TECHNIQUES TO DESIGN KILLER GRAPHICS

Logoflow Good graphics will go a long way towards making a blog post look interesting and high quality. Today I want to show you how to create graphics that make people want to read and share your work. Let’s talk about where you can find good photos. There are tons of sources, but let’s focus on just three (you can suggest more in the comments).


FreeImages.com

I’ve used this site for nearly a decade. It used to be called sxc.hu, but they’ve just rebranded with a more user friendly name. Create an account and then you can search and download thousands of high quality images.


Unsplash

Unsplash is a collection of completely free (you don’t even need to attribute the photographer) photos. They release a new bundle of 10 photos every 10 days. And the quality is fantastic! The only issue is that there are now so many amazing photos that it is hard to find exactly what you are looking for. My solution is to scroll quickly through the site (it has infinite scrolling) and open each new photo in a new tab. Here are three random photos from Unsplash:


Flickr Creative Commons

If you need something more specific, Flickr Creative Commons search has been my go-to place for years. When doing an advanced search you can specify what licenses you want to search within. In most cases you need to attribute the photographer, but that’s easy with a simple text link.

1. Adding color + detail

A photo will add a lot to any blog post, but anybody can use the sites I mentioned above to get one, so you’ll have to take a couple of extra steps if you want your image to stand out.

Here’s a short video tutorial on how to turn a good, but very common, photo into something unique to your site.

2. Icons

Logoflow next go-to method is to add icons. You can create simple, effective graphics just by adding a few simple icons to it. This image was for a post about how content combined with marketing automation can lead to new clients. Originally I was going to design something fancy to illustrate the point, but then I realized I could get a similar effect in five minutes if I used three free icons.


3. Photos + Icons

To take your images to the next level, tell a new story with your photos by combining them with icons.


4. Making text interesting

It’s often tempting to write your post title into the image itself. That’s fine, but only if you do something interesting with it. Pat Flynn does a great job with that on his blog. Notice how he lays two fonts creatively on top of a relevant photo. Just be careful with this; 


5.Using color

The easiest thing to do is simply add some color. Ideally, you should use a color that matches your image. Here’s a simple tutorial in which I’ll also show you how to add a shadow detail to the text:


6. Shapes and lines

The next technique is to add simple shapes and lines to make your text more interesting. That’s what I did for this ‘designing with CSS3’ post. The simple blue banner really makes the post title stand out. Combining a photo with some fancier text designs can make a great background.


Sometimes you say something so smart that you want to make sure everyone reads it. You can pull that out into a little graphic to show off just how intelligent your ideas really are.

https://goo.gl/W79D4z