Our Design team is made up of quite an eclectic bunch, each with their own individual style. But they all have one thing in common: design is their calling. They’ve always known that they would go down the route of design, drawing, art, etc.
Today we’ll introduce you to the Design team that’s behind all the templates you find in Genially. By the way, if you haven’t seen their latest creations yet, don’t miss out; they’re amazing! You can see them here.
We sat down with the whole team so they could tell us about the challenges they face when creating templates, where they get their inspiration from, their creative style, etc. Ah, and what their favorite templates are. This is what they told us.
The brain behind the best gamification templates is Javi
Javi is the team’s lead designer. He studied graphic design, and is very happy he made that decision. ‘I was hooked. Although I don’t think you necessarily need to know how to draw to be a designer, I think it’s an important advantage.’
Though he tries to be versatile, Javi tends towards an informal style that’s a great fit with the educational community. His favorite creations are the gamifications and says he likes to make geniallys as creative as possible. It’s not hard to take him at his word; he’s brought us some of the coolest escape room templates, like this breakout, for example.
Javi has some advice for anyone who works in design: ‘I adore Photoshop and I adore Genially, and the 2 tools make the perfect duo. I find I make the best progress by creating my illustrations in Photoshop, saving them as PNG files, uploading to Genially, and then animating them, and that’s it! I recommend working with the Genially/Photoshop pairing because they work great together and enhance your creations.’
Javi confesses he’s somewhat of a cinema geek, and that it’s his main source of inspiration. In all his templates there are hidden cinema elements all around: we challenge you to find them! He also likes pop culture and makes lots of references to memes. ‘I tend to make a collage of references, drawing on my different areas of interest; I take one thing from here, another from there, and mix everything together to make my own version’. He likes to get the most out of the tool, and he sure knows how to do it!
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Diego, the creator of the best corporate templates
Diego has always been fascinated by the world of advertising. Ads have always caught his attention, and he loves logos and fonts, posters, signs, etc. Following his passions, he studied advertising graphics and graphic design.
‘My style is digital and corporate; more editorial. I almost always create presentations, reports, business proposals, dossiers, guides, or personal branding templates. I also make vertical posts, which work better on mobile’.
Diego says that inspiration is everywhere, in the street, on TV, in ads… When he needs inspiration to create a new template, he investigates on design blogs, Behance, Dribble, and other similar places. He likes to research new trends in typography and shapes, and play with images. He dedicates a lot of time to combining fonts that work well together and complement an image, adjusting them to the topic and audience they’re meant for.
‘It’s such a pleasure to work on this team, and I love making templates. The templates have to be user-friendly and must be created from the point of view of the person who will be using them. It’s quite a challenge, and I love it!’
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Genially’s kids’ illustrations have Almudena’s name all over them
Almu has always drawn non-stop; her best grades were always in art. One of her teachers insisted she go on to study something related to illustration and art, and that helped her decide to do just that. She studied graphic design and creative advertising.
‘I love my work; being able to work as an illustrator is very rewarding.’
She has always loved animated movies, from Disney, Pixar, etc. and they often serve as inspiration for her. For example, her medieval presentation was inspired by Sleeping Beauty, and the Egypt one by the film The Prince of Egypt. She also gets ideas from Pinterest or places like Behance and Dribble.
In addition to her graphic design knowledge, she is familiar with the world of advertising and marketing. ‘Graphic design helps with the execution, but you need marketing knowledge for the strategy’.
At work, she makes use of all the tools (Photoshop, Illustrator, Genially). For every template, she creates a moodboard with the colors, fonts, reference images, etc. to define the graphic style.
The kind of templates she likes to create are the ones aimed at a young audience. ‘I love games; they’re really simple to create but at the same time require a lot of creativity.’
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The templates with a healthy helping of fantasy are Sandra’s work
For Sandra, getting to work in design has been a long and arduous process. She studied illustration and design. She considers herself fortunate because in Genially she can put both into practice. ‘To me, that’s very lucky. It took a while, but it was worth it. Now, all my efforts make sense.’ She tells us that when she was creating her first template, she started to realize why she’d studied graphic design.
Her creative style is based on illustration; she likes to make designs as fun and joyful as possible, with a hint of fantasy. She gets lots of inspiration from Pinterest, but also reinvents memories, books, films, etc.
