In this week’s newsletter, we’ll be sharing some tips and tricks to help you create graphics that look great and stand out.
Whether you’re working with a limited budget or just want to take your design skills to the next level, we’ve got you covered.
I’m sure one of these ideas will get you moving in the right direction
CREATORPRENEUR IDEAS OF THE WEEK!
Create your own ‘moodboard’ for inspiration
Create a Mood board!
I’ve done this a few times for inspiration when I’m hitting blanks trying to come up with design ideas.
Finding other users’ work that inspires you, you can create what designers call a “mood board”.
Creating a mood board can be an easy way to come up with ideas for your next design project. Moodboards are simply collections of pictures or sketches that help you visualize what you want to create.
You can use them to get inspired by different styles, themes, or even colors. You can also use them as a way to plan out your design ideas before starting on a project.
DeviantArt (the largest online art gallery and community)
Pixabay.com (a great place to find FREE images you can use in your designs, and for your mood board)
GRAPHICS CREATOR VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Here’s a video I created awhile ago, but it’s still one of my favorites. You can use this technique to create some really creative images with The Graphics Creator!
HELPFUL ARTICLE OF THE WEEK.
How to find PNG images
Looking for free PNG images to use on your website or blog? You’re in luck! Here’s an article we just posted that can help you find FREE transparent PNG graphics:
Getting your created graphics and designs in front of the people who matter can be a daunting task. But with the right strategies, it’s not impossible.
You need to find “Micro-influencers” – people that already have a nice following. Then, you’ll pay them to promote your site, product or service!
Graphic design is an essential part of every business strategy. The images you use should leave a lasting impression on potential customers or clients, so you need to make sure they look nice. However, many small businesses need to make their own designs, but you may not know where to start.
Creating your own designs can be fun and rewarding and it can also help to set your small business apart from the competition. If you’re new to design work, don’t worry. There are a few steps that you can take to get started.
Here’s how you can create your own business graphics in seven fast and easy steps:
Determine your message first.
Think about your business’s color themes.
Sketch out simple designs.
Choose a design program to use.
Create and refine the graphic.
Incorporate the design with your marketing.
Watch and adjust.
No matter what sort of business you happen to run, you’re sure to benefit from using graphics. People remember images most and link them back to your brand – making quality graphics essential and a great way to brand your small business and social media marketing.
Determine Your Message First
Before you do any designing, you need to determine the message for your graphics. Your image should leave a lasting impression on your intended audience. Otherwise, it won’t help your business very much.
Negative space, scaling, and contrast are essential design concepts to know. Even if you aren’t making your designs from scratch, you’ll still want to understand them. Using these elements correctly will help your design achieve a strong message.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the elements you’ll want to include in your designs:
Negative space: This term refers to the open areas in your graphic. If your design is too busy, your viewers won’t know where to look. Our eyes naturally go to negative space, so impactful designs make the best use of it.
Scaling: This term refers to the size of images in the graphic. Increasing the size relative to other images will make the larger one stand out more.
Contrast: This term refers to opposite elements used in a design. You can achieve contrast with color or even the size of the text. Contrast adds visual interest, making the graphic more pleasing to look at.
The graphic’s main purpose is to communicate a message. Once you know what you want to say with your work, you can use the above elements to “say” it. You can use your business’s mission statement as a reliable starting point for your visual messages.
Your message doesn’t need to be complicated! Pick a simple message to base your visuals on if you want to make fast and easy graphics.
Think About Your Business’s Color Themes
abstract ink splash banner in different colors
Next, you’ll want to think about your brand identity, including color schemes and fonts. Every business needs to have a solid brand identity, so make sure you use consistent visual elements in all of your graphics.
As you create your eye-catching graphics, you need everything to look similar – like it all came from the same place. Consistency helps your audience remember you better and is great for your brand’s website.
Start by using the same color palette in all of your graphics. Adobe recommends that you make the design in black and white, then add the colors you want to use. This simple design process takes away a lot of the stress of choosing colors.
From there, choose two or three colors that look nice together. You’ll want to include this palette in your graphics, so make sure they represent your brand well. If you still haven’t committed to some colors to use, plenty of sites can generate the palettes for you. For example, you can check out Coolors for fast and easy color palettes.
Sketch Out Simple Designs
You don’t need to be a professional designer to sketch out simple designs. You can use circles and lines to represent what you want in the graphic; stick figures are perfectly fine too.
Many professional designers start with sketches for a good reason. You can use these rough outlines as a plan, allowing you to finish the design on your PC quickly. Having a sketch as a jumping-off point also makes it easier to create the final design. Plus, you get any ideas that won’t work well out of the way first.
You don’t need to spend more than two minutes drawing your designs, so you can keep them as simple as you want.
This YouTube video discusses why sketching a graphic out first is fast and essential:
Here’s some good news… you don’t have to be a professional artist to sketch out your vision. Just get it on paper!
Choose a Design Program To Use
The Graphics Creator by Laughingbird Software is a great way to get a jump start on your graphics
Now that you have all of your ideas down, it’s time to choose a graphic design program to use. You’ll have plenty of options, but if you want to make fast and easy graphics, you’ll want to find a website with tons of images available for you to use.
A good option would be The Online Graphics Creator. It offers plenty of professional images that you can use in your own graphics to get your desired effects. You can adjust all images to meet your brand identity – including color schemes and fonts. If you don’t have any design software, it’s the perfect website since it’s easy to pick it up and get to work.
When you want to make fast and easy designs for your business, you want to make sure the design tool you choose is simple. Otherwise, you’ll spend more time learning how to run it than designing the graphics. Luckily, there are plenty of easy-to-use design programs online.
Overall, choose a design program that you can learn quickly. You can focus on creating your graphics without a tough learning curve.
Create and Refine the Graphic
Set of basketball balls isolated on white background. Design element for poster, logo, label, emblem, sign, t-shirt, etc. (Vector illustration)
The next step, create the graphic in the design software that you chose. It’s a good idea to make a few different versions of the graphic so you can get all of your thoughts on the screen. Then, spend time refining your favorite one.
While it’s essential to make fast graphics for your business, you need to make sure they look good. Otherwise, they won’t have the impact that you want them to have. After you finish the design, set it aside and return to it after a few hours.
You may notice a few small spots that you want to refine, or it looks even better than you initially thought. Having fresh eyes often lets you view the graphic in a new light.
Incorporate the Design With Your Marketing
Once you have the graphic completed, you’ll need to quickly and efficiently insert it into your marketing campaign, blog posts, and social media posts. You can upload it to your site as a banner, logo, graphic, or other content. Since your design is consistent with the rest of your brand, it should be very easy to incorporate it.
Every once and a while, you should conduct a “design audit.” During this audit, you want to check on your graphics and see how they fit your marketing strategy. Ask yourself: what role do these graphics play? Do they stand out to my audience?
If you have access to marketing strategy experts, you can also send them your graphics and discuss the best ways to merge them with your brand.
Watch and Adjust
Adjust and fine tune your graphics
Lastly, you can always change your graphics as your brand evolves. It’s natural as small business owners to change as your brand grows, so it’s also important to realize that your graphics can change.
Employing easy-to-use software can help you easily modify the designs as required.
Final Thoughts
In short, you won’t want to skip out on creating graphics for your business. If you can do them yourself, there are plenty of tools that you can use to help you do quality work. Your final designs should showcase your brand identity and convey a message that your target audience can understand.
Creating your own business graphics, youtube channel art or your Facebook page can be easy and fun. Adobe Photoshop is a widely used program that can help you create custom graphics for your business or prospective clients. The Graphics Creator by Laughingbird Software is also a good fit … it contains ‘ready made’ templates you can modify in minutes! A free plan is available.
Graphics are important to create brand awareness for your company, and using original graphics is a great way to do that.
Graphic apps can be intimidating for beginners, but there are plenty of online tutorials that can help you get started. The best part about creating your own graphics is that you can be as creative as you want and have complete control over the finished product.
You don’t need to be an expert in Photoshop to create beautiful graphics, all you need is a little info on design principles, your imagination ..and some practice.
Overall, you can create anything you want for your business!
Get Started with The Graphics Creator
With this powerful software, it’s easy to have a logo design and business cards created in just a few mouse clicks. And there are lots of design elements to choose from as well!
