Guide to Creating Illustrations in PowerPoint for People Who Don’t Know How to Draw
Visuals are a key element of any e-learning course. They help attract the learner’s attention and reinforce key messages. If you don’t have a graphic designer on your team—or access to an asset library like Content Library—you may be struggling to find or create the visuals you need for your course. If that’s where you are, don’t worry! In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create your own illustrations in PowerPoint using freeform shapes. What Is a Freeform Shape? On the Insert tab of PowerPoint, you have access to a whole host of default shapes to help you create your own illustrations: But did you know that hidden among those default shapes is a freeform shape that allows you to draw your own personalized shape? It looks like this: In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use this super-powerful feature to create your own illustrations—even if you have zero artistic ability. Set Default Shape Format When you draw a freeform shape, PowerPoint automatically applies the default shape format—meaning the fill and outline colors—to your shape. And while you could just use that and change the style afterwards, I recommend changing the default style to something with a contrasting border and no fill color. Why? If you’re tracing over a photo, the contrasting color makes it easier to see where you’re drawing. And with no fill color, you can still clearly see the image you’re tracing. So how do you set a new default shape style? It’s easy! Just insert any shape, format it however you’d like, right-click on the shape, and select Set as Default Shape: Now, when you draw your freeform shape, it’ll automatically take on the format you’ve defined. Find a Photo to Trace Let’s say you want to include a visual of a hand holding a phone in your course. Unless you’re already a gifted illustrator, it’s going to be difficult to draw that freehand. The easiest thing to do is search for a photo of what you’d like to draw and trace it. Here’s a good example of a photo you could use as a starting point: Tracing a photo is also a great solution for times when you’re not sure whether you have the right to use a given photo in your course. Draw a Freeform Shape Now that you have your photo, you can insert it into PowerPoint by clicking on the Pictures button on the Insert tab. Then, also on the Insert tab, click on the Shapes button, and select the freeform shape tool. There are two main ways to draw using the freeform shape tool in PowerPoint. 1. Press and hold your mouse: Use this technique to draw an illustration freehand. This option is best for people who are comfortable drawing and have a pretty steady hand on their mouse (or access to a graphic tablet). 2. Press and release your mouse: Use this technique to draw an illustration one point at a time. This option is best for those of you who (like me!) are not comfortable drawing freehand. It allows you to create a shape by connecting a series of points. But you don’t have to choose one or the other; you can actually combine these two methods while drawing the same shape. It’s up to you to decide what works best! To create a closed shape, continue drawing until you are back to your starting point. To create an open-ended shape (or a line), double-click at any point to exit the freeform shape tool. Edit Points Once you’ve finished drawing your shape, you can fine-tune it by editing each individual point. To do that, just right-click on the shape and select Edit Points: When you’re in Edit Points mode, you can see all the places you clicked to create your shape and adjust them as needed. To move a point, just click on it and drag it to the place you want it to be. If you want, you can take it a step further by right-clicking on a point and choosing one of the following options: Add point: If you messed up when you were drawing your shape, you can add in extra points afterwards and position them as needed instead of starting over from scratch. Delete Point: If you want to get rid of an unneeded point. Open Path (if it’s closed): If instead of a closed shape, you want to create an open-ended path, choose this option to unlink the first and last points you drew. Close Path (if it’s open): If you meant to create a closed shape, but accidentally created an open path, choose this option to link the first and last points you drew. Smooth Point: To make a point more rounded, choose Smooth Point or Straight Point. When you choose Smooth Point, the handles on the point will stick out straight, instead of forming a corner. When you drag on one side of the handle, the other side will automatically adjust, creating a symmetrical curve. By playing with the length and angle of these handles, you can change the shape of the curve. Straight Point: This option also makes your point rounded, but this time you’ll notice that the handles work independently, meaning that if you drag on one side of the handle, the other side of the handle doesn’t move. This allows you to create an asymmetrical curve. Corner Point: By default, all the points on your shape are corner points. If you change your point to a smooth or a straight point and aren’t satisfied with how it looks, choose this option to revert to the default setting. By adjusting your points, you can smooth out your drawing considerably, as you can see in the before and after photos below: Before After Format Shape Once your shape looks exactly the way you want, you can hide the image you used to trace your shape and change the color as needed. If need be, you can draw another freeform shape or use a combination of default shapes to complete your illustration. For this example, you could create a cell phone out of a combination of shapes. Start by inserting a rectangle with rounded edges to make up the base of your phone: Now, as you can see, the part of the thumb is now hidden by the phone. To make it look like the thumb is on top of the phone, add a second