It’s a super quick post today about two great online tools I use to generate imagery for both Comms Nerd, and my personal blog - Style + Space. There are so many low to no-cost marketing tools online, which is great, but that means everyone else has access to them too. Here’s a few design tips to make sure your content is hot.
When using templates, try and change most of the elements to align with your own brand style
When choosing an image, think about what your target audience might see. What story is it telling?
Do you need a photograph, an illustration, or a photo with words over? What will best convey your message?
Be consistent with style, colours, fonts, logo placement
Examine some other graphics and content to see what you like about theirs, and think about what you can incorporate into your own
Keep in mind just a few key design principles when creating a graphic piece:
Proximity - Don’t make things too cluttered, ensure there is space for the eye to rest.
Hierarchy - Choose two fonts - eg. one hand written style and one simple font.
Size - Select sizing to reflect the importance of information. eg, Headline is the biggest, and byline is a smaller font size.
Repetition - Repeat an element like, font, shape, colour within your design
Alignment - Ensure elements within the design are lined up with each other - left, centre or right aligned, and even spacing!
Balance - Make sure there is relationship and reason for everything on your page.
I have summarised this rather crassly for the purposes of having a few simple things to keep in mind when creating graphics. If you aren’t familiar with design principles and want to know more, I suggest checking out this 99 Designs article for more in depth info. So then, for the practical side, I always have tabs open on:
Canva
Unsplash
My own pictures
Not everyone is a photographer, I get that, but between the other two, you’d easily have your content covered until you want to get your own brand shoot done, or start taking your own photos!
Unsplash
Unsplash is an amazing free resource filled with thousands of photos royalty free for anyone to use for anything without obligation to credit or donate. As a photographer, this is a little challenging, it’s definitely changed the way photos are valued now. This is just a progression of technology, as unfortunate or fortunate as you see it, Unsplash exists, and we may as well use it!
UPSIDES: Has images of almost anything you can think of. It’s free to use any image you find on there. You can quickly and easily download to add into whatever post or collateral you’re putting together. Images are shot in a contemporary style - not boring or weird stock images! You can create collections within the platform. It’s all freeee!
DOWNSIDES: It might not suit your brand. Other people are using the same images. It does have a bit of a distinct style, and could be recognisable.
Canva
There is a free version, and a paid version. You can get along fine with the free version if you want to save money, but there are a few time saving benefits to Canva Pro, like setting up your own branding kit, loads more free templates and images, and folders for streamlining workflow.
Even if you haven’t had much design experience, you will pick this up. Start off with using templates and changing the elements, or have someone create your own brand templates. I recommend spending some time setting up the interface to suit you, with all your images, fonts, logos etc, and then you’ll be able to crank out graphics super quick.
I hope this has helped you! It might seem a little bit of an investment to put in the time to your visual content, but to stay attractive to your people, you have to jazz up your looks.
As always, get in touch to let me know if this was helpful, or you have any questions.
Talk soon, Jade