Creative Graphic Design Tips for Social Media
As humans we can’t help but to be visual people. Whether you’re passing a billboard, flipping through a magazine, watching TV or surfing the web. We see content everywhere. But do you remember any of it? Do you remember what that ad was for when scrolling down your social media page?
Chances are, if it didn’t catch your attention then you probably won’t remember it. The best thing to do for your brand is to create content that not only stands out but is visually memorable. And the best way to do that? Use our 10 social media graphic design tips.
Creative Graphic Design Tips for Your Social Media
- Find Your Goal
Having a goal will not only help your design for social media content but it will also allow you to tell your message visually. Start by asking yourself a few questions:
- What is my purpose for this post?
- Am I trying to drive sales?
- Do I want to increase traffic to my website?
- Am I trying to increase engagement on my page?
2. Color
Color is one of the most important aspects of any design. It helps to set a mood, create an atmosphere, and can even invoke a memory. With each color having meaning and psychology behind it, finding a color scheme that conveys the emotion you want your audience or brand to associate with, will help to establish consistency.
Once you have your color scheme picked make sure you’re using the same colors throughout your posts. Write down the hex codes so you have the exact color. The last thing you want is to have your posts a shade or two off (unless it’s intentional i.e monochromatic) . You can find the exact color of an image using any color picker tool, which will give you a six-digit code that identifies an exact color on the color wheel.
Bonus Tip!: Since your social media designs are only going to be displayed on screen make sure the color is always set to RGB, no CMYK colors!
3. Text
Not to be confused with typography (which we will get into next). Text is a sequence of words whereas typography is the visual component of the written word. Now that we have that explained let us get into why text is important.
As an owner we know that this brand is like your baby. You want to show it off and tell everyone about it. You might even feel as though you have to use every word you can to explain your brand and why it’s so great.
The point of social media graphics is to deliver your message as simply as you can. One of the most overlooked good graphic design tips is to make sure your text is easy to read.
4. Typography
It’s obvious that typography is an art in itself. Selecting the perfect font to get aligned with the images can be tough, but when done right it can bring your graphics to life! Like your color palette, picking a font should reflect your brand’s personality. Don’t go overboard — you only need two to three fonts max. Any more than that and your audience may get distracted and your message will get lost. And they won’t have a font to remember you by. You want your customers to be able to see a graphic and know it’s yours even if your logo isn’t on it.
Some graphic design tips to keep in mind when using fonts:
- Serif fonts are best for print
- Sans-serif is bet for web
- Limit your design to a maximum of 3 fonts
5. Good contrast
If you haven’t heard it by now, negative space (also referred to as white space) is great way to make your image stand out. Contrast attracts the eye and can be applied with font, colors, alignment, size and more.
How can you contrast an image? A simple way to implement contrast into your graphic design is through the use of colors.
For example, I used a white logo with a contrasting dark color making the content both readable and visually appealing. The right balance can bring any social media graphic design content to life!
6. Visual Identity- Incorporate your branding into design
So now that you have the basics of graphic design for social media, we can focus our attention on brand identity and how to incorporate branding to elevate your story.
On average It takes about seven times of seeing or hearing your brand for someone to recognize it. This means that consistency and repetition of brand elements such as logo, colors and fonts, is essential.
Knowing ahead of time what works best with each platform will not only help visually with your audience but will make things easier for you in the long run. Below I’ve listed 5 social platforms and included some tips for each.
- Is geared toward the older generation
- Makes great use of articles and promotions
- Sizing: 852 x 315 cover photo; 180 x 180 profile picture; 1,200 x 630 regular shared post
- Geared toward millennials
- Lifestyle shots are great as platform was built on “lunch and selfies”
- Sizing: 1080 x 1080 post; 1080 x 1920 stories; 1080 x 1350 portrait; 1080 x 566 landscape; 110 x 110 pixels profile picture.
- Great for engagement
- Great for celebrities
- Sizing: 1500 x 500 header photo; 400 x 400 profile picture; 900 x 512 post
- Great for inspiration and new ideas
- Great for people looking for new products
- Sizing: 600 x 1260 pins; 165 x 165 profile image
- Great for business.
- Great for networking
- 1584 x 396 banner image, 400 x 400 company profile picture
Know what works best on each and know you’ll have to resize each piece of content to fit the dimensions of every platform you plan to share a social media graphic design with. It may seem tedious, but a quick size check could make the difference. — Bigboxx Media : Rakesh Sharma
