists of the following steps:

• Briefing: Meet with clients or the art director to determine the scope of
the project.
• Research & brainstorming: Develop the message the design should
portray through means of research, inspiration and brainstorming.
• Thumbnails: Take the inspiration gathered in the previous phase to
develop rough concepts.
• Production: Create designs that identify a product or convey a
message.
• Present: Present the design to clients, incorporate changes
recommended by the clients into design. Review designs before
publishing.

Graphic Design

Course Starter Pack

 How to be successful as a designer

Graphic design is an extremely fast-paced and fast-growing industry with

tons of competition. The advantage however is the fact that due to the
abundance of competition; graphic design’s quality has improved so much.
Learn to see the opportunities and use them to your advantage!

Design is not simply the aesthetics of a given project. As soon as you realise
that design also has to do with the function of your task at hand, this is
when you open your mind to solve problems, rather than just making it look
beautiful. Be on the constant lookout for opportunities to improve things –
this will help you to be stimulated creatively and drastically improve your
design skills.

There is a difference in being artistic and creative – know the difference and
Graphic Design if you’re blessed with both, use it to your advantage!

Course Starter Pack Everyone is born creative – don’t ever believe when you are told that you
are not creative. It can be stimulated. Thus, surround yourself with people
that allow you to be creative.

If ever someone laughs at an idea you came up with, it is simply because it

is strange to them and unfamiliar. It is usually these ideas that change the
world!
If you ever find yourself in a place where you are jealous or mad at others
for taking your business or opportunities, it might be time to improvise and
advance your skills and knowledge. Everyone’s trying to make a living and
only the one’s who don’t improvise will stay behind.

Break the rules of design…if you know and understand them.

Breaking rules out of ignorance won’t solve anything.
 What designers use

Illustrator is the industry-standard vector graphics

application that lets you create logos, icons, drawings,
typography, and complex illustrations for any medium.
General file formats:
AI - Illustrator’s native file format
EPS - Illustrator eps
AIT - Illustrator Template
PDF - Adobe PDF - PDF files support both vector and
raster (bitmap) information
SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics files are used on the
World Wide Web

Photoshop allows you to create stunning photos, de-

signs, illustrations, 3D, video and more.

Graphic Design General file formats:

PSD - Photoshop’s native file format

Course Starter Pack

JPG - format for viewing and sharing digital photos
GIF - format of choice for web graphics
PNG - a lossless file format and supports transparency
TIFF - universally accepted standard for images
destined for commercial printing
EPS - EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) is another print
industry standard format
PDF - PDF supports and preserves all of Photoshop’s
features, including the ability to use spot colours

InDesign is the industry-standard publishing applica-

tion that lets you design and publish high-quality docu-
ments across a full spectrum of digital and print media.
General file formats:
INDD - InDesign’s native file format
PDF - Adobe PDF - PDF files support both high & low
resolution output for print
 Handy resources

Software
https://creative.adobe.com/products/

Free Images
https://pixabay.com/
https://unsplash.com/
https://pexels.com/
http://dryicons.com/
http://vecteezy.com/
http://www.freepik.com/

Free Fonts
https://dafont.com/
https://urbanfonts.com/
Graphic Design https://fontspace.com/
http://1001fonts.com/
Course Starter Pack
 Hotkeys: Adobe Illustrator

Graphic Design

Course Starter Pack

 Hotkeys: Adobe Illustrator

Graphic Design

Course Starter Pack

 Hotkeys: Adobe Photoshop

Graphic Design

Course Starter Pack

 Hotkeys: Adobe Photoshop

Graphic Design

Course Starter Pack

 Hotkeys: Adobe InDesign

Graphic Design

Course Starter Pack

 Hotkeys: Adobe InDesign

Graphic Design

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 Lesson challenges

Module 1
Lesson 1: #shawgraphicdesign
Take a photo of your surroundings. Identify all and any forms of graphic
design. Indicate the amount of graphic design forms you were able to
identify. Share your photo to our Facebook group or your favourite social
media platform.

Lesson 2: Logo concept creation

Come up with a logo concept for Fred’s coffee shop. Fred has not come up
with a name yet, and simply would like you to provide him with logo ideas
first. You can actually think of a couple of ideas and simply want to start
creating!
Your task is to:

Graphic Design Write down words

Draw concepts

Course Starter Pack Identify colours that come to mind when you think about a logo for Fred’s
coffee shop.
Please keep these ideas as we will refer to them for our next lesson.

Lesson 3: #shawlogodesign
Utilise the skills you learnt in Adobe Illustrator so far and create yet another
logo for a coffee shop. You don’t need to use the name Fred and can use any
name you want to. If you get stuck on the name part, you can simply use
your own name and see how you can use that creatively.

Lesson 4: #shawflyerdesign
Using the details in the pdf “Fred’s coffee flyer details” located in your bonus
content, create your own flyer design in Adobe Illustrator making use of the
works-everytime-layout. Use the standard size for a flyer in your country.
 Lesson challenges

Module 1
Lesson 5: shawdoubleexposure
Familiarise yourself with Photoshop and create your own double exposure
image. Simply follow the process and steps you learnt in Lesson 5. Remember
that you can pause and rewatch your lessons!

Lesson 6: #shawmovieposter
Create a movie poster and choose one of the following themes:
Horror, Sci-fi, Fantasy or Action
Use the standard size for a medium sized poster in your country. Make use of the
skills you have learnt so far in Photoshop and if you are daring, experiment with
Photoshop and see what more you can learn whilst designing your movie poster!

Lesson 7: #shawbcarddesign

Graphic Design Design a business card for the coffee company you created in lesson 3. Please
make sure about business card dimensions and sizes in your country - do some
research on the internet or contact your local printing company. Remember that
Course Starter Pack the contact details for your business card should be between 7pts - 10pts - this is
the standard in the industry. Using anything smaller than 7pts will be difficult to
read and anything bigger than 10pts will be too big.

Lesson 8: #shawbrochuredesign
Using the details from the pdf “Fred’s coffee flyer details” located in your bonus
content, design a 4 page brochure in Adobe InDesign (use the standard size for
a brochure in your country). Please double check any copyright issues with
images you want to download from the internet and make sure that you have
permission to use these images (refer to the recording of lesson 8 on plagiarism).