rectangle with rounded edges that starts below the thumb and goes until the bottom of the phone, like this: Now, right-click on the first rectangle you created and select Send to Back. Your illustration should now look like this: Now repeat this process with two gray rectangles with square edges to create your screen: Finally, insert a circle for the camera, a rounded-edge square for the speaker, and a rounded-edge square for the home button of the phone. Here’s what your finished illustration should look like: And there you have it! Thanks to PowerPoint, you can create your own custom illustrations without being a professional illustrator. Thirsty for more PowerPoint illustration tips? Check out these tutorials: Creating Custom Shapes in PowerPoint How I Created These Handy People Icons in Powerpoint Did you enjoy this article? Be sure tosubscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter).5 Visual Design Tips for Gamified E-Learning
Whether you’re trying to spice up your e-learning by addinga dynamicelement like a branching scenario, or you’re designing a complex andimmersive interaction, good content design is undeniably the foundation for creating agreat learning experience. But at the end of the day, having great content that’s well written and structured is only half the battle; you also need strong visual design to connect the dots for your learners. This is particularly true for gamifying e-learning. That’s because many of the fundamental game design elements identified by Dr. Karl Kapp—engagement, mastery, autonomy, and progression—are more compelling (and effective) when the visual design of your project rises to the occasion,plunging learners into the experienceand supporting them as they achieve the goals of the course. So how can you make sure your visual design is enhancing your great content and not distracting from it? Here are five tips to keep in mind: Tip #1: Look to Your Content to Help You Find a Visual "Hook" Just like a writer uses words to give their material a “hook”—that little something that entices the reader and pulls them into the story—your content can help you come up with a visual or a motif that draws your audience into the learning experience. Check out one example of using creative visuals to "hook" your learnersin The Bicycle Thief, byNancy Woinoski. In Nancy’s interpretation of the detective genre, she uses a colorfully illustrated treatment tograb learners and bring them into her story. Instead of the edgy vintage feelso often associated with detective stories,Nancy'ssubject matter isa little more playful, with a visual treatment to match. Drawing inspiration from your contentcan help you identify familiar visual hooks and then narrow in on a distinct interpretation of those motifs. For more pointers on applying game elements and techniques to your e-learning, check out Gamification Techniques: How to Apply Them to E-Learning. Tip #2: Add More Visual Cohesion with Typography When it comes to creating a cohesive visual design, don’t stop at graphics! Above and beyond conveying information to the learner, typography plays a huge role in conveying the mood and personality of your design. Have a fun, lighthearted subject? Consider using fonts that complement the mood with a whimsical or casual flair. Script or handwriting fonts are great examples of fonts you can use for conveying a more relaxed mood. Exploring a more serious topic? Stick with fonts that are less decorative and more clean and straightforward in their styling, like Open Sans (a sans-serif font) or Rockwell (a serif font). For one example of coordinating font personality with the subject matter, take a look at this gamified grocery-themed drag & drop download.It uses aneasy-to-read handwriting font, Patrick Hand, as body text and combines it with a more stylized scripted font, Pacifico, for headings. These two fonts not only complement the grocery store theme by referencing the trend of grocery store chalkboard art, but they also scale well andare pretty easy to read. This brings up an important caveat when choosing typefaces: readability always trumps style. The initial typeface I chose for my body text was a little more elaborate and less readable than I wanted, so I ended up replacing it with Patrick Hand. If the typeface you’ve fallen in love with just doesn’t scale or is too hard to read, you may be better off using a less stylized font, or reserving that more stylized choice for accent text. Tip #3: Design Consistent and Intuitive Navigation With all of the lovely visuals you can use to bring a more game-like feel to your e-learning, it can be easy to lose sight of basics like navigation buttons. Butbuttons need love, too! Having clear and intuitive navigation is especially important for gamified e-learning because it’s often nonlinear, which means clicking the “Next” button probably isn’t going to move you through the course. And, added to the increased navigational complexity of gamified e-learning is the visual complexity that a richer design brings. All of that visual input can leave learners feeling overwhelmed or confused about where to click. So how do you create a visual design with navigation that’s styled to be on-theme, consistent, and intuitive? Try using contrast and repetition. Contrast Creating contrast in onscreen elements is important because it helps learners distinguish between screen objects. In short, contrast is all about catching the learner’s eye. You can create contrast in many different ways, including varying the sizes, weights, or styles of text to denote hierarchy and add emphasis. You can also create contrast with color or hue to draw attention to specific onscreen objects or text, as I’ve done in the Creative Tabs template example below. Repetition Repetition is all about repeating elements so the learner doesn’t have to put a lot of thought into finding or figuring out how to interact with objects like navigation buttons. For instance, style navigation buttons or icons in a way that’s similar