If you’re working on your own designs, you’ll need access to plenty of digital graphics. Having easy access to graphics will let you create designs quickly and build a cohesive look across your online presence. However, it can be challenging to find sites that offer high-quality graphics for your design projects consistently.
So here is a list of the top 12 places to get digital graphics online:
Laughingbird Software
GraphicRiver
Shutterstock
Behance
Creative Market
Graphic Mama
99designs
Designhill
Hatchwise
Pixabay
Fiverr
Pexels
All of these sites have plenty of options for various digital graphics. You’ll need to learn more about them because they offer a variety of image styles including photos, transparent PNGs, vectors, illustrations, icons, and more. Further, some companies offer design services while others have software to help you design your own graphics.
Let’s take a deeper look at how these top 10 graphic sites can benefit you.
Laughingbird has loads of colorful, bold designs to help you stand out.
One of the top places to find the online graphics you need is Laughingbird Software. This site offers tons of attention-getting graphics and templates that you can use to create professional-quality designs. The best part is that you don’t need to have any previous graphic design skills to use these images (and you don’t need to know Photoshop or Illustrator)!
You’ll find pre-designed templates, transparent PNGs (which can be challenging to find online), banners, logos, business cards, book covers, cartoon graphics, and tons of stock photos, to name a few. And you can use thousands of high-quality images and designs (included) freely in your own work.
Whether you’re making a blog or an eCommerce site, you’re sure to find what you need to create for art and design projects. Further, it’s easy to create small business marketing graphics that’ll help convey your unique message online.
The Graphics Creator
There’s another feature that sets Laughingbird apart from the competition: The Graphics Creator! It’s an all-in-one design solution. You’ll not only get all the graphics you need in one place, but you’ll be able to edit them into a beautiful design with a software tool that small businesses and even non-designers can use.
Be sure to try their free trial version of The Graphics Creator before going all in. You’ll get full functionality and design features along with a couple of free template sets.
Online Graphics Creator Software: Create designs fast, even if you’re a beginning designer.
The Graphics Creator full version gives you instant access to more than 1,500 unique templates and over 5000 graphic elements, making it easy to design images for your website, email, social media, and digital marketing. You can also keep up with the Laughingbird blog and simple video tutorials to learn more about design, marketing, and business solutions.
A huge benefit of The Graphics Creator is that you can import any PNG graphic or JPEG you obtain from other sites!
Another great place to find digital graphics is GraphicRiver. This site is known for having professional stock graphics and easy-to-use design templates. You can take the templates and change the fonts, logo design, and other elements to make your own designs for your website or print. Just make sure you have experience with PSD or vector files if you choose to use them.
GraphicRiver guarantees that all of its graphics are high-quality. They have high creative standards for choosing their content from graphic designers, so you can trust that nothing unprofessional or messy makes its way onto their website. The major difference between GraphicRiver and Laughingbird Software is that you buy the graphics you need one at a time, rather than having access to thousands of graphics at once, for one low price.
Plus, GraphicRiver has a fun “Featured” page where you can check out the week’s best graphics. These can include logos and fonts, plus anything else that stands out to the site’s moderators.
GraphicRiver also allows creatives to post their graphics on the site. Users are very interactive on the site, and you can watch competitions or keep up with design news through the page. It’s definitely worth checking out if you need some graphics!
Shutterstock is one of the most popular options on this list. Professional designers constantly add new graphics to the site’s searchable content, so you’ll always have plenty to choose from. According to Shutterstock, they now have more than 405 million images (as of March 2022), as well as hundreds of thousands of professional contributors. You can trust that the site will only grow in the following years.
This site has a heavy focus on offering photography, although you can also find tons of videos, music, and vector designs that you can use. Shutterstock can also give you copyright licenses, making it so that you’re the only one who owns the graphic.
Although you will purchase images individually, you won’t have to pay yearly to keep them on your pages, as Shutterstock has tons of royalty-free photos and illustrations. You can also combine the images you get from the site to create stunning designs.
In short, Shutterstock is a very well-known website. You’re sure to find plenty of stock images that suit your website through them.
Consider visiting Behance to get digital graphics online. Behance is a social media platform with graphic designers in mind. It’s owned by Adobe and has a large base of designers and artists. If you’re looking for custom graphics, it’s a great place to start.
This website works as a graphic design marketplace, letting you browse through thousands of designer profiles to choose a style that suits your project the best.
The site allows creatives to share their profiles for free, so you’ll have access to various graphics from many individuals. You can contact the designers through Behance if you find designs that you like. They’ll create unique graphics for you while staying consistent with your brand identity.
Overall, Behance is an excellent option for browsing graphics. You’ll also have a direct way to communicate with the designers, making it convenient to hire one for a logo design, business card, virtual book cover, or other graphics specifically for you.
Creative Market sells a variety of different design elements. You can find stock photos, icons, and even WordPress themes on their site. Creative Market says that they have more than 3 million unique templates, graphics, themes, images, and fonts, so you’re sure to find what you need.
If you’re an eCommerce site working through Shopify, many themes are also available. You can also check out their most popular fonts on their landing page.
Creative Market has a variety of designs from individual designers that you can purchase and use in your own works. The site also allows you to sell your designs as a professional graphic designer.
Like Laughingbird Software, Graphic Mama has unique graphics that can help you really grab attention.
They have vector cartoon characters, design bundles, and graphics for Powerpoint presentations. Some of their offerings come in multiple formats such as EPS, PDF, and PNG files, for which you don’t need to use challenging tools like Photoshop or Illustrator. The other benefit is that you can the PNG images in other design tools like The Graphics Creator.
In order to make a purchase, you will need to buy credits. These come in big or small bundles, or you can even buy one at a time.
Two ways to get digital graphics online at 99Designs
99designs is a crowdsourcing graphic platform. What this basically means is that several designers create unique graphics (through a “contest”), allowing you to choose the ones that you like the best. This helps you find the best designer for your needs and doesn’t limit you to waiting and hoping that the person you hired sees your vision.
The 99designs community is massive, making it a great place to find graphics for your needs. In fact, popular contests can have hundreds of applicants trying to create the best logo design or marketing image. Plus, you can give the designers constructive feedback and ask them to tweak the designs.
A huge benefit is that once you choose the winning graphic, you have full copyright over the design. You can download the design and set it up anywhere that you want to.
Designhill is another site that helps you find the perfect designer from amongst many.
They have a contest option where you pay one fee and then let the artists submit their best work for your design.
However, you can also choose from predetermined gigs with set prices. So, you won’t be left guessing how long it’ll take to finish your graphic… and thus how expensive it’ll be. Just set your budget and get started. You can even work with the designer directly (unlike in a design contest).
And here’s another idea… use their AI-powered logo creation tool just by answering a few questions and clicking a few buttons. You’ll get dozens of logos to choose from immediately.
Like 99designs, Hatchwise allows you to post a contest or prompt and choose your favorite designs from the graphics that creatives send you.
Hatchwise claims to be less pricey, although it likely depends on the type of projects you post. More designers tend to respond to 99design posts, but you’ll still find hundreds of talented designers on Hatchwise.
You can make your design brief for the contest very detailed as well. To help ease your mind, you can also cancel the contest or ask for changes to the designs. That way, you know you’re getting something that you’ll love.
As soon as you send the designer money, you have complete access to the graphic and can do anything you want with it.
Pixabay is best for when you want to get various content for your designs from a single source. They offer copyright-free images, music, illustrations, and videos. You don’t have to pay anything according to the Pixabay License—even if you’re using the graphic for commercial purposes.
This site houses a massive community of creative individuals. It’s an easy-to-use and safe site for when you want to find quality stock images.
Fiverr is one of the largest spaces for graphic design services that you can find on the internet today. You’ll post gigs, to which freelancers respond. They’ll let you know how long it will take to make the design and how much they’ll charge for it. Then, you can pick the freelancer that you want to work with.
Fiverr freelancers can help you create a logo, icon, or any kind of graphic! Once you pay for the graphic, you can download it and include it in your work. Most logos on the site will cost about $30 to $50, although you can get graphics for as cheap as five bucks. Top-rated designers can cost as much as $500 or more.
If you’re just looking for a few small graphics to include in your works, you can post quick gigs for relatively cheap. You can set up gigs for photo images, vector images, or any other type of graphic.
