Behind the Design Weekly Series: Sketching the Digital Planner pages | Episode 4
Welcome back, The Pink Ink® community! This is Behind the Design, a weekly series for aspiring entrepreneurs and creatives where we document the process of building a digital planner business from scratch. We’re following Claudia, a student of The Pink Ink’s Digital Planner Academy®, and we welcome you to implement her weekly strategies alongside her.
This past week we started into the inspiration process, which involved searching for ideas and aesthetics through mood boards, Pinterest, and milestones to planner in the Digital Planner Academy. We’ve covered niche research, mapping out the signature process, creating mood boards, and now we’re ready for the next step!
Our topic for this week features sketching out the planner pages and getting started with the tangible design. Get ready to let out your creativity as we take the inspiration from last week and turn it into an outline for your planner. We’ll observe Claudia as she uses Affinity Publisher and the Concepts app to turn her ideas into reality.
This Week’s Goal
This week, Claudia is focusing on sketching out the planner pages, which is a fun step that encourages creativity. She’s focused on creating an outline to provide a more structured overview of what the end result will look like. We won’t be getting into details of colors and exact wording, but creating an outline will provide clarity and get us prepared for those details..
To help her stay on track and gain an outside perspective on the planner, Claudia scheduled another weekly call with Shay, who offered further insights and asked some clarifying questions. She helped Claudia fill in gaps to what she was missing and what could be added, which Claudia said was very helpful.
If you’re following along on the design journey, we recommend finding a community to support and guide you along the way. Our Digital Planner Academy® offers great resources, mentors, and peers to fill in the gaps on your own planner. You’re not alone in this process!
This Week’s Accomplishment
Claudia has accomplished this week’s goal of sketching out her planner pages through the Concepts App, which can be easily downloaded on your iPad and provides free creative tools that can be used to create a variety of designs. You can make your document as big as you want, draw on any section, and zoom in and out to focus on details or the overview.
She used the free version of the app this week, which worked well for basic tools, but Claudia is thinking about upgrading to unlock more resources such as the lasso tool. For now, she’s been using the rectangle tool to envision her planner page structure and then duplicates it for each page.
You can see in the video that Claudia has come up with a variety of design layouts, all inspired from other planners, mood boards, and her own ideas. Referencing current planners can be a great way to learn the market trends and gain ideas that will work for your audience– just remember, don’t copy!
Claudia also accomplished setting up the template page on Affinity Publisher, along with adding fonts, styles, and the color palette. Next week, she plans on digitizing her sketches and using the Digital Planner Design Mastery Course to ensure she correctly follows the steps to make the process efficient.
Takeaway
Today’s episode covered lots of information, but offered some easy-to-understand tips and methods of getting started with design. Claudia went into detail about how she sketched out planner pages, which provides helpful, realistic steps for those of us following along.
One major takeaway was her process, which started at the beginning with the cover and then included the index and each weekly/monthly page. It helped Claudia get into the flow of going through the planner from start to end, and allowed her to envision the experience of a customer.
Claudia also decided on using Affinity Publisher, which is a great choice for a design program as it features comprehensive tools and a seamless interface. We’ll go more in-depth on Affinity Publisher next week!
As you follow along with Claudia in the design process, we encourage you to reach out for support and guidance from The Pink Ink community. Our mentors from the Digital Planner Academy® are here to cheer you on with each step! To keep up-to-date with Behind the Design, sign up for announcements and our newsletter. We’ll see you next week!
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About The Pink Ink®
At The Pink Ink®, we’ve turned our own digital planner business into a successful enterprise that now teaches others to do the same. Shay established The Pink Ink® in 2018 as one of the first digital planner sellers on Etsy and grew it to help aspiring designers to create, launch, and market their planners to create passive income and diversify revenue streams. Within 2 weeks, her store made its first sale, and within 2 months, it covered Shay’s full-time income!
With our experience and knowledge, we want to watch others reach financial freedom in their own lives and experience the benefits of running an online shop for themselves and loved ones. To read our full story, check out The Pink Ink’s About Us page.
About The Digital Planner Academy® Hybrid Program
The Digital Planner Academy Hybrid Program is designed to teach other entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners how to create their own digital planners through design software and real-world advice from mentors. We walk students through the process of creating and selling their own digital product from beginning to end with a goal of helping you reach financial freedom.
Every year, we do updates on our customers’ needs and shifts in online business. In 2023, we turned this into a hybrid program where you not only get access to video lessons, but you also receive 1:1 feedback and support from The Pink Ink® team, whether for general support, design ideas, or initial launch.
If you’re ready to get started in building your digital planner business, check out our blog The Digital Planner Academy® Program - the Best Online Course for Aspiring Digital Planner Business Owners and follow along with our weekly Behind the Design series.
The Purpose of This Weekly Series
What exactly is Behind the Design and why did we create it?
Shay was once an aspiring business owner, so she understands the stressful process of building a company from the ground up. Especially as one of the first in her niche, Shay paved the way for other business owners and picked up valuable skills that she now shares with others. She hopes to ignite creativity and help others do the same.
The best way to accomplish this is by demonstrating how it’s done through a step-by-step process– and what better way than to watch an entrepreneur reach success in real-time? There’s potential challenges that lie in the path of any creative individual – it’s inevitable – but it’s important to overcome these obstacles. Following another designer provides motivation to overcome these challenges, practical guidance and advice, and realistic steps and expectations.
Getting started is often the hardest part, but it’s never too late. In fact, now’s the perfect time! Take this opportunity to take the first step and build your business alongside Claudia. You’ll learn so much through this process, and you’ll reap the rewards of hard work and dedication. Let’s take that first leap together!
Join Us on an Adventure
With a goal to empower individuals to unlock their true creative potential like Claudia is doing, The Pink Ink® team is excited to see where this series leads. We invite you to join us on this exciting adventure and take grasp of the unique opportunity provided. With Claudia and The Pink Ink® members at your side, you have the tools and support to achieve success.
To stay up to date with each piece of the series, you can sign up to receive weekly email updates. We’re looking forward to the insights and creativity that each week offers, and we’re excited to welcome you into our community!