1 · Export / Download
Choose Share → Download, then choose PNG as the file type and download the finished image. PNG works well for this assignment because you are turning in a finished illustration.
Week 3 · September 24, 2026
Relationships on the Page
This week we looked at what happens after elements arrive on the page. Designers make decisions about size, space, proximity, grouping, alignment, hierarchy, balance, and visual weight so the viewer can understand what belongs together and what deserves attention first.
Chalkboard Question
How can empty space be part of a design?
Space is not simply what is left over. It can separate, connect, organize, and give important elements room to be noticed.
Words We Uncovered
Eight ways to look at relationships on a page.
Learn to recognize what each one does to the page. These ideas will keep showing up as your projects become more complex.
Size / Scale
How large or small something feels compared with what surrounds it.
Space
The area around, between, and inside elements. Space can do work.
Proximity
How close or far apart things are.
Grouping
Separate pieces that the eye reads as one unit.
Alignment
Shared edges, centers, or visual lines that create order.
Hierarchy
The order of importance: what you notice first, second, and third.
Balance
How visual weight is distributed across the composition.
Visual Weight
How strongly an element pulls your attention.
The pieces can stay the same while their relationships change what the viewer sees.
Assignment
Canva Avatar: design within the rules.
Use the pieces in the Canva template to build an avatar that represents you. Everyone begins with the same supplied ingredients, but the finished avatars do not have to look the same. You may repeat the provided pieces and edit them to make your own choices, but do not add new design elements from Canva.
The design rule
Work with the items provided on the template page.
You may resize, flip, recolor when Canva allows it, move, layer, align, group, duplicate, and combine the supplied pieces. Choose which provided features best represent you.
Do not replace the assignment by searching Canva for an entirely different ready-made character.
Designers often work with requirements they cannot change. A client may supply a logo, photographs, wording, colors, or other materials. Sometimes the ingredients are already on the table. The design work is in what you do with them.
Open the Canva Avatar Template →ResizeFlipRecolorPositionLayerAlignGroupSpace
Getting Your Work Out of Canva
Three ways to deliver your work.
Export, share, and screenshot are different skills. Learn all three so you have more than one way to get your work where it needs to go.
2 · Share Design
Choose Share, set the access level to Anyone with the link, and choose Can view. Then copy the link. “Can view” lets me see the design without giving me permission to edit your work.
3 · Screenshot
A screenshot captures what is visible on your screen. Use it as another way to show your work, especially if a technical problem keeps you from exporting or sharing.
WindowsSelected screenshot
Win + Shift + S
Press Windows + Shift + S, then drag over the area you want to capture.
MacSelected screenshot
⌘ + Shift + 4
Press Command + Shift + 4, then drag over the area you want to capture.
If Canva asks you to pay, stop. You are not expected to purchase Canva elements for this class or pay to download your projects. That is one reason you are learning three ways to deliver your work. If something prevents you from exporting or sharing, take a screenshot and tell me what happened.
Weekly Preparation
Before our next class
Week 2 Assignment
Send your finished Three Things About Me design to my email using an export, a view-only Canva link, or a screenshot.
Week 3 Assignment
Complete your Canva Avatar using the supplied template pieces. When you are finished, send it to me at least 24 hours before class starts.
One Question to Use While Working
What relationships are helping my viewer understand
this design?
Look beyond whether the page simply looks good. Ask what your size, spacing, grouping, alignment, and visual weight are telling the viewer.
Canva Basics Part 2
Review lesson coming soon.
I am preparing the next Canva Basics lesson to help you review the controls we are beginning to use. It will be added here by Saturday evening or Sunday. You are welcome to get started on the assignment if you already know what you want to create while you wait.