Naturally, design quality will vary. The site has a huge following, so you will likely get responses from designers very quickly. The site has a huge following of freelance designers, so you’re sure to find someone who can meet your needs.
Pexels Free Stock Photos can be found inside The Graphics Creator!
Pexels is very similar to Pixabay—it offers free stock images under its license. The photos are easy to sort through thanks to its organized tagging system. You can even edit the photos from the site without worrying about infringing on copyright laws.
If you find that you love a particular photographer or designer, you can even support them by sending a donation through the platform. Many creative professionals post their works on the site to gain a following and make some money.
If you go for Pexels, you’re sure to find images that you can use in your projects. The site has an extensive user base, so thousands of new graphics get uploaded every day.
BONUS: Pexels photos are included for free inside free graphics maker software (just search, drag, and drop right onto the design canvas).
Wrap-Up
This list includes the best places to get graphics for digital online use. Most of them offer graphics to use in your artwork, websites, marketing materials, and presentations. However, you’ll also find companies that offer design services.
Browse the list to discover your perfect design options!
Working from home definitely has its benefits: no commute, flexible hours, and you can work in your jammies.
In this edition of The Creatorpreneur Newsletter, we’re giving you some help and inspiration for coming up with new content, finding new job opportunities, and new ideas to help promote your business or service.
CREATORPRENEUR IDEAS AND RESOURCES!
There are many ways to make more money working from home, but it takes effort and some research. You can start by looking for opportunities to freelance or work from home part-time. If you have a skill that other people want, there are many ways to monetize that skill.
There are a variety of income opportunities you can pursue from home. Here are three ideas for you:
Freelance writing
If you’ve written a blog or love to write, offering your services as a freelance writer could be an easy way to make money from home. Online companies and organizations are always in need of articles and content, making this type of income an easy way to monetize your skills and knowledge.
If so, then becoming a virtual assistant may be the perfect opportunity for you! Virtual assistants handle a wide range of tasks from taking care of marketing, customer service, and clerical work to complex projects. Just Google “how to become a virtual assistant” and you’ll find your starting point.
Review products
The popularity of online reviews has led to an increase in the number of people making money through product reviews. There are a number of ways that you can make money reviewing products, and each has its own set of pros and cons. Some methods, such as affiliate marketing, may require a lot of time investment up front (you may have to purchase each product you review), but can lead to long-term profits.
LAUGHINGBIRD CORNER
Blogging is a great way to share your thoughts and ideas and promote your own services. But, it can be hard to keep up with the frequency of posting required to maintain a readership.
One way to update your blog without having to start from scratch is to take content from older posts and create new ones that reflect the current state of your life, your business or whatever you’re niche is about.
This way, you can keep your readers updated without feeling like you have to produce new content on a regular basis.
In this video, I’ll show you how easy it can be to create new content from older posts:
CREATORPRENEURS ACADEMY TIP
Looking for NEW content?
Sometimes, it’s hard to know what to write about.
Here’s a suggestion for you; One of the most popular types of blog posts is a how-to. Because people search online for answers to their problems.
And a how-to post can provide those answers. It also lets readers know that it’s a specific post that will dive into one thing.
What does your product or service do to benefit your customer? Write a 10 step ‘how to’ article … and post it!
Content is key when it comes to online marketing. If you’re not creating content, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to reach new customers and grow your business.
Hope this edition of The Creatopreneur Newsletter got you motivated!
If you’re looking to grow your YouTube channel, you’ll be surprised to learn just how much a good-quality thumbnail can help you achieve the viewership you’re looking for. The thumbnail is the very first impression your content makes on a potential viewer, significantly affecting their chances of clicking on the video itself. For that reason, sometimes it’s worth investing a bit extra to make sure that the image that represents your content is as captivating as possible.
On average, it costs around $10-$15 to design one YouTube thumbnail. Specific prices can vary anywhere from $5 to $30 or even more. However, the $10-$15 range is the most common pricing for a YouTube thumbnail. If you enter a long-term contract with a designer, the price per thumbnail will be lower.
However, when it comes to designing a professional-quality thumbnail, outsourcing the task isn’t the only approach you can take. There’s no shortage of quality software that can help you get the job done yourself at a much lower cost and in a short amount of time.
Keep reading to learn more about YouTube thumbnail design pricing, how you can go about designing a custom thumbnail yourself, and what really goes into the process.
YouTube Thumbnail Design Pricing
Depending on the level of design intricacy you’re looking for and the approach you take, the cost of designing a single YouTube thumbnail can widely vary.
Cost of Hiring a YouTube Thumbnail Creator
If you don’t have the skill or interest to attempt getting the job done yourself, your best bet is to outsource the job using a freelancing platform such as Fiverr or Upwork. You’ll find plenty of designers (some are classified as a top-rated seller) offering services for a fixed or hourly rate on these sites. In most cases, you’ll even be able to check out a designer’s previous work before deciding to hire them.
Most freelancers operating on Fiverr and UpWork tend to charge between $5 and $30 per thumbnail, depending on their experience level. However, pricing can be a bit steeper if your vision is particularly difficult to achieve.
The best thing about using these platforms is that you’ll be able to consult with several candidates simultaneously and then choose the one whose hourly rate and skill set matches your requirements best.
Keep in mind that for a designer of average experience, the design of a YouTube thumbnail takes around 10 to 20 minutes. If you’re paying a $10 fee, that’s an hourly rate of $30 to $60. Of course, when outsourcing such a creative job, you’re paying for more than just the time spent on the project—you’re also purchasing someone’s talent and skill. Keep in mind that if you’re paying almost nothing, you may get a low-quality clip art design or a thumbnail design created in minutes using template software (you could’ve just created it yourself).
However, this is still something to consider if you’re on a tighter budget or are just starting out on the platform and posting a larger number of videos per week. In this case, it might be worth investing in graphic design software and developing a few basic skills yourself (more on this in a moment).
Alternatively, if your channel is fairly active, but you think that your time and effort are better spent elsewhere, it’s usually best to enter a long-term contract with a YouTube graphic designer whose work you know you like. That way, you’ll be able to settle on a monthly fee that will drive down the cost per thumbnail.
The average salary for a thumbnail creator in the US hovers around $80,000 a year (depending on experience), so if you’re thinking about hiring a designer full-time, you’ll want to make sure there’s quite a bit of space in your budget. Luckily, a long-term contract doesn’t necessarily mean hiring a thumbnail creator full-time, as most of these professionals are independent contractors and virtual assistant graphic designers who work with several employers simultaneously.
YouTube Thumbnails Designed with The Graphics Creator Templates
Cost of Using Thumbnail Maker Software
You can create your own video thumbnails for your YouTube channel much easier than you think, either for free or for a small fee.
Thumbnail creation software typically offers a free trial. However, to get a variety of templates that allow you to create the best thumbnail designs quickly, you can usually upgrade to a monthly plan of $10-$20 or an annual fee of between $67 and $120.
They may offer cloud-based storage, royalty-free stock and video footage, as well as other design tools that can cost an additional fee outside of the software. This makes them even more valuable. Plus, you can create other YouTube channel art as well.
Making Custom Thumbnails With Laughingbird Software
If you’re on a tighter budget or would rather spend your money elsewhere, you can still have a way to make visually appealing YouTube thumbnails by using tools such as The YouTube Channel Art Maker (software is free; just download the templates you need), even if you don’t have any graphic design skills yet.
Laughingbird Software gives you professionally designed thumbnail templates, either as a download or inside an all-in-one online design tool. You can drag and drop design elements, text, and images into your choice of template, creating a YouTube thumbnail in under 10 minutes. The Graphics Creator gives you millions of royalty-free stock images, Google’s custom fonts, and lots of fun tools like circle text, color picker, and text design.
You can save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in thumbnail creator fees by designing your own YouTube thumbnails, as well as YouTube banners and other social media graphics.
Don’t worry: I’ll provide you with all the necessary information you need to get started below.
YouTube Thumbnail Design Software
Laughingbird Software’s Graphics Creator is easy-to-use design software that lets its users create unique, high-quality graphic design.
There are two user-friendly ways to start creating YouTube thumbnails at a minimal cost:
Download the YouTube Channel Art templates for a one-time payment of $27. You’ll get the Graphics Creator software with it for free and be able to access dozens of customizable thumbnail templates, allowing you to create unique (and algorithm-friendly) thumbnails in less than ten minutes.
