(5/7) Making the graphics for our series
Summary
In this video we’ll go over what graphics we need for each of our series and how we make them.
Watch Here
Listen Here
Weekly tips
Find software that works for you
Affinity
Illustrator
Snappa
Canva
Make a list of all graphics you’ll need
Make sizes for each platform
16:9
1:1
2:3
Match your brands styleguide
Color
fonts
Create something that will pop out on SM
Different from competitors/industry
Text VS illustration VS photography
Build all graphics before scheduling
Transcript
What's up guys, I'm Joe Virtue and in this video we're going to cover the graphics and what it took to produce 13 weeks of graphics for our previous series. So a lot went into the graphics, that's where I excel, that's my forte so I don't mind above and beyond. The software we were using to make all the graphics was Affinity Designer. I normally use Adobe Illustrator, but when I switched to M1 when those came out, Adobe Illustrator was not compatible, so I did some research and found Affinity, it's not quite as good as Adobe Illustrator, but I think when I bought it was like 20 bucks or something, one-time fee. So I was like, you know what, save some money, learn something new. That's where we built all of the graphics.
There were the one-time graphics, the cover for the podcast, the thumbnail for the YouTube videos, our blog cover graphics. On top of the one-time graphics, we did three graphics for every episode. Each of the episode graphics that would go along when the episode was released and then additionally, each week we needed six social media posts per platform, every week we were doing 18 graphics. We make it in a 16x9 and we use that for LinkedIn and Twitter, we use a 1x1 that we use for Facebook and Instagram, and then we do a 2x3 for Pinterest. We'd also convert those to our PDF booklets. There was a lot of art boards involved, but I enjoy doing that, so it wasn't a big deal. I know some people use Canva or Snappa for the graphics, me personally, because I'm creating so many and the three variations per post, I find it easier to do it in Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer.
If you're not comfortable with those, you could probably get away with using one graphic for all the social media platforms, the formatting just doesn't quite look as sharp. Sometimes you have areas that are cut off, so in the categories of video, audio, graphics, copy, I would definitely say pick your strong suit and put a lot more effort there. If you excel in graphics, I would definitely go the extra mile in graphics, make those special. If you're really good at writing copy, go the extra mile in copy and maybe don't worry about doing as many graphics. If you struggle with video or audio, definitely make multiple graphics per day so you can get up to a good amount of content for social media.
It was definitely a stretch for us to jump to video, but I think at the end it will be well worth it and some room for growth. Because I've been building social media graphics for several years now, doing it for clients, doing it internally for ourselves, I've got a good feel of what I'm trying to do. I know when I have a project, what I'm going into design. If you don't know what aesthetic you're going for, I would definitely recommend going on Instagram, checking out some feeds, checking out what's trending and that is what went into building the graphics for our series.
