Marketing Materials: 3 Ways to Create Consistent Graphics 🙌

Strategies that will help you keep your visual brand alive—even when you must make haste! ✨ Work Flows Series 🌊

Creating consistent graphics can be hard when you’re in a hurry! 😅 You have a million and two things to do, and creating a graphic just got added to that list. You know you have visual standards—but how are you supposed to add a perfectly on brand design to your list of to-dos?! Don’t worry, we have some strategies for you.

Much like Daphne, you must make haste!

Here are 3 ways anyone can create consistent graphics, quickly:

🖼️ Use a template: Use Canva, Illustrator, Figma, or a similar service, to create a template for posts and use that. Simply create the base, duplicate it, and update a copy each time you need a new graphic in a pinch.

1. 👍 Pros:

   1. Quick

   2. Easy to do

   3. Allows for a more flexible and spontaneous schedule.

2. 👎 Cons:

   1. Need to be able to access said service wherever you are in case of emergency posts

   2. Can create a repetitive feed if repeated too often

Pro-tip: If you can, create a document that has 3-4 different templates that you can use for any reason, in a pinch, to make haste with your posts. Example: one for new product, one for sales, one for unexpected closures.

🧑‍💻 Pre-Created: Hire a designer to create a batch of different graphics based on your brand’s visual guidelines, and predicted reasons you might need to post. Examples: “we’re closed unexpectedly today” or “it’s a snow day, but we’re open online!”, “new story!” etc. Repeat this every quarter, 6 months or year so that you can refresh the graphics as needed.

1. 👍 Pros:

   1. Frees up your time in creating and posting

   2. You’ll have a pre-made post where ever and whenever you need it

   3. An extra set of eyes (the designer) creates less room for mistakes

2. 👎 Cons:

   1. If something unexpected comes up it can be harder to stay on brand with pre-created graphics

   2. You might have to repeat the same graphic a few times in a row and it could get repetitive

   3. You may or may not have access to duplicate, and create new graphics, based on the designer’s designs

Pro-tip: If you don’t have a fairly predictable schedule/posting rhythm but want to go this route, consider graphics that lend themselves to multiple occasions (i.e. “Closed Today” rather than “Snow Day”, etc.). Also consider adding color variations of each post so that you can vary your feed if its necessary to make two similar posts in a row.

📃 Visual Brand Sheet: If you hired a designer to create your brand, you should have brand guidelines—if you don’t, put together a sheet that has all your colors (with color codes), fonts and important visual brand details. That way when you need to create in a pinch, you have all the pieces in front of you and all you have to do is put them together.

1. 👍 Pros:

   1. Creates a flexible system of posts

   2. You control the way the graphic looks completely

   3. You can get really specific on the graphics.

2. 👎 Cons:

   1. You’ll probably do this as you need post graphics so it could be time consuming

   2. Can create unintended variation if you don’t have social media guidelines

Pro-tip: If you use stock photos, or graphics, consider creating a sub folder that has on-brand photos in there. That way you can use as needed when you can’t find anything really good and you need to post.

Using these strategies, and adjusting them for yourself, you’ll always be able to use graphics that honor the integrity of your brand. 👌

If you need someone to consult on what strategy would work best for your brand, a graphic designer is always a great resource.

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theBlogStack’s Substack Recs 📰 Stories and 🗞️ Publications we’re loving:

📰 Step into your creative identity with bravery by Dan Blank

📰 there’s only room for one of us by Kaothar Kadir

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📰 All Billionaires Are Addicts by Sky Fisher

🗞️ The Parnas Perspective (obviously)

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