Grab the Online Graphics Creator for $67/year (or $15/month). This option gives you access to over 1500 templates, including the YouTube collection.
With either option, you’ll also be able to design a captivating, one-of-a-kind channel banner and logo—these come in customizable templates too. The templates provided by the software have been created by professional designers to help you achieve the best quality end result.
However, if you have a specific vision in mind, you can always start a new template from scratch and work from there. The best thing about Laughingbird is that you don’t need to have any previous design knowledge or experience to use it. As long as you have a few basic computer skills and a minimum understanding of the English language, you’ll be able to create eye-catching YouTube banners, custom thumbnails, and logos within minutes.
In the following section, I’ll take you through everything that goes into designing a YouTube video thumbnail. If you’re looking to hire a freelance thumbnail designer, this information will help you better understand the service you’re paying for. On the other hand, if you want to take on thumbnail designing yourself, the details and tips I’ll be explaining will provide you with the knowledge you need to create immediately.
YouTube Thumbnail Template on the canvas inside The Graphics Creator Software
How to Design a YouTube Thumbnail
When you have a YouTube channel, you’ll be needing video thumbnails often, for every video you publish. A video thumbnail serves the same purpose as a newspaper’s headline or a book’s title: it’s a limited piece of information that creates the first impression of your content for your potential viewers. But thumbnail design can be a pricey affair if you hire a professional graphic designer.
It’s time to delve into what the process of creating a thumbnail looks like, so you can decide whether that cost is worth it, or decided it’s easy enough to create your own.
Here are some of the most important components that go into designing a YouTube thumbnail:
Choose the right size and resolution. No matter how fun and creative a design is, if it’s not compatible with a standard thumbnail size and resolution, it’ll end up looking odd or grainy in your viewers’ “Recommended” section. The ideal thumbnail size is 1280 X 750 pixels (or anything with a ratio of 16:9). Moreover, you’ll want to use the highest resolution possible while still remaining under the 2MB limit.
Select the right format. A YouTube thumbnail should be in one of these formats: JPG, BMP, PNG, or GIF.
Make sure the thumbnail abides by YouTube’s Terms of Service. This might seem like a given, but you’d be surprised what type of imagery might be considered inappropriate, offensive, or copyright infringement by the platform. Whoever designs a video thumbnail should be well acquainted with the site’s Terms of Service.
Choose the right image. This might be the most challenging part of the process, especially if you’re not the creative type. Your best bet is to go for a clear, vibrant, eye-catching image that shows up well on screens of all shapes and sizes. A thumbnail image should convey as much information about the content as possible while still generating curiosity and interest.
Use the right text. No thumbnail is complete without an interesting yet concise text to accompany the selected image. The words you choose should seem bold and inviting, and they should never be ambiguous enough to be taken out of context.
Make sure the thumbnail is aesthetically appealing. Even though aesthetic appeal in itself might be subjective, making sure that your thumbnail abides by the rule of thirds is guaranteed to make the image more pleasing to the eye of an average viewer.
These are only a few of the many components that go into making an appealing YouTube video thumbnail, if you’re starting from scratch. I’m not even going to delve into the graphic design skills and the artistic eye necessary to take the image to that next level.
Thus, if you want to create a thumbnail yourself, start with a professionally designed template. As an alternative, start with a fun, captivating still from the actual video. This is always an excellent way to give your viewers a glimpse of the actual content while keeping the imagery as eye-catching as possible (especially if it contains a dynamic pose).
However, simply using a video still as your thumbnail isn’t enough. You’ll want to combine the image with a few exciting graphics to make your thumbnail stand out among the rest. And most certainly, add a small amount of text (your title is a great idea).
Last but not least, stay away from making a clickbait-y, misleading video thumbnail. Even though custom YouTube thumbnails and titles need to be as interesting as possible, advertising something that won’t be found in the actual content will only leave your viewers disappointed and far less likely to click on any subsequent videos.
What Do YouTubers Use to Make Thumbnails?
YouTubers use a variety of design software or services for their video thumbnails. Whether they design their own or hire a thumbnail creator depends on how many videos they publish each week and what their income level is. If they enjoy designing graphics, then they will likely make their own YouTube thumbnails.
Here are some of the best YouTube thumbnail makers that many YouTubers use every day:
Most software programs have free trials or a free version, although it is worth upgrading to a paid version if you are creating regular YouTube videos. Buying an annual plan is usually the best value over monthly and will save you at least a little money but sometimes a lot. For example, buying the Canva annual plan will save you around $36 per year, while buying The Graphics Creator annual plan will save you $113!
YouTubers and YouTube influencers typically use a variety of graphics for their videos. These include banners, custom thumbnails, logos, and end screens. A YouTube end screen (also called an end card) tells its viewers what to do next. A YouTuber will use this as a call-to-action graphic that gets viewers to subscribe to their channel, go to their website, or purchase a product they endorse.
Watch this video to see how it works:
Conclusion
On average, it costs between $10 and $15 to have a thumbnail creator design a YouTube thumbnail (so $100-$150 for 10 thumbnails). The process only requires 10 to 20 minutes for a professional designer. However, there’s a lot of knowledge, technique, and talent that goes into it. If you’re able to get into a long-term contract with a designer, the price per thumbnail will be lower.
If you have a low budget or prefer to save money, you can always create the thumbnails yourself using graphic maker software such as Laughingbird’s Graphics Creator. This is usually significantly cheaper and will let you create as many thumbnails as you need, all at once. Plus, you can save a design and go back to modify it any time you like, which comes in handy if you’re sticking with the same brand colors and images.
Overall, creating your own custom thumbnail design is the easiest way to stay in control and make YouTube thumbnails as fast as needed.
As a virtual assistant, you wear many hats. From a receptionist to a bookkeeper, you’re keeping your hands busy with many different projects, some involving graphic design. But is learning design worth it for a virtual assistant?
Learning graphic design can increase your value as a virtual assistant and earn you more money. Knowing how to design will also help you develop communication, creativity, and presentation skills. In return, expanding your VA skills will improve your professional relationships, increase your self-worth, and open doors for future opportunities.
Expanding your skillset into graphic design might be the best thing you can do as a virtual assistant.
Read on to learn more about how becoming a graphic designer can elevate your virtual assistant services to the next level. And discover how to easily get started, even if you don’t have any prior design skills.
How Graphic Design Expands Your Skills as a Virtual Assistant
You might be one of the many virtual assistants who already engage in responsibilities such as copywriting, copyediting, blog writing, web design, project management, or social media management. Most (if not all) of these things benefit from graphic design, so picking it up can expand your service offerings and elevate the value of your work, not to mention earn you more money.
If you do a lot of writing and web design, it’ll allow you to market yourself as someone who can put together the whole package. This will make you more appealing to more clients and help you stand out from the crowd as offering efficient virtual assistant services.
Better yet, many of these skills might give you a fresh understanding of the tasks you already do. That way, even if you don’t stick with graphic design, you’re already a better virtual assistant than before.
Here are some things that you’ll learn and develop while expanding your graphic design skills:
Communication
You probably know that good communication is essential for a virtual assistant. Likewise, good design is an important means of visual communication. It takes a good deal of problem-solving to develop a creative way to communicate your ideas through graphics. Your graphics will be the key to making your employer’s projects stand out. In graphic design, you’ll learn to communicate ideas in the clearest and most visually appealing way possible, which is just one reason that it’s a great virtual assistant skill to have.
Creativity
Did you know that one of the top things employers look for in their virtual assistant is creativity? Practicing graphic design allows you to unlock your creative potential. Training your eye to be visually creative requires a shift in your perspective, but it starts with paying attention to how other people present their thoughts and ideas.
When practicing, there’s no shame in taking design inspiration from anywhere you happen to look. Eventually, you’ll be able to come up with your own creative communications!
Color Theory
If you ever took a painting class in school, you might remember the concept of color theory, which uses the color wheel and mixing techniques to figure out which colors go well together. Great graphic design follows these principles too. An appealing color scheme enhances your message, so don’t neglect it!
Theme and Aesthetics
Learning to use a theme or an aesthetic will give your graphic designs a cohesive look. When everything goes together, from thumbnails to social media posts or web design, your client appears more professional and knowledgeable, which is essential to making them happy. Having a coherent theme for a particular online business is the cherry on top.