‘Since I’ve been using Genially, it’s opened my mind a lot and I get lots more ideas. One of my favorite expressions says: ‘Teamwork makes big dreams come true’. And now I feel like that; being part of a good team means that we create great things.’
Her challenge to herself is to get to the point where she is so skilled at something that everyone knows they can rely on her to do it. And she’s definitely there!
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Nora’s templates are a feat of versatility
For Nora, inspiration is all around us. From the most everyday things, like a sign you see in the street, to the color palette of a film. She also uses internet searches and follows artists she likes on social media. ‘Creativity, design, art…they’re everywhere. You just have to pay attention.’
She tells us that she, too, has always known she wanted to work in art. ‘I’ve always liked creative and artistic activities, and I also have a very logical and calculating side. I was looking for a way to combine these 2 extremes. For me, graphic design is the perfect combination of the artistic and technical.’
The style of Nora’s templates is very versatile; she likes to use lots of different styles. Maybe that’s why her role has always been very focused on creating content for different clients. She is a fan of a sleek style that fits well with corporate content, and also of retro and vintage aesthetics, which is the style she leans towards when illustrating.
‘Before I start creating a template, I like to have a very clear idea in my head of what I want to do; I think it all up first and then execute it. I try to work comprehensively so that all the parts are consistent with one another, and overcome the challenge of getting the illustrations to fit into the layout.’ That might be why she loves creating presentations and infographics. And she’s an ace at it!
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Simple, well structured, and very visual: those are Rafa’s templates
‘All my life I’ve loved drawing, fine arts, design…’ Sounds familiar, right?
Rafa studied marketing, a degree he enjoyed but in which he didn’t get much chance to develop his creative side. That’s why he went on to study graphic design. He traveled to the Netherlands and South Korea, where he was opened up to very enriching perspectives.
‘My creative style is pure graphic design, without illustration. Shapes, colors, contrasts, etc. I like the hierarchy of information and structuring the information in the templates.’
Rafa claims to be a trend victim; he’s always looking for inspiration in the everyday worlds of Instagram and Pinterest. He’s very observant and likes to find the essence of things. His creative process includes creating a moodboard, gathering the different elements until he lands on the idea he’s after. From there he starts designing and creating resources, while staying true to the principle ‘less is more’.
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No one can say no to the designs and illustrations of Virginia’s templates
Virginia always keeps a notebook handy to doodle in. ‘My mother says that when I was 3 years old I was already coloring inside the lines. I’ve been drawing all my life.’
She studied illustration and graphic design, which she says was a great discovery for her. ‘I’m a designer, and my hobby is illustration. At Genially I can combine both, drawing and designing. That makes me happy.’
Her creative process for each template starts with a sketch. Her style involves quite innocent and childlike illustrations but with a somewhat serious touch. She assures us that drawing is like therapy.
One of her biggest successes in Genially was the redesign of the animated chalkboard template, which is now in the top 5 most used templates.
She gets inspiration from other similar templates, on Behance (where she finds some amazing things), and sometimes on Pinterest. ‘I look for inspiration in different fields: illustration, photography, color palettes, etc. and 1 thing leads me to another.’
Since she discovered Genially, she’s been using the tool non-stop. ‘When I started working with it I discovered that you can design really cool things; it offers lots of possibilities to people who work in design, and with simple resources. Being able to add interactivity and animation, add your own GIFs, etc. is great. And it’s also really convenient to be able to share your portfolio with a single link.’
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Favorite geniallys:
The Sex Ed Collection: presentation, quiz, and game.
And who coordinates the creation of the Genially templates? Estefanía
There could be no one better than Estefanía to coordinate this kaleidoscope of artists. With a background in marketing and design, years ago she discovered she’s fascinated by team management. She loves it, and says it really motivates her. And, when you like something, you’re good at it.
In order to find out the template needs of our community, Estefanía’s main source are the insights which we get from the people that use Genially, although she also researches online to stay up to date with trends. ‘Our community sends us template suggestions, and we get ideas from there. A bit of research and checking out the competition also provides us with the information we need to turn these suggestions into Genially templates.’
If you ask her what the biggest challenge she faces at work is, she doesn’t hesitate for a second: the psychological management of the team. Of course you have to have psychological knowledge and sensitivity, and know the people who make up the team well, to be able to help them to overcome any crises or mental blocks, and to keep the creative wheels turning.
