EMBiz: 5 Tips for Making Your Own Graphics

Cody Owens

5 Tips for Making Your Own Graphics

You Don’t Have to Hire a Designer

Hi everyone, Cody here with Elevate My Brand, and today I want to talk to you about graphics. So we understand that not every business can afford to hire an internal graphic designer, or even work with a graphic design agency, or an agency, like Elevate My Brand who has different graphic designers on hand, and you’re probably having to do a lot of that stuff yourself. Well, if that’s the case, and if you’re not ready to hire a designer yet, then here are five tips to help you make those graphics look as good as possible.

Utilize Canva Templates

The first thing is use templates, use software. There’s Canva, Canva’s, a huge one. They already have different templates out there that you can use and you can just plug in your information. You never have to start from scratch. You can also just go and look at other posters, or other flyers, or social posts that exist out there and just try to replicate them. You don’t have to create something completely original and from scratch every time, totally fine to use a template.

Use Two to Three Typefaces

Number two, use three typefaces maximum. I always recommend that you never use more than that. Try to stick to two and use them strategically, but don’t use more than three typefaces because it’s going to create some overwhelm and a little bit of confusion on what’s important and what people need to look at. Ideally, your brand already has some typefaces that you can rely on, so use those and stick to those two, three maximum.

Create a Visual Hierarchy

My third tip is to create some visual hierarchy. Now that may be a little confusing, but really what that means is to decide before you ever start creating your collateral what is most important. So if the date and time is far more important than the location, or if the location is far more important than the “click here” link to sign up, decide what’s most important, and then assign characteristics to what’s most important. Like, is this going to be bold? Is this going to be three times as big as everything else? Does this need to be at the top? Decide where things need to go based on a hierarchy of importance. That’ll help you lay out the design as well.

Choose the Right Colors

Number four is to choose the right colors. Now, again, if you have a brand book, this will be chosen for you and will be super simple. Make sure you’re not choosing super contrasting colors, you don’t need the whole rainbow. So again use them strategically, just choose a couple of colors and make sure that those are aligned with your brand.

Exercise Consistency 

And then the fifth thing, which is so so important, is to exercise consistency. So as your creating multiple graphics, multiple social posts, or flyers, or whatever, make sure that when you’ve chosen those typefaces and those colors and those sort of layouts and compositions, make that consistent across all of the graphic design that you do. Please please please remember consistency is key and will create a great brand experience, and will also make things easier on you as you create your own graphics.