Digital Typography
Did you know that Steve Jobs audited a calligraphy class at Reed College? Calligraphy, completely divergent from his career track, was something he just took for fun. Later, when he designed the first Mac, typography was one of the most important components that made his products at Apple a success.
He added a visual, creative component to technology when everything else on the market was boring and visually unappealing. As a graphic designer today, and virtual assistant, typography plays just as crucial of a role.
Sizing
Each kind of visual device requires different image sizing requirements for proper viewing. For example, a graphic you use for a more phone-intensive platform, such as Instagram, will be a different size than a graphic for a YouTube video or website. There are plenty of graphics sizing charts available to help you understand this.
Formatting
Formatting your graphics is essential to getting your message across. If your text or image is awkwardly formatted, viewers will be scratching their heads to figure out what you’re trying to say instead of understanding your work as a helpful visual aid. Formatting can be different for each kind of design project you do.
Coding
If you’re a more ambitious virtual assistant, perhaps having your own online business, you may want to take the time to learn some basic coding to get your ideal client. There are many different coding languages, but the one that most graphic designers use is HTML. However, there is plenty of software available that eliminates the need for coding, so it’s not absolutely necessary to know how to do it yourself.
Start creating with the Online Graphics CreatorSoftware: Create designs fast, even if you’re a beginning designer.
Design Improves Professional Relationships
As an employee or independent contractor, you are your own business identity: YOU LLC. Your boss is your customer, and you want them to come to you for as many things as possible. Expanding your skillset with graphic design could take that good, symbiotic relationship you’ve developed and bring it to the next level.
There are three ways that a company handles a new task:
The owner handles it.
It’s delegated to an existing employee.
They hire a new employee.
If your employer has a need for social media graphics, book covers, flyers, or business cards, you want to be the one to create them. Studies show that employers would rather hire a trusted employee or contractor for a project instead of going through the trouble of finding someone new. This puts you at a huge advantage, even if you don’t consider your skills to be the best.
Of course, your primary role working with any company might be as a graphic design virtual assistant. After all, hiring a professional graphic designer can be quite costly while hiring a virtual assistant can be much more cost-effective.
This software is an intuitive and easy tool with over 1,500 unique templates (and thousands of visual elements and royalty-free stock photos) that’ll help you quickly create designs that your employer will be amazed by. Better yet, you don’t need any Photoshop or design skills to get started!
Laughingbird also has a ton of training materials to answer your questions, so it’s the best design software to start you off on your journey as a beginning designer.
Design Can Increase Your Self Esteem
Learning and excelling at a new skill can increase your self-worth, especially when you or your employer finds it to be a useful one. Studies show many benefits to pursuing education, even if you’re out of school.
It boosts your confidence. Confidence is an essential attitude in the workplace. You will sound more professional, but you’ll feel great while working, too. Confidence helps increase a positive attitude in the workplace, making you look more energetic and capable. It will also help you obtain your ideal client.
It challenges you. Challenges keep your mind active and able to fight off boredom. There’s almost nothing more uplifting and encouraging than the victorious feeling after conquering a difficult challenge. Taking pride in your work shows that you are invested in doing the best you can in everything you do, even if it’s hard.
Continually learning helps you cope with stress. Did you know that learning something can help you cope with worry and stress? Learning a new skill can channel that negative energy into something positive, offering you a sense of purpose and control over your future.
Learning anything will produce similar results, so why graphic design? Ultimately, as a virtual assistant, you want to be able to use the information and skills that you’ve learned in the real world. This should be something that you foresee yourself providing a decent amount of value to any company you’re working for.
The bottom line is that every business needs good design with effective visual elements to put its best foot forward in presentations, digital marketing material, blogs, or company literature. Creating images is a highly sought-after skill, so it will be useful no matter where you go in the future. You might even decide to become a specialized graphic design virtual assistant.
Learning Graphic Design Opens Doors
New creative skills such as design open doors to potential promotions, raises, and other opportunities. A large company or small business owner both hope to find the best employees and independent virtual assistants to be the ones who can do the work of multiple job titles. If your employer can trust you with another essential part of the business, they will be happy to offer it to you!
Furthermore, if you put all of your eggs in one basket, you limit your potential. Experienced VAs know that the best way to get hired is by learning multiple skills. Plus, learning to design graphics will allow you to transition your career if that’s something you ever wanted or needed to do.
Besides, the world is constantly changing. And the business world is no different. It has transitioned drastically from brick-and-mortar establishments to e-commerce and virtual communication, and many businesses are adapting to it. Because of this, graphic design virtual assistants are more needed than ever to grab the attention of consumers. It’s easy to see why knowing design will make you more valuable to any company and assist you in finding your ideal client.
How to Get Started in Graphic Design Fast
As a busy virtual assistant, it’s not reasonable for you to go to graphic design school, take months of design courses, or learn difficult and expensive software. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get proper training.
Typically, an easy graphics program, a few video tutorials, and a virtual design community are all that is needed to start designing. You don’t need to spend a lot of time or money to learn basic design. Many design tools are even free.
Here’s the best way to get started using a do-it-yourself design tool and other simple graphic design resources.
Easy Steps to Creating Graphics as a Virtual Assistant
Follow these steps to start creating designs you can share.
You can fully complete these steps in around 90 minutes, give or take. Then just go back to these design resources as needed and continue creating a portfolio of designs to share with employers and small business owners! To expand your design abilities, you might get access to over 1500 design templates and thousands of design elements from the get-go.
Final Thoughts
Virtual assistants should consider learning a specialized skill such as design in order to provide a larger sense of value to their employers. Learning a new skill stimulates creativity, elevates confidence, and provides a challenge against boredom and stress.
Every company needs some degree of graphic design, especially for digital marketing materials. And, businesses would prefer to hire you, a valued employee, than an outside person because you’ve already built that symbiotic relationship of trust as a virtual assistant.
Becoming a graphic design virtual assistant or adding other VA services can open a ton of doors for you, including grounds to ask for more pay at your next review or independent contracting job!
Keeping your designs simple makes it much easier to promote your brand. You want everything on your site to be consistent and straightforward, so your target audience can quickly identify your brand and remember it. However, it can be very challenging to come up with ideas that are simple enough, and creative block is a real problem!
These are ten simple graphic design ideas that you can use in your work:
Use a three-color palette
Make a simple icon
Make a repeated pattern
Choose a template
Make a simple infographic
Break down designs into shapes
Doodle it out
Study designs you love
Use your previous designs
Use more photos
In this article, you’ll discover graphic design ideas that are easy for graphic designers and non-designers alike.
You’re sure to find some design inspiration on this list… and you don’t need massive design skills, so continue reading.
1. Use a Three Color Palette
Pantone Color Palette
Many new people to graphic design tend to go overboard with their color choices. You only need to use a simple color palette with three different shades to have a clean design.
While you’ll generally want to choose contrasting colors that look good together, you won’t need to spend as much time agonizing over picking the perfect palette. Instead, use the rule of threes:
Select one primary color
Pick two other complementary colors.
For example, you can choose blue as your primary color. Orange and yellow are complementary colors for blue because they’re on opposite sides of the color wheel.
If you need some graphic design inspiration to choose colors that look good with each other, you can use a free service like Coolors. This website generates a consistent palette for you using five colors. However, you can always choose only three to use from them in your design to keep it simple. You can also view what other designers are using in their palettes.
Overall, you can start coming up with ideas by planning a three-color palette first. These can be bold colors or softer, more neutral colors but they should be eye-catching. You’ll want to choose something simple to keep the colors consistent throughout the rest of your website. Usually, setting out with a palette in mind makes the design process smoother.
2. Make a Simple Icon
Example of some simple icon designs for support services
Graphic design icons are always straightforward and uncomplicated. And it’s one of the easiest graphic design ideas to use.
Icons typically consist of exactly one image that’s easy to see. They’re this way to ensure viewers remember them. You can create an icon for anything too- yourself, your brand, a product label, a business card, a social media account, and more.
If you’re feeling stuck, write down three things you want the icon to convey to the viewer. Often, this helps you decide what elements are essential to you in the final icon.
You’ll always want to return to icon design, especially if you haven’t done it in a while. Making small, simple graphics can also inspire you to make other designs. For instance, you’ll have more ideas for a social media banner after creating the icon first.