to the rest of your graphic elements and then stick with that styling throughout the course. You can also save learners from having to hunt for where to clickbyplacing navigation buttons in the same spotthroughout the course. For an example of both contrast and repetition of navigation, check out this job interview simulation created by Nicole Legault. I love how Nicole chose to use a grayscale background to make her interviewer, Erica, stand out. And using contrast also makes the progress meter at the bottom pop (more on that in a moment ...). She also cleverly placed everything on the left so that within the first few screens, you’ve established a mental rhythm of sorts, instinctively directing your attention to the left for the next piece of feedback or to see more choices. Using stylized, consistent, and intuitive navigation is one of the easiest things you can do to create a more cohesive and immersive experience for learners. If you’d like to learn more about it, David Anderson wrote a fantastic article, 3 Essential Visual Design Concepts,that walks through all of the basics. Tip #4: Use Interactive Video When it comes to pulling learners into a setting or a situation and allowing them some free rein to explore and maybe even experience the consequences of their choices, it’s tough to beat the emotional impact and engagement of interactive video. It’s one of the best visual design tools in your gamification arsenal! That’s because in typical e-learning courses, video is more often used as a way to lecture learners rather than engage them in a conversation or an activity. But with interactive video, you can introduce a cast of characters, set the stage for an activity, or let learners choose their own adventure and learn from their mistakes along the way. The creative possibilities are endless. Check outthree clever ways you can use interactive videoin this free download. Tip #5: Visually Show the Learner's Progress As I mentioned at the beginning, one of the foundational elements of gamification is progression. A visual indicator of progress helps learners see how they’re doing and how much further they have to go before achieving mastery. You can see this concept on display in this delightfully animated example from Steve Andrews. By using game elements like a time limit and a question count to show the learner their progress, this engaging quizmakes identifyingyour own unconscious bias a fun and motivating experience. What are your e-learning visual design challenges? Share them with us in the comments and we’ll chime in with some community brainpower! And while you’re at it, follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.Create Color Tints and Shades with This PowerPoint Template
Hey gang, I want to share a neat tip with you for creating custom color tints and shades using PowerPoint. Typically, a color palette begins with a single base color. Then, you broaden the range of that color with tints and shades to create your color palette. This template will help you quickly create those tints and shades. For the most part, tints are made by adding white to the base color. The more white you add, the lighter you make your base. Shades, on the other hand, are created by adding black to your base color. The more black you add, the darker your base. I set up this simple template in PowerPoint to help you create tints and shades from a single base color. Here's a quick overview of how the template works: Can you take a look at this template, play around with it, and let me know what you think? I'm sure you’ll have some ways to make this even more usable, but I wanted to push this out to you guys and get your feedback. Thanks!How to Fill Text with an Image in PowerPoint
Have you ever seen a text with an image fill, like this one, and said to yourself, “I wish I could do that”? Well, I have some good news. If you have PowerPoint, you can! Just follow the six simple steps below. 1. Add Combine Shapes Tool to Your PowerPoint Ribbon If you haven’t already, the first thing you’ll need to do is add the Combine Shapes tool to your PowerPoint ribbon. Check out this tutorial to see how to do that. 2. Insert a Background Image The next thing you’ll need to do is find and insert the image you want to use as the fill for your text. For this kind of project, it’s best to choose an image that’s easily recognizable. 3. Insert & Format Your Text The third step is to insert your text. Once your text is inserted, you’ll need to choose a font. I recommend using a bold font so that more of the image is visible. Then, increase the size and boldness of the font as desired. Finally, position your text on the part of the image you want to appear as the fill. In this example, I’m going to move the text over a little so that no green shows through. 4. Insert a Rectangle Next, insert a rectangle that’s the same size as the image. In my case, the rectangle covers the whole slide. Then, right-click on the rectangle, select Send to Back, and choose Send Backward. Your text should now appear on top of the rectangle. 5. Combine Your Rectangle and Your Text Now select your text, followed by your rectangle, click on Merge Shapes, and select Combine. At this point, your rectangle should have taken on the color of your text, and the place where the text was should be transparent. If you try and move your text, you’ll notice that the rectangle is still independent of the image, like in the screenshot below. If you don’t like the part of the image that’s showing through, move the rectangle around until you’re satisfied with the result. If you don’t need the image and the text to be a single object, then you can stop here. If you do, then move on to step 6. 6. Subtract the Image from the Text Select both the image and the rectangle, and then click on Merge Shapes and select Subtract. The image and text should now be combined in one object, like in the screenshot below. If you’re following these steps and the result doesn’t look quite right, try selecting your objects in the reverse order. Now you can go ahead and add any other text or images around it to finish off the look you’re going for. And you’re all set! Want to learn more tips and tricks for creating graphics in PowerPoint? Check out the tutorials below: Guide to Creating Illustrations in PowerPoint for People Who Don’t Know How to Draw Creating Custom Shapes in PowerPoint How I Created These Handy People Icons in PowerPoint And if you’re on the lookout for beautiful, royalty-free images, be sure to check out Content Library 360, the library of 10.3+ million assets that comes with an Articulate 360 subscription. Click here to start your 30-day free trial. Like this article? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter).Making Built-In PowerPoint Templates Your Own
