Ren Zelaya’s life as a PTA dad has gotten easier since he discovered PosterMyWall. “Our flyers and social media posts are more professional and robust–and we’ve done it without adding cost,” he said.
“Just the other day, someone came to me and said, ‘I’m doing a book fair. Can you make a flyer?’ Before we used PosterMyWall that might have taken me an hour, but with PosterMyWall, I had one created in 15 minutes.”
Ren has been a PTA dad for 20 years – first in Freeport, New York and now in Westbury, New York – and is still going strong. He just finished a term as the president of the Westbury High School PTSA and is following that up by joining the board of the Westbury Council of PTAs. During Ren’s tenure, he’s seen a lot of change. He is also secretary for a community organization, Hispanics United of Westbury.
“We’ve always needed flyers and now we need social media posts too,” Ren said. Plus, there are more events and activities than ever.
When Ren started as a PTA volunteer, he and his team used word processing programs to create flyers. But since 2017 Ren has been using PosterMyWall. “Over the years, I tried everything–WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Paint, and even PowerPoint. PosterMyWall is by far the best. It’s user-friendly and I’m creating things in half the time,” he said.
For volunteer organizations with very limited budgets, such as PTAs, it’s important to maximize value. How does Ren get the most out of PosterMyWall? Here are six tips:
Think about all of your graphic needs
The Westbury High School PTSA has used PosterMyWall to promote prom, publicize graduation events, communicate safety information, recruit members, and share news. In the process, Ren has created flyers, posters, social media posts, Facebook cover pages, awards certificates and raffle tickets.
Use the templates
PosterMyWall currently has over 650,000 professionally-designed templates that users can access for free – then customize to fit their needs. Ren says the templates speed up the design process, regardless of whether he’s just adding a logo and changing dates to a design – or completely changing the graphics, colors, and messaging. “It’s such a wealth of resources–PosterMyWall has already done the hard work so my part is a breeze,” he said.
Save time with the one-click resize tool
“One click is all it takes to resize a template for another use. It’s a major timesaver,” Ren said. He uses this tool both to convert templates he likes to the format he needs (such as resizing a square design into a vertical flyer) and to resize the designs he’s created for other uses (such as repurposing a completed flyer into an Instagram square post).
Update existing templates
Ren also saves time by re-using his designs for annual events. For instance, at Halloween time, he pulls out the poster for the annual Westbury Middle School Spooky Walk and duplicates it. Then he updates the date, time, and details – and he’s done.
Duplicate designs for multiple languages
The Westbury school district serves a diverse population, so Ren uses the duplicate design feature to create additional versions of his communications in the three major languages spoken in Westbury: English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole. His process is simple. He creates the English version first, then creates a duplicate design. Then he copies the text into Google translate, and pastes the translated copy back into his design.
Practice makes perfect
Ren suggests that new users spend some time playing around in PosterMyWall. Try different fonts and features to familiarize yourself. “After a little practice, you’ll find that you can bang out designs really quickly,” he said.
Ren loves PosterMyWall so much that in addition to his PTA work, he’s used PosterMyWall to create promotional materials for school board elections, party invitations, community campaign flyers, workplace signs, and even the cover page for a personal travel blog that he plans to launch later this year.
We wish Ren, the Westbury High School PTSA, the Westbury Council of PTAs and all of Ren’s other pursuits continued success.
Senior editor at PosterMyWall.