Then, you can take the color palette and central themes from your simple icon and recreate them in the banner. This process also works for many other design elements.
Laughingbird Software’s Simple Icon
For example, the simple icon above just takes an element from the Laughingbird Software brand logo. It’s easy to use as a product icon.
3. Make a Repeated Pattern
Example of a seamless pattern
Creating simple patterns is a lot of fun- you can also use them in various places on your site and in printed materials. Many designers also take elements from their patterns and use them in their icons, banners, posters, etc.
Your pattern can be very simple. Once you have one part of it created, you can duplicate it until you fill up the space you want, leaving a bit of white space in between each of course. In particular, geometric patterns are simple, easy to make, and always look stunning.
Repeated patterns can go anywhere and look consistent with your brand identity when using the same motifs, similar elements, and vibrant colors. Experimenting with your software of choice is a good way to get a creative end result.
If you need some help starting, this YouTube video can guide you through the process:
4. Choose a Template
Templates you can modify with The Graphics Creator by Laughingbird Software
Another simple design idea is to start by using a graphic design template. You can find plenty of different design templates for all sorts of elements. Find a simple template that you like, then alter it to fit your needs.
You can change anything you want about the template, including color and any images or text present within it. Software like The Graphics Creator is a great source of templates that you can use to kickstart the design process.
You can take any templates you enjoy, open them in your software, and make changes right on the design canvas, even if you’re not an artist or designer. Many professional designers even use templates for inspiration- they’re often simple and help convey your message in an easy-to-understand format.
Generally, you don’t need to avoid templates when searching for graphic design ideas. Templates are essential in building a consistent look and feel for your brand and accompanying website and marketing materials. Once you have a template design in mind, you can use it repeatedly throughout your site to keep your brand identity consistent. You can make easy modifications to it for each graphics need, say a social media design vs a logo design.
Watch to see how much easier it is to make a simple graphic using a template!
5. Make a Simple Infographic
Infographics are also a great simple project- they can be as straightforward or as complex as the designer wants them to be. However, many people appreciate simple infographics (with a lot of white space) more because they can easily understand the details presented.
You’ll want to use a small color palette and limited text. Although you should keep in mind that your website will benefit greatly from a few simple infographics. There are many different ways to use infographics in your graphic design practice. You’ll also have fun creating them, and they can grab more attention from viewers than a basic graphic.
If you’re not a designer, creating an infographic can feel overwhelming. However, don’t forget that tools like The Graphics Creator are out there to help you! They offer all the graphic elements you need to make the perfect infographic for your website.
6. Break Down Designs Into Shapes
Create your designs using shapes
It’s also good to break down designs into simple geometric shapes. If you already have an image in mind, but it feels too complex or like it’d fit better somewhere else, take it apart.
You can do this in most graphic design software, although you can also print out your design and trace over the basic shapes. This tracing will help you better see the design you are creating.
Reducing a complex design into simple shapes and colors lets you see the essential design elements. You’ll want to break it down while still keeping it recognizable. Many large corporations already do this. You already know what brands these symbols represent when you see the McDonald’s “M” or the Target bullseye without reading any words.
This is a common practice when designing logo variations of any kind as you’ll need a primary logo and secondary logo at a minimum.
As you break your designs down into simpler shapes, you’ll gain more experience. Complex designs consist of many small interlocking shapes. So, if you want to make more complicated designs later, you must first learn how to work with smaller geometric shapes.
In short, take your designs and break them down. You don’t need to replace your current logo with these simpler designs, but you’re sure to find a use for them. Many designers use simpler designs for their sites’ favicons.
7. Doodle It Out
Do you find yourself doodling frequently? You can take those doodles you made during meetings or classes and turn them into fun designs. Many artists already tend to doodle while thinking, so you may already have a lot of materials to work with that you may use.
You can take your physical drawing and easily convert it into a design. First, take a picture of your drawing or scan it. Then, upload it into your preferred drawing design software, such as Adobe Illustrator.
You can draw over the doodle in another layer, then delete it. You’ll have a digital outline of your doodle to form the basis of your design. From there, you can clean up the lines and color them in. This process is straightforward and lets you work with art that you have already created.
Overall, doodling is fun, and many people do it naturally. You can take your doodles and convert them into simple designs easily.
8. Study Designs You Love
Study designs you love
Next, it’s good to study the simple designs you love. What makes them work? You can record all your favorite parts of these designs to use later in your own work. For example, you might discover that you prefer certain colors or flat shapes in your designs.
Making your designs simple is essential, although it can be tough to know where to start. Studying successful simple designs will help you out immensely. Take screenshots of the online designs you love and save them to refer to.
9. Use Your Previous Designs
Many designers and creatives have plenty of art sitting unused on their computers. If you want to make a quick and straightforward design, you should always browse what you have first. Often, you can pull elements from your designs to create something simple and nice-looking.
Maybe you have some photos that would look nice on an ebook cover or an unfinished icon that only needs a few minor changes to fit the project.
The more you design, the more leftover design elements you’ll have sitting in your desktop folders (or saved in your design program). It’s always a good idea to review the images you already have. You may have something there that you can salvage and turn into a simple design.
10. Try Using More Photos
Use Photos in your designs
Finally, you can try using more photos in your work. If you aren’t a photographer, don’t worry- The Graphics Creator has plenty of beautiful, free stock images for your designs. They allow you to incorporate them easily by simply dragging and dropping them onto your digital canvas.
Once you’ve added a photo to your design, you can send it to the back of your design and then add simple text and other elements to give your image meaning and relevance. You can do this to make something unique for your own website or marketing designs. Plus, the process is very simple, and you receive wonderful-looking results.
Conclusion
As you can see, you don’t need amazing design skills to create simple designs. Your graphic design project just needs a little creative inspiration and these ten easy design ideas. Use them for all of your graphic design projects or any time you need a little design inspiration.
Are you thinking of having a professional graphic designer create images for your business but were frightened off due to the cost? Having high-quality graphics is essential for any website, and there are other options to hiring a designer. But why is it so expensive to have designs created for your business?
Graphics made for a business carry a heavy cost of $150-$5000+ per design because it takes designers time to plan, sketch, and execute design concepts. Professional graphic design services also charge according to client demand and experience level. The cost of materials used also affects the price.
However, you’ll need to pay a professional for their hard work and time. Graphic designers also are in high demand, so they choose to work with online businesses that will pay them the most.
Find out what you need to know about getting graphics for your business website, whether it be from a paid freelance designer or an alternative method (watch the videos below).
First, check out this price list to get a general idea of the cost of each type of design:
Graphic Design
Cost
Logo Design
$250+
Business Cards
$99+ (+ cost to print)
Banner
$75+
Book Cover
$200+
Facebook Graphic
$75+
YouTube Thumbnail
$75+
Pinterest Pin
$150+ (for a bundle)
Infographic
$99+
Motion Graphic
$99+
Mockup
$99+
Blog Graphic
$75+
Advertisement of Marketing Materials
$250+
Customized Character or Illustration
$800+
Landing Page Design
$900+
Web Design
$800-$5000+
Powerpoint Slide
$250+
Miscellaneous buttons, banners, or badges
$25+ per graphic
Why Online Graphics Are So Expensive
Online graphics are expensive because pros need to research your brand and sketch out ideas. They also need time to prepare multiple drawings. Most people don’t realize how much work goes into the design process—and professionals need to receive payment for their efforts.
A lot goes into making logos and other images for online stores. Of course, you expect the highest quality graphics when paying for them. You’ll want to communicate with your freelance designer to make sure they understand your vision. You don’t want to spend additional money and extra time waiting for revisions.
I’ll break down all the factors into a design’s cost below.
Project Completion Time Costs for Graphic Design
One of the first questions that a designer will want to know is, “How much time will this take?” They’ll estimate how long it will take them to complete the design process after discussing the project with you in detail.
Project completion time is crucial to design work. On average, freelance graphic designers charge nearly $30 per hour. However, you should expect to pay between $15 to $60 per hour. If you have a large project you want to complete, it’s no wonder your business’s designs become so expensive. A design firm may have large creative teams of designers and charge by the design, increasing the cost of a logo designed by the team to a few thousand dollars.
