Category: Design
Having a brand style board for your blog that defines your visual identity has now become an essential part of blogging, In this post I'm going to show you how to create your own brand board for your blog or business. But first let's look at what a brand style board is and why you want to have one.
No website is complete without stunning imagery. After all, an image says a thousand words and images, whether it be photos, icons, illustrations or backgrounds are a central part of our website design. (By the way if you're looking for the best sources for free images you should check out The Design Vault)
But could your images be slowing your website down? If you have an image heavy website (like a regularly updated blog) and do not save your images optimised for web then chances are the answer is yes. This is not good because slow loading is a major reason for people leaving a website.
However, now that you're here, you will no longer have one of those websites. In this post I'm going to show you exactly how to optimise your images and increase the speed of your website.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the best places to find free fonts online, so this week I thought I'd show you where to find the best free stock photos to use on your blog or website.
Many people think that you have to pay a lot of money to download good fonts. And it's true that to purchase the licence for a font it will cost you often $100 - $500. Unless you are really rich or run a profitable business, this kind of money is just not realistic for most of us bloggers.
But the good news is that there are loads of beautiful fonts, that look just as good, that you can get for free! In this post I'm going to share with you the best places to find free fonts that you can use for your blog.
In Part 1 of this 2 part series I wrote all about the process behind creating my brand identity, so if you haven’t already read it, go back and check it out. Today I’m going to walk you through how I designed and built my website.
In Part 1, where I was designing my brand, there was a lovely linear process and I was able to lay out for you, day by day, when I did what. When I moved onto my website, that lovely linear process came unstuck. I should have called this post 'How I Didn't Rebrand My Blog In 2 Weeks' because I actually ended up completely rebuilding my website again last week.
Nonetheless I did follow a process, it just ended up being a bit untidy at the end. Here’s how it went down
Do you want to create professional looking feature images for your blog posts but don't know how to use Photoshop? No problem. The good news is that you don't have to learn complex programs, spend lots of money or be a graphic designer in order to create good visual content for your blog. In fact you can do it for free. If you read my previous post, you'll know why it's so important to add text to your blog post images. Today I'm going to show you exactly how I do it. And while I may have just started studying to become a graphic designer, I (at the time of writing) do not know how to use Photoshop.
You can create professional graphics using free, easy to use software and today in this video tutorial I am going to show you how.
This is a bonus post today because I wanted to announce my exciting news. I'm becoming a Graphic Designer! Today is actually my first day of Graphic Design School. I can't tell you how excited I am. Actually this all happened really quickly. If you had have asked me 2 weeks ago what I'd be doing today, my answer would not have been starting a graphic design course.
How it all transpired
So you've written, proof read and completed your final edit of your blog post and your ready to hit post. Oh wait! You almost forgot to add a feature image. After a quick search on your favourite free stock photo site (because you know you can't use just any old google image) you upload a pic and hit publish. This is something a see quite a bit online. Bloggers who write a great post, but the feature image looks like it was a bit of an after thought. I think this is such a shame because this is such a missed opportunity.
We live in a world that is so visually orientated and in which social media is the primary way that most of us consume or are directed to information. It is now so important that we optimise our blog post feature images. Here are my top 5 reasons you should be adding text to your blog post feature images
Believe it or not, having branded blog post feature images is great strategy for driving traffic to your website. How, you may ask? By sharing your beautifully designed blog post images on Pinterest. To stand out on Pinterest your blog post images need to be well designed and consistent.
The easiest way to do that is to design a blog post feature image template that you can use to quickly create an image each time you have a new blog post. In this post I'm going to show you how to create a branded blog post image templates with content upgrade mockup previews that people will be unable to resist clicking.