Graphics for Instagram can increase engagement, traffic, and quickly improve your profile's professionalism. With all the new software out there, creating simple and elegant Instagram graphics has never been more within reach. However, it’s easy to fall into a pit of colors, fonts, lines and decision-making when venturing out on your first graphic creation journey. Here are a few tips to help you get started.
Consistent Branding
Branding is arguably the most important part of creating your social graphic, and could certainly be its own blog. Having a hodgepodge of graphics styles conveys unprofessionalism and shows there hasn’t been tons of thought put into your brand. With consistent branding on all your graphics, your Instagram will take a huge step towards looking polished and professional.
HEARD’s Pro tip: Colors, fonts and styles should be similar across all your graphics so the viewer knows it’s your brand within the first 2 seconds of scrolling past. Adding your logo to a graphic could also help achieve consistency and brand recognition.
Have a Goal in Mind
When starting to create your next graphic, make sure you have a clear call to action for your target audience. The graphic could be educational, inspiring or just encourage engagement.
Create and use templates
Templates keep your page looking professional and organized, not to mention save you a TON of time. A template allows you to freely change images, quotes and other key components to quickly create a recognizable series to add to your branded feed.
Choose the Right Font
If your brand already has a chosen font, it’s important to stick within brand guidelines. If you have the opportunity to use a font that’s not on brand, it’s crucial to pick one that compliments your brand style, but also that’s impactful. Keep in mind that font is the body language of your graphic. Even though you can write the same words, you can convey completely different meanings depending on your font choice. You have to decide what emotion you want your graphic to convey, then choose a font that accomplishes this.
HEARD’s Pro tip: The best way to choose a font is to use these three steps:
Decide on an emotion
Create the same graphic with three fonts that all convey said emotion
Choose the one most readable
Use Scale and Placement to Weigh Your Message
Scale is the easiest way to get your viewer to read your message in the order you want them to. Bigger components will be read first, and smaller components will be viewed last. Whatever you think may be the most important aspect of your graphic for your viewer to read/see should be the largest.
Balancing your graphic will also guide a desired emotion more effectively. This doesn’t mean you make all your graphics symmetrical, but symmetry can be a good tool when creating a balanced graphic. Asymmetry can also create a visually intriguing graphic. Just remember your rule of thirds and don’t go too crazy with unbalanced work.
Use Contrast to Make Your Graphic Pop
Contrast is what will make your graphic stand out on someone’s feed. It helps make your graphic more readable, interesting, and in the end will increase engagement with the post. Be sure to have the important information in your graphic contrast strongly with what is behind it. You can use scale, font and placement all you want, but if you put light blue text over sky on a clear day, no one will notice it.
Looking for help on your next social media graphic? Drop us a line today!
Comments