Professionals spend a lot of time on their projects to make them look nice and polished. They take their art seriously and are not about giving you the cheapest option. So, although you don’t want to rush them, you will end up with a higher design cost. Many freelancers also tend to charge more because they need to cover other expenses since they aren’t working for a company offering benefits.
Overall, the most significant cause of an expensive graphic is the amount of time to create it. Suppose you have an extremely complicated or detailed design idea. In that case, you can expect it to take several hours to finish just a logo or one other design.
When paying $30 or more per hour, the cost adds up very fast, especially when needing multiple designs (such as several logo design variations, a business card, a couple of virtual book covers, and a full week’s worth of social media designs).
Research and Planning Expenses for Online Graphics
A freelance graphic designer won’t just slap an image together; instead, they’ll spend time on researching and planning their design. Even a logo designer almost always starts a project by sketching out ideas, studying your brand and competitors, and planning out different elements in the final logo design.
That way, they can offer their clients a high-quality product. Many people don’t realize how much effort designers put into creating images. The computer doesn’t do it for them. Unfortunately, that means businesses will also need to pay for the amount of time and effort the freelance designer puts into preparing to make the graphics.
Many designers also create multiple images at one time. They’ll work through a few different ideas to see what looks the best for your unique business. The final design you see is rarely the first image the designer came up with.
Professional Graphic Design Requires Graphic Design Software, Art Supplies, and Equipment
The Cost of Talent and Expertise of Graphic Designers
Next, you should expect to pay professionals more for their talent and expertise in the field. A beginner graphic designer won’t cost as much as an expert—so this is a case of you getting what you pay for in terms of quality.
If you want a higher-quality design for your business, you will need to pay more (possibly hundreds more). Plus, if a particular designer is in high demand, you’ll be competing with other businesses to get them to work for you. You’d need to offer more money to ensure they’re more willing to spend time on your designs.
Professional artists are experts who have spent a lot of time building experience. For this reason, how much experience they have will determine the cost of a logo design or a complete web design.
Level of Demand Expenses for Graphic Designer Services
Additionally, the level of demand for different designers will change the cost drastically. You’ll pay hundreds (possibly thousands) more for a design from a well-known creator in the field.
Why does an artist’s demand change the cost of graphics so much? Well, a designer usually will only handle a few projects at a time, so they can dedicate themselves to the work they take on. They’ll want to go with the companies that pay the most, to make the most of their own time required and effort.
Of course, that means you’ll need to pay more than the competition to make your design project more attractive to the designer. If you don’t have enough for an hourly rate designer, you’ll need to work with someone else or choose an alternative method of design (see below).
Overall, the level of demand for different designers can significantly impact the design cost. You’ll pay a lot more for a well-known professional to create customized designs than you will for someone just entering this career field. However, this will usually show in the final project that you receive.
Cost of Materials Required To Create Online Graphics
Lastly, the best graphic design uses equipment that may cost you extra. They might need art materials, a camera, or to use design software, for which they have to pay a subscription. If you’re hiring from a firm, they also must afford the office space they use.
The more materials they need to use to create your design, the more they’ll need to charge to cover the expenses.
Online graphics are essential for all businesses, regardless of your field. They give good first impressions on potential customers, offer consistent design across your site, allow you to communicate efficiently, and make your brand identity stand out.
So, of course, you can’t skip out on graphics for your business! However, what options are there if you can’t afford a professional graphic designer right now?
Watch this video to see how you can create your own designs:
Alternatives to Graphic Design Services
When you can’t afford to hire a designer for your site, there are alternatives online that you can use! You’ll still get all the benefits of having a solid design without the heavy cost of hiring a designer.
Online graphics creators allow you to make incredible designs for blogs, businesses, and more. You can create logos, ebook covers, and banners. The Graphics Creator offers all this and more, so you can take your business website to the next level.
When you use these online creators, you won’t need to pay for a graphic designer. You also won’t need access to expensive software products like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.
In short, just because you can’t afford to hire a professional designer right now doesn’t mean that you need to miss out. You can still have excellent images and content for your site. Instead, you can make them on your own using simple-to-use creators, such as The Graphics Creator.
Benefits to Creating Your Own Graphics
There are many benefits to creating your own graphics with an online graphics maker instead of hiring graphic design businesses:
Save money- You’ll only need a very low budget, if much at all
Save time- No waiting for days to get your graphic from a designer; no waiting for several more days to get revisions when you don’t get what you want
Start and finish your own graphic design using an online tool in a matter of minutes
Unlimited revisions- Any time you need them
Unlimited modifications- Change the background color, text, or fonts on your design whenever you want to
Keeping your own design preferences in mind, create a logo design, business card, book cover, YouTube banner, social media graphics, marketing materials, and more.
Enjoy being creative
Find out how to create your own ad designs from Marc at Laughingbird Software in this video:
How Much Do Online Graphics Cost?
Online graphics can cost between $15 and $15,000. Not every graphic design will incur high costs, depending on your company’s requirements. Alternatively, you may create quality online graphics with graphics software for a reasonable price.
While graphics can quickly become very expensive, you don’t always need to use the most costly options. For instance, if your business is just starting, you’ll do fine with images you get through online graphics makers.
You won’t want to drain your entire budget on graphics, especially not immediately. Your business should take some time to build up capital. You can afford more expensive designers without taking out such a large portion of your budget once you are well-established.
Another good option is to easily create graphics for social media on your own but work with a pro for more complicated designs.
Are Expensive Graphics Worth It?
Expensive graphics are typically worth it if you have a large budget. Professionals know how to make images that lead to more business, allowing the design to pay for itself over time. However, you can create your own quality graphics with excellent software available for a fraction of the cost.
A professional graphic can help your online business’s brand grow. Your brand becomes more recognizable with consistent design elements, attracting a larger audience. You’re more likely to find those who will spend more on your business with a larger audience.
Ultimately, expensive graphics may be worth it, as long as your business has the budget for it. Online graphics can become extremely expensive very fast. While you’ll receive an outstanding design, it’s not worth it if your business can’t afford the heavy hit on its budget.
If you do spend too much, you’ll struggle to keep your business afloat until the design can pay for itself. Because of this, you need to find a balance with what you’re willing to pay for online designs.
Overall, you’ll need to have designs on your site, but it needn’t break the bank. Instead, consider your budget first. You may find using graphic design software is the best way forward.
The Graphics Creator makes it easy for online businesses to design their own graphics.
Why Shouldn’t I Skip on Online Graphics?
You shouldn’t skip on online graphics—especially for a business website. Visitors to the site will leave if the design isn’t cohesive enough. They also won’t return to your site because they’ll forget about it. Proper design ensures a great brand identity and makes your page memorable.
It’s never a good idea to miss out on using online graphics. Your website won’t look unique enough, making it forgettable among the millions of websites. You need to take your website’s design seriously, no matter the budget you have to spend on it.
So, if your budget can’t fit the expense of hiring a top designer, you’ll still want to use graphics on your business website. You can make them yourself using an online creator tool in those cases.
In short, never skip out on adding online graphics to your site. Your business will suffer if you only offer customers a boring page of text to read through. Quality images will help your business grow and are essential to any website, no matter what you’re selling.
Always Get a Quote First
Instead of instantly going with the first graphic designer that you find, you’ll want to make sure you get a quote from them. The designer will consider several aspects of your project, then give you a quote on the cost.
At this stage, you don’t have to accept the quote if it’s too high. You can change aspects of your design project to make it cost less or go with a different designer. You could also choose to use an online creator yourself at this point, as there is design software available that allows you to create your own high-quality graphics.
Many people feel uncomfortable discussing money. However, a freelance designer will always be willing to give you a quote and let you see samples of their work. If they refuse, then that’s someone you should avoid hiring.
In short, you should get a quote from a designer before hiring them. Since Graphic design can be costly—you’ll need to know that you can handle the high cost before starting the creative process.
Final Thoughts
Several factors go into the heavy cost of graphics for an online business. You’ll always want to get a quote from a graphic designer or web designer before you agree to work with them. That way, there are no surprises after they finish the work.
Overall, you’ll want to consider design elements as part of your budget. You can always create them yourself using online creators and tools when you can’t afford an expert designer. However, you should never skip out on using images on your website—consider them an essential expense in your business budget.
Would you like to save some time when it comes to advertising online?
