Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Designing TpT Product Covers - Color



I have to admit, sometimes I'm a little color challenged.  When we painted our deck I chose the color "espresso".  My husband's office is painted "peanut butter" and I'm pretty sure there is some "toasted almond" somewhere in this house.  So...  as you can see, I pretty much choose colors based on my favorite foods.

So, when it comes to designing my product covers for Teachers Pay Teachers, I needed a little help.  Luckily, while browsing the TpT forum, I hit upon a thread that really changed the way I work with color.

With the help of design-seeds.com and Pinterest, my product covers have a lot more POP!



I'm currently participating in a 4 week TpT Seller Challenge put on by Third in Hollywood and a few of her friends.  Week #1's challenge was "Makeover Madness!"  I decided to do a "makeover" on one of my best selling products: 

I created this resource early in my experience as a TpT seller.  I wasn't yet wise to the wonderful world of fonts and my experience with borders was my own hand drawn ones that I scanned onto my computer.  Time for a MAKE-OVER!

This product is part of a bundle and each resource in the bundle had a different colored cover page.

Originally, I wanted to keep the colors the same so I went in search of pink "Design Seeds" on Pinterest.


If you haven't been introduced to Design Seeds yet, trust me...  you'll get lost in them.  There are so many choices.  I finally chose this one:


I love the colors here.  Vibrant and a bit earthy.  Nothing too wild, yet eye-catching!  

The next thing I did was copy the image and add it to the PowerPoint page where I was working on my cover. 
Now, when choosing colors for my background and fonts, I chose "more colors" and then used my dropper tool to pick up the colors from the Design Seed.  

You can find Non-Fiction Text Structure HERE at a discount through Saturday (6/20)!  Only $3.00!   

Here is my cover after the make-over!  I not only have coordinating colors, but I also added my new logo and a photograph from my classroom taken while my students were studying nonfiction texts.

Here is the BEFORE and AFTER!  What do you think?  I'm actually really happy with it and can't wait to update the other three products in the bundle!

I also update the fonts and borders throughout the resource:

BEFORE - hard to read 

AFTER - more clear and border is neater

BEFORE - black and white, same font issue

AFTER- I added copies of each of the posters with a color border option.  Some buyer like a little color.  I didn't want to add too much as I know that colored ink costs and arm and a leg! 
So, there you have it!  An easy way to coordinate colors on your TpT products and other designs!  I hope this little tidbit makes designing your covers a bit more fun and makes your life a a lot easier!

Until next time!
{Hey!  For more tips and ideas find me on Facebook , Instagram, and Pinterest!} 




8 comments:

  1. That orange on the new cover really stands out and catches my attention. I think the redesign is a definite success.
    Sheri :)

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  2. What a GREAT idea to choose a design seed from Pinterest!! I don't feel like I am good at choosing colors to go together, so I will definitely have to try this out! Thanks! Also, your makeover is outstanding!!

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  3. Where do you find the dropper tool? I have PowerPoint 2010 and can't find it anywhere.

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    1. Hi Sharon. I have PowerPoint for Mac 2011 and the eye dropper tool is found when I am choosing a color and click "more colors". It is in the bottom left hand corner of the panel that pops up. I just did a little research and it looks like 2010 might not have that tool, but there are some work arounds . Here is one of the things I found...
      "Windows versions of PowerPoint (before 2013 preview) don't have an eyedropper to pick up RGB values. The eyedropper mentioned copies the fill line etc and can apply it to another shape but it doesn't easily tell you the RGB of the fill. There's are free tools which will do this though Pixie is the best known and works very well. Instant Eyedropper also does the job,."
      I found this on some of the Microsoft forums.
      Best of luck to you!
      Tammy

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    2. Thanks! I'm going to try these now.

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  4. Wow! These look amazing! Nice job!
    ❀Beth Ann❀
    Taming My Flock of Firsties
    tamingmyflockoffirsties@gmail.com

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  5. Nice makeover and explanation of your work!
    Stephanie
    Applelight Moments By Stephanie

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  6. I just tried this and it totally made the cover I was working on have a much different effect. I love the idea and will use it forever now! Thank you for this fabulous tip!
    Carol
    Teachers Are Terrific!

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