Table of Contents
Let it Breathe
Make sure your design has some breathing room by not cramming too much information into one image. You can easily convey your message without overwhelming your viewers. If you’re posting on social media sites that allow multiple photos to be uploaded, use that to your advantage and continue the secondary information on the following images in the post.
What the Font was I thinking
The wrong font can send all the wrong messages. Take a step back and look at the font you’ve chosen before you add it to your design. What does it remind you of? How does it make you feel? Does it convey the same message that your design is trying to accomplish? If you use too many different fonts, it makes your design look cluttered and inconsistent. Try to stick to 2-3 different fonts and preferably ones that are used consistently throughout the brand you’re designing for.
Colour Me Confused
When you use too many colours, or the colours you chose don’t follow an accessible contrast ratio, it may make your design unreadable, unappealing or appear outdated. Try to stick to already established brand colours, or test your colours out with WebAIM’s Contrast Checker which is a great tool if you’re working with graphic design. If you’re an Adobe CC user, you can use the tool Adobe Color which allows users to upload their design to check the colours for accessibility and it can also be used to create color schemes.
If you’d like to check whether all of the elements on your website are contrast accessible, then you should check out Experte’s Site Contrast Checker, in the simple click of a button, you can check your entire site for contrast accessibility.
Picture This
The images you chose for your post are a big deal! Don’t use images that aren’t coherent with your design. It may be funny or cute to have a cowboy riding a unicorn but does it make sense in the context you’re using? If you can master image editing, you’ll be able to create any social media graphics your heart desires. If you have trouble finding an image that works, try searching for synonyms of the keyword you’ve been searching.
Copy that… (or don’t)
One of the BIGGEST and I say BIGGEST mistakes someone can make is taking someone’s images without their permission. I created a particular post 5 years ago that went viral, and you’d best believe that people downloaded, removed my watermark and reposted my image without my permission. One of them was a page with millions of followers. It is incredibly frustrating as a designer to have your work stolen and not receive the credit for it. There are so many sites out there that you can find royalty free images to use for social media. Which if you can give credit please do, but it’s not required. Make sure you check the license information when downloading images to use for social media. A few of the sites I use are pexels and unsplash. You should focus on being original because your originality is what sells your designs.
I created an intentionally bad graphic. Can you notice my mistakes?
• The “Small Business Saturday” is a harsh colour that clashes with an already busy background.
• The colours don’t mesh with the rest of the image, they’re seemingly chosen at random.
• The font for “Creative Ideas to Promote Your Business On” and “Grow your business!!!” extends to the outer edge of the image. In certain circumstances this could work but the way it’s presented in my image is messy and busy.
• The unnecessary exclamation marks at the bottom put emphasis on information that was already made clear by other text in the image.
I reworked the entire graphic below. Do you notice the difference?
- The image has a consistent colour scheme. The colours used in the background have been used elsewhere in the graphic to create a cohesive feel.
- There isn’t an overload of information. The viewer doesn’t have too many things that the eye is drawn to. The first thing the viewer reads is the white text which conveys the most important information. Learn more about text hierarchy in a future post.
- The image in the background is consistent with the message trying to come across. The section I chose to put the font is blurred so it doesn’t clash, create chaos or make the text unreadable.
- By removing some of contrast from the background, the font is easily legible. If you don’t have an image editing software, free online software like pixlr can be used to edit images.
If you need to show more information, you could create a 2nd or 3rd image, sticking with a similar colour scheme, so it looks consistent throughout.
You can add a small arrow or other design element to the bottom of your image to show that there is more information to read. You can also choose whether you want to convey all of the information in one post or tell the reader where they can find the rest of the information in the description of the post.
I hope I have inspired you to create more consistent and coherent social media graphics. Thank you!
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