Here you are again at the beginning of a new e-learning project, staring at a blank slide and wondering how on earth you’re going to come up with yet another unique look and feel for your course. I’ve been there, and have just the solution to your blank-slide woes: built-in templates! Before you groan, hear me out. I’m not saying you should take these templates and use them as is, but rather take them and make them your own. Not sure where to start? Check out this easy six-step process and you’ll be on the road to success! 1. Choose a Built-In Template Start by selecting a built-in template whose general background appeals to you. Try to disregard the colors, as you can easily adapt them. Remember, you can change any aspect of the template that you don’t like. 2.Define the Theme Colors Once you’ve selected a starting built-in template, you’ll want to adapt the colors. To do so, simply open the slide master via the View tab, and click on Create New Theme Colors in the Colors drop-down menu. Depending on the project, you may or may not have a predefined color palette. If you do, go ahead and use it to create your new theme colors. If you don’t, try doing a key-word search on the internet to see what colors others associate with the topic of your course. Still not inspired? Play around with this color wheel to see which colors look nice together, or check out the examples hub on E-Learning Heroes. Once you’ve adapted the theme colors to your liking, choose a name for your new color palette and click Save. The default template is then automatically adjusted according to the new theme colors. If you like your new template as is, you can stop here. If not, you have two options: go back and change the colors in your theme or manually change the colors of the background objects. 3. Add, Delete, or Hide Background Objects At this stage, you can choose to add, delete, or hide certain objects to achieve a slightly different look. I recommend activating the Selection Pane to easily hide or unhide objects on the screen without permanently deleting them. Notice that when you click on an object on the screen, it is highlighted in the Selection Pane. In this example, I’d like to hide all the background objects so that my background is a solid color. To do so, I simply select the group of objects and click on the eye icon in the Selection Pane. Note that the Title Slide Layout is generally slightly different than the rest of the slide layouts. If you make changes to this layout, be sure to go back and apply those changes to the main slide master (the top slide) as well, so that it is automatically applied to the rest of the slide layouts. 4. Change the Background Style The next thing you can do to adapt your template is to change the background style. You can either choose one of the default options or click on Format Background to personalize the background style. Make sure the master slide (the top slide) is selected when you change the background style, so your changes are automatically applied to all the slide layouts. 5. Choose the Theme Font(s) Once you’re done editing the background graphics, you can move on to text formatting. Here, you have two options: choose from the default font themes or create your own. The advantage of creating your own is that you can choose a different font for title text and body text. For more tips on choosing the right fonts for your course, I encourage you to read these articles: 5 Questions to Ask When Choosing Fonts for E-Learning 5 Important Elements of Typography My 4 Favorite Free Fonts for E-Learning As soon as you save, the changes are applied to your template. 6. Test Drive Your New Template Now that you’re all done, go ahead and close the Slide Master view and try adding some actual content to your new template. When you do so, you may find that you want to make some minor adjustments. For example, you might find the size is too large or the background graphics don’t give you enough space for your content. No problem! Simply go back to the Slide Master view and tweak your template. I recommend doing this for a couple of slides before applying your new template to your entire course. This will allow you to get a feel for how well your template fits your content—without waiting until you’re 40 slides in to realize you need a different template. And there you have it: in a matter of minutes, a totally different-looking template created from a built-in PowerPoint template! Next time you’re feeling uninspired, remember that those built-in templates can easily be adapted to fit your needs. And the end result will be so different that no one has to know you started with a template. If you like my template, you’re in luck! You can download it here. Here are some other good resources to check out if you’re new to course design or if you’d simply like to take your skills to the next level: How Do I Choose a Design for My E-Learning Course? Your Ultimate Guide to Choosing Graphics for E-Learning 5 Graphic Design Mistakes Newbies Make and How to Avoid Them 5 Ways to Look Like an E-Learning Design Pro (Even If You’re Not!) Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter. And if you have questions, please share them in the comments.