If you think about all the time you’ve spent creating your products, getting a list of potential customers, and deciding what to advertise and when to post it… ugghh…well, you’re probably done thinking about it, right?
But you won’t make any progress in your business if you don’t take one last important marketing step: Create an Ad!
Today, we’ll show you how to make a “billboard” ad in The Graphics Creator. You’ll get help finding a billboard image and designing a colorful ad to go on your billboard (make sure to see the Creatorpreneurs Academy Tip below).
Have you seen the “Placeholder” tool in the Graphics Creator? Let us show you!
CREATORPRENEUR TOOLS
The Placeholder tool can be used to place images perfectly on book covers, design mockups, and even billboards for virtual advertising!
Watch the quick video and you’ll discover everything you need to know about the Placeholder tool, as well as how to find a billboard image you can use.
LAUGHINGBIRD CORNER
In the video above, you found out how to search for a blank billboard image and use the placeholder tool to add your own design.
You can also use a placeholder on picture frames, pieces of paper, flyers, computer/phone screens, and many other mockup templates or images.
In fact, the online Graphics Creator includes book covers, boxes, wall art, computer screens, and other mockups with placeholders already included (plus templates to design images to put on them).
Just click and drag your finished design right onto any one of them!
Here’s an example of a finished book cover mockup:
So now you know how easy it is to “map” a design directly onto a placeholder. Ready to find out how to create your advertisement (this video shows you how using the Ad Creator templates)?!
Check out the video:
Have a great day!
—Marc and Lisa
Grow your business… Visually! The Graphics Creator is the perfect way to take your small business blog or website to the next level.
Facebook is a huge community where social engagement is the desired outcome. Like any initial interaction, making a good first impression is of utmost importance. Using motivational Facebook cover photos will get you noticed.
Fortunately, you can find motivational Facebook cover photos and images easily, if you know where to look. You can get them from design marketplaces or freelance designers, or create them with graphics apps and photo editors.
In this article, I’ll show you where to get a variety of Facebook covers as well as help you make your image or photo unique.
What Should I Put as My Facebook Cover Photo?
Your Facebook cover image is the first thing your visitors will see, so it’s essential to choose an impactful image, especially if it is on your Facebook business page or in a group. There are many good cover photo ideas for online businesses, many of which can be used for your personal profile page as well.
Just plugging in a beautiful photo might not be enough. Instead, why not get a little creative and use an attention-grabbing idea.
Because there are many options, the best idea is to test a few of them to see which one grabs a user’s attention. This is easy to do with a call-to-action or question since you are looking for a direct response.
If trying out the other cover image ideas, you may want to create a survey or post asking your visitors to give you their responses. If the inspirational cover photo is for a Facebook group, these are great ways to engage your group members.
Where Can I Find Facebook Cover Photos?
There are many places to get or create motivational cover photos, graphics, and images for your Facebook timeline cover. Where you decide to get these depends as much on your budget as your personal preference or company brand. The best Facebook covers will come from the places I mention below.
Take a look at the choices:
1. Stock Photo Sites
There are numerous websites where you can grab free stock photos. The problem with this approach is:
It won’t be unique– Thousands of people have used this image before
It won’t contain your business logo or brand images– So what’s the point really?
It may not be the ideal size– Facebook is very specific about the best cover photo size being 820 pixels wide and 312 pixels tall. Although you can modify the photo size on Facebook, it can still end up not fitting within those parameters.
However, there are many inexpensive or even free photos to be found.
Here are some of the best stock footage websites to find them on:
Pexels
Vecteezy
iStock
Depositphotos
Shutterstock
Getty Images
Stocksy
2. Graphics Apps and Photo Editors
There is a multitude of software apps that let you easily make Facebook images without hard-to-learn, costly graphics programs like Photoshop or Illustrator. The ones listed below have a free version to get you started.
This is the only design software that lets you download a free version (for Mac and Windows) to keep on your desktop. You can use the free templates or add a variety of templates. The wonderful thing about this software is that you can use ANY template you like by resizing the canvas to the Facebook cover photo ideal size of 820 X 312.
There are no limitations… you can use the thousands of built-in fonts as well as the hundreds of graphics and images that come with the free software. You might also like to add stylized templates and graphics through unique collections and/or import your own logo, photos, and graphics.
You don’t need design skills to create visually appealing designs! There’s also an online, browser-based version you just log into.
Laughingbird Software’s Facebook Cover Photo with call-to-action
A fast and easy photo-editing tool, Pixlr offers you a free option that can be upgraded with an additional collection of editing tools and even AI-powered image background removal. So you can upload the photo you want to use on your cover image and add overlays, filters, and stickers to make it your own.
3. Design and Art Marketplaces
Another great place to find inspiring Facebook covers is through popular marketplaces that offer predesigned inspiring covers that you manipulate to create your own version.
Although Etsy is well-known for selling crafty and artistic goods, it also has a huge offering of modifiable design templates. Individual sellers have pre-designed packages waiting for you and you can choose the style you want for your business. There’s typically a one-off price for each template set.
The downside is that you need to learn to use the software in which they created the templates, typically either Photoshop or Canva. So you can’t just buy the templates without having an understanding of the software needed to edit them.
Creative Market is different than Etsy in that it sells digital goods only. So, they have a huge variety of individually designed template packages to choose from. For example, you might find the motivational Facebook templates you’re looking for in a larger pack of social media designs.
Once again, the templates must be modified with the specified design tool it was created with.
Bundle of Modern Facebook Cover Templates from Creative Market
4. Freelance Designer Marketplace
Another option to get the cover designs you want is to hire a graphic designer. But since hiring an individual designer can be quite expensive, here is another idea… purchase a Facebook design from an individual designer through a discount marketplace.
You’ve probably heard of Fiverr. They’ve been around for many years and, yes, actually started by offering services for only $5. Now, most design services are a bit more expensive but you can hire a designer for far less money than going to a graphic design agency.
Just read the reviews and look at samples before you choose someone to create your graphics for you.
Similar to Fiverr, you can choose from a designer across the world. Here’s the difference: You can hire one directly or you can start a contest in which creators will submit their ideas for your Facebook cover photos and you can pick the best design.
How Do I Make My Facebook Cover Unique?
If you have a Facebook business page, great value should be placed on representing your brand and capturing the attention of your target audience. You can do this by making your visuals unique.
You can make your Facebook cover stand out by using your own graphics and images. If you use design templates, edit them creatively and add your brand logo and unique images.
How to Create a Facebook Cover Image
There’s no doubt that you’ll save a lot of money if you make your own social media graphics and covers. And there are design programs that make it easy, so you don’t have to be a graphic designer. Although you can get access to free downloadable design software or a free browser-based online trial, you may want to upgrade (typically for a small fee) in order to get all of the features and/or templates and graphic elements.
When you’re ready to get started, you’ll have access to unique templates and graphics with which to create your masterpiece. In most template-based design programs you will begin by choosing a template. Then set the canvas size to 820 X 312 for your cover design, and start creating. Import your brand logo design or other brand images.
Don’t forget to make certain your inspirational Facebook cover photos also look good on mobile devices.
It’s easy to make your own cover and graphics, but it never hurts to follow simple design tutorials. You’re welcome to begin with this video:
Best Quotes for a FB Cover Photo
As discussed above, quotes are a popular and positive way to express yourself or your business on your Facebook timeline image. Inspirational quotes or thoughts, quotes about life, and even quotes about self all make for gripping Facebook cover images.
Here are 10 of the best inspirational quotes for your motivational Facebook cover:
“If you want something you’ve never had before, you have to do something you’ve never done before.” – Drina Reed
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” – Alan Kay
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” – Milton Berle
“Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.” – Simone de Beauvoir
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine… and shadows will fall behind you.” – Walt Whitman
“A positive attitude gives you power over your circumstances instead of your circumstances having power over you.” – Joyce Meyer
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw
“I never dreamed about success, I worked for it.” – Estee Lauder
These are great quotes but there are thousands of other ones that might fit your brand or message perfectly. For instance, good morning quotes are positive and uplifting, just like you want your Facebook cover to be!
Final Thoughts
You can find motivational Facebook cover photos in a variety of places online. But keep in mind that your cover is the first thing your audience will see when coming to your Facebook page.
Thus, it’s important to make it unique, no matter whether you create a single image yourself or hire a graphic designer!
