Want to create amazing designs with minimal effort? If you’re a designer, this post will brighten up your day.
Hi, I’m Javi, Lead Designer at Genially, and I want to tell you how you can speed up your everyday creative tasks by combining Genially with the programs you use most, such as Illustrator and Photoshop. What?! You’re still not using Genially? Well then you’re missing out on the best interactive design tool around, which could make things real easy for you. Just try it and you’ll see!
While I’ve got you here, allow me to also introduce you to the team that works with me to design all the Genially templates and some of their favorite creations. They’re sure to inspire you.
So, as I was saying: using Photoshop with Genially will help you to create designs much more quickly. I’ll also talk a little about the various possible integrations of Genially with other design applications that will help you get better results in less time. Let’s dive in!
3 practical ways to combine Genially with your favorite design programs
1. Animate each element of your creation separately
Adding different animation effects to each element of your illustration can have many applications. For example, imagine you want to do an Instagram story or a GIF for Twitter. You could do it using After Effects, but why go through the hassle?! It’ll take you much less time if you use Genially’s animations.
First, you create your resources in Photoshop (or another graphic design program such as Illustrator or Procreate), and save them as PNG files so they’ll have transparency. Then, create a genially and adjust the size of the canvas to the measurements you need depending on the social network. Finally, upload your resources from your Photoshop folder to your genially and add the animation effects.
As we also mentioned in this post about design tips, one of Genially’s characteristics that most helps make your life easier if you work in design is just how easy it is to add animation. In just a few clicks you can add entrance, zoom, and pulsating animation effects, and many more. Like I said: amazing designs in the blink of an eye.
Working in layers in Photoshop or other similar programs allows you to manage the different elements of the drawing separately. This comes in handy when uploading the illustration to Genially; you can save the elements one by one, insert them in your genially, and animate them all independently. When you get them all moving, you’ll have the desired WOW effect.
If you then want to do an Instagram story or a GIF for Twitter, you can download your creation as an MP4. In no time at all you’ll have an awesome gif or video for your story. Easy as pie!
Learn how to surprise with interactive storyboards at Genially Academy
Although After Effects has a lot of animation options, the learning curve is quite steep and you need to know your way around the app well in order to get good results. And the process is much slower.
‘Creating the resources in Photoshop, animating them in Genially, and downloading your creation as an MP4 is a quick and practical way to create videos;I use that trick every day’.
2. Improve your visibility on any social media or platform
A genially can be shared anywhere: on a blog, website, LMS, ecommerce site, or on social media, and places like Behance.
Behance integrates really well with Genially. You can use both tools together to make your work stand out much more. For example, you can create your portfolio with Genially and insert it in Behance. Demonstrate your creative process in an interactive way; add all kinds of multimedia (videos, audios, GIFs, etc), and format with total freedom.
When you’ve got your genially all ready, you just need to copy the code and paste it in Behance or wherever you want to display your creation; the interactivity and animation effects will work anywhere. Here’s an example by one of Genially’s designers.
It’s super practical for anyone who works in design to combine this characteristic of Genially with the vertical templates to create your social link, which also look great on mobile. Haven’t seen them? This is one of our favorites, but there are lots more:
‘Anyone who works in a creative field and uses social media can get a lot from the social link templates. There are other tools, like Linktree, for grouping links, but Genially is the one with the most editing possibilities, versatility, and personality.’
Learn more about Interactive Visual Communication, the key to engaging your audience
3. Integrate GIFS without backgrounds in your creations
GIFs are great resources for animating any kind of content and making it very current. They’re very expressive, always on trend, and can very easily go viral. They also enhance interactivity. That’s why they’re used so much. I’m sure you use them all the time in your designs!
Sometimes you don’t want to make your own GIF because you haven’t got time or because you want to use one you like in Giphy. Did you know there’s a Giphy search option integrated in Genially?
And not only that. In Genially, there’s also a feature that helps speed things up even more: GIFs with transparent background. If you activate this option, you can scroll through only the GIFs with the backgrounds already removed to find the one you want. You can also enter keywords in the search bar to find related GIFs.
Found the GIF you want? Now you can integrate it into your image and add depth. Remember to group both elements if you want them to function as one when viewing the genially.
‘The GIFs with transparent backgrounds are very easy to find in Genially. You can add them to your image however you like; the result looks like a sticker. And as well as the animation the GIF has, you can add other Genially effects: for entrance, exit, or hover. For example, one that works really nicely is the ‘appear’ effect applied to the type of animation that’s activated when you hover your mouse over something.’
Can you think of any more ways to get the most out of these tips to create amazing designs? If you share them in the comments, the whole community will be able to put them into practice. Now you can start to speed up your day to day work with these great tips. What are you going to do with all that free time?
