How To Make Your Own Motivational Poster

Thinking of getting a motivational poster to encourage yourself only to be limited by the choices available? In that case, have you ever thought of learning how to make your own motivational poster? Nope, you don't have to be some photoshop guru to be able to do this. In fact, there are a lot of tools widely available online nowadays that allow you to create your own motivational or inspirational poster with just a few mouse clicks. And believe it or not, all of them are free!

Let's get started, shall we?

Power words and phrases have the incredible ability to motivate a person to greater heights. When you constantly surround yourself with such positive sayings, they're inevitably ingrained into your subconscious mind, thereby allowing yourself to be conditioned in a positive manner. That's why, in the first step of making your own motivational posters, it's important to ask yourself, what are the sentences that never fail to pump up your adrenaline whenever you read it?

One of the greatest sources of such motivational phrases are inspirational quotes and sayings by someone. Whether they're from a particular celebrity, a favorite author or even your teachers, friends and family, take a moment to think about it and write them down. For example, if you're planning to create a motivational poster to inspire yourself towards never giving up on your goals, you can write "Determination" as your power word and include a quote from Winston Churchill "Never give in, never give in, Never, Never, Never..".

It's vital that you choose write something that can really invoke your emotions whenever you reread a sentence. Remember, anything that fail to do this does little to inspire you to greater action. So, take out a piece of paper and start writing all the power words, phrases and sentences that motivates you. And if you're running out of ideas, here's a list of inspirational positive quotes you can consider.

Grab a picture that has the power to motivate you. You can get a personalized photo of yours. Or a well taken picture from sources such as Flickr, Stockxchng etc. It is recommended that you go for the former as nothing touches the soul as much as what a personalized photo can do. Just imagine looking into a motivational poster of your kid learning how to walk, wouldn't that inspire yourself to working hard to provide for a better living environment for your child?

But if you prefer something more generic, royalty free photos from Stockxchng or creative commons photos from Flickr can do wonders. Some of the photos are so well taken that it can literally transport you to a different frame of thought. And if you're thinking of downloading pictures from Flickr, here are the tips to help you search and download some of the most beautiful pictures from the site.

1. Go to Flickr
2. Search for the pictures you want. Eg, "snow capped mountain".
3. Click on the "Interesting" selection under the sort criteria to filter your results
4. Click on the photo you'll like to save/print
5. Click on the All Sizes button (right above the photo). If there's no icon, that means the author has disallowed the public download of the photo
6. Click Download the Original size button
7. Save the photo to your computer

Once you're done with Step 1 & 2, the easiest is probably this last step. That is the actual creation of the motivational poster. There are a few free online tools you can use and we will be using BigHuge Labs' Motivator.

Motivator has a function that allows you to grab any photo from your account at Flickr or Facebook. Alternatively, you can upload any photo from your computer. It also gives you the flexibility to write your own text for the poster. You can designate different colors for the background, the text as well as decide on the different orientation (i.e. portrait or landscape). There is also an option to choose between single, double or even fancy borders for the poster.

Steps to create the poster using Motivator are as follows :

1. Go Motivator
2. Click Choose Picture button & select the picture you've downloaded
3. Edit your preferences for the poster (eg, color for the title & motivational text etc)
4. Enter the "Title", "Motivational Text" and select the font (eg, Plain, Roman)
5. Click Create

Viola, that's all to it! And if you're satisfied with your poster, you can even share it with your friends. The poster used right above is the one created using Motivator. Play around with it, manipulate with the text colors, fonts, with and without the borders etc. After all, it's free.

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