This is a guest post by one of our teacher authors, Katrina Proctor. She is also the Content Manager at Midnight Music.
Overview
Designing your classroom theme sounds easy and yet completely daunting for those who have never done it before. It’s also a HUGE money-maker, as referenced by the hundreds of options available for purchase online and the massive amount of Pinterest boards dedicated to the topic.
But, designing your classroom theme doesn’t have to be elusive. It’s as easy as setting some creative parameters for yourself and then working within your theme!
I’ll walk you through:
- Picking Your Colors
- Choosing Fonts
- Using Canva Brand Kit to Save Time
- Using Canva Templates
- Building New Resources with Similar Thematic Elements
Excited? Me too! Here we go!
Pick Your Colors
The very first thing I want to do before doing ANYTHING else, is to choose my classroom colors. Colors are an often overlooked first-step to designing your classroom theme because they subtly tie everything together. It’s the same thing I was taught with commercial branding– stay true to the palette. The more you can set outer boundary limits, the more creative you can be with details within that boundary.
The other thing we need to focus on when designing a classroom theme’s colors are HEX codes. Don’t panic, it’s nothing scary, it just is a short series of numbers that are going to tell Canva exactly what color to change things to. In general, we’re going to want to choose 2-5 main colors. You’re probably asking yourself, “How do I choose colors that work?” Read on!
My Favorite FREE Color Palette Website
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve used Coolors.co to work on branding, design things for my home office space or to design my classroom. It takes all the guesswork out of color-schemes and gives you all the necessities (HEX codes!) Here’s how it works:
- Click on “Start the Generator”
- Click the spacebar to generate new color schemes.
- Click the “lock” icon when you find a color you like.
- Continue pressing the spacebar until you have a series of colors that you like! Here’s my final result. Notice those letters & numbers at the bottom? Those are your HEX codes. Write these down somewhere or take a screenshot and save to your desktop.
- In Canva, go to “Brand Kit”
- Under, “Brand Colors/Colours” click the plus icon & enter in your first hex code. Continue adding until you have all your colors in Canva.
So why do we go through the trouble of entering in all of these HEX codes into Canva? Trust me, it will make your life 10x easier than constantly referring back to HEX codes all year. Once it’s in Canva, anything you design can be colored just by clicking on your palette.
Pick Your Fonts
If you already have fonts that you love and want to keep (maybe you’ve purchased them from TeachersPayTeachers or Etsy) you’ll just need to upload the .ttf file you purchased to your “Brand Kit”. To do that, just click, “Upload a Font” under your “Uploaded Fonts” section, acknowledge that you acquired the font legally (if you have questions about using a font for classroom use, contact your seller, but most sellers allow classroom use under “Private Use” in that you usually don’t need to purchase an additional license) and then find the .ttf file on your computer and upload. Not sure where to start? Some of the most popular fonts for classrooms are by A Perfect Blend & Amy Groesbeck.
If you don’t have fonts that you want to keep, there are TONS of font options inside of Canva. Here’s what you’ll need to choose:
- Bold, header font (for headings on posters, newsletters, etc.)
- Script Font/Fun Font (for titles around the classroom, teacher nameplates etc.)
- Easy-to-read primary font (what you’ll use 90% of the time when writing newsletters, posters, etc.)
Unlike colors, fonts are more a matter of preference. Don’t worry too much about fonts “matching”. The most important thing to remember is your students must be able to read the words so keep fun/funky/script fonts off of things your students need to be able to understand (ex. Don’t write your classroom rules in a script font etc.)
Once you have your fonts decided, select those in the “Brand Fonts” section in your “Brand Kit”. Note: as of this writing, Canva only allows 3 brand fonts. However, any fonts you upload will also be easily accessible inside of Canva. Here’s what I chose:
Measure Your Spaces
Before we start any project, we first need to set up our Canva workspace size. So get yourself a tape measure and figure out how big your poster/name plate/ banner etc. is going to be. If you’re one of the lucky teachers who has access to a poster printer in your building, figure out what size you need to print things. If you are planning to print a poster at an office-supply store, you will want to download your final image as a “PDF Print” in Canva. This will ensure that you get the best resolution when printed.
To set up your Canva workspace, click on “Create a Design” & set up your image size using pixels, cm, in, etc. For me, I find it most useful to use inches/cm instead of pixels.
Designing a Project with Brand Kit
For my example project, I’ll be making a “Welcome to My Classroom” poster for my classroom door. I’ve already pre-measured and I want the poster to be 18x24inches. I’ve verified that I have a way to print a poster this size too.
I’m going to choose a pre-made Canva template to work from. In the search bar for templates, I’m going to search “Classroom Posters” or “Welcome Posters”
Once I find one I like, I’ll click on it to add it to my workspace.
Next, I’ll change all the colors to my theme colors using Brand Kit. To do this, click on an element (anything in the poster). If you can change the image’s color, you’ll see it in a little square above the image.
Click on the colored square and select one of your “brand colors”
Continue moving through all the elements until your poster is complete! Don’t worry about sticking completely to your brand kit. Neutral background colors/text colors (black, white, grey, beige, etc) are interchangeable, but try to keep pictures & highlights within your color scheme.
And here are some coordinating word-wall signs I made using the “See More Like This” feature which pulls up images that are by the same designer/tag. Just click on an element within your design, click on the “I” above it and select, “See more like this”. Remember, when designing things your students NEED to read, keep your text in your “easy-to-read” font. Your cute/fun font might be more interesting to look at, but it’s less practical if your students have to pause to read it.
Final Thoughts
As you can see the options to design your classroom theme in Canva are truly endless once you set some parameters for yourself and your creativity! Have fun! Want some more inspiration? Here are some more Canva blogs from Midnight Music:
5 More Cool Canva Tricks for Designing Teaching Resources
Our Top 10 Keyboard Shortcuts for Canva for Teachers
9 Cool Canva Tricks for Designing Teaching Resources For Educators
Want even more help? Join Katie Argyle’s Canva Course!
Katie Argyle is opening up another live session of her massively popular Creating Beautiful Teaching Resources with Canva Course to members within the Midnight Music Community starting June 28th, 2021! Click here for more info!
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About the Writer
Katrina Proctor is the Content Manager at Midnight Music and is also a music teacher from Colorado, USA. She has taught middle school music for nearly 10 years in northern Colorado where her passion is low-income students in Title 1 schools. Currently, Katrina teaches 5th-8th grade chorus, advanced-level chorus, class piano, and general music. She has her Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education & Master’s Degree in Music Education-Choral Conducting from the University of Colorado at Boulder. You can connect with Katrina on Facebook or via her website, She The Teacher.
Looking for More Resources for Music Teachers?
Hello! I’m Katie Argyle – an Australian music technology trainer and consultant with a passion for helping music teachers through my business Midnight Music.
I’m a qualified teacher but no, I don’t currently teach in a school. I help teachers through my online professional development space – the Midnight Music Community – where there are tutorial videos, courses, links and downloadable resources.
I like to focus on easy ways to incorporate technology into what you are already doing in your music curriculum through a range of creative projects. I also run live workshops and have presented at countless conferences and other music education events.
If you want simple, effective ideas for using technology in music education, I would LOVE to help you inside the Midnight Music Community.
One Comment
Thank you so much for sharing this article. In this digital era, it is also a must to design your virtual classrooms to encourage students to check their learning portals.