5 Creative Ways to Use Your Graphic Designs
You don’t have to be a professional graphic designer to be able to create amazing graphics for your business.
There are many different types of graphic design apps available to small business owners that allow you to create branded, professional-looking designs for your social media posts, website graphics, email graphics, and so much more!
While there are a few really good options out there to create amazing graphics, my personal favorite and the tool I use on a daily basis is Adobe’s Creative Suite. Now before we get any further, I just want to say that I do get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
I have been able to do some really cool stuff with Adobe’s applications – specifically AdobeSpark and AdobeStock Photos. But I have also used AdobeRush to create an incredible commercial-style video for one of my clients.
AdobeSpark is an amazing tool to create social media posts. It’s a great tool for both professional and novice graphic designers.
You can begin your design with one of their hundreds of pre-made templates or start from scratch.
One of the most important features of social media posts is choosing a photo. You can easily upload your own photos and format and edit them as you want or you can use one of AdobeSpark’s free stock photos.
Additionally, if you subscribe to AdobeStock, your licensed photos will already show up in the photo options – this is a feature that I LOVE!
Another favorite feature of AdobeSpark is its Branding Center. This is where you can select your brand colors, upload your logo, and choose your favorite fonts.
Setting up your Branding Center allows you to be able to easily design any of your marketing assets simply by clicking a button.
Website Graphics
One of my little design secrets is that I use AdobeSpark to create graphics for websites that are all the same size and design. This helps when I want several photos to line up uniformly or to have the same filtered appearance.
This also really helps when designing websites for mobile devices.
I simply choose my preset design size, upload the photos I want to use, and create formatted pictures that are all the same size and appearance.
Additionally, you can use AdobeSpark to create graphics with text overlays for your website designs, as I have in the photo below.
Video Editing
Another one of my favorite features in AdobeSpark is their video editing tool. While I find this to be one of the easiest video editing tools out there, it’s also going to give you high-quality marketing assets that you can use anywhere – on your website, social media, youtube channel, and more!
You can choose to start your video editing process with one of AdobeSpark’s pre-designed video templates or simply begin with a blank canvas. You’ll start out with a predetermined number of slides that you can then easily add or delete as you go. You can add static photos to the background of your slides or upload your own video.
Here are some of the features that I really love:
- Easily set the length of each slide.
- Rearrange slides with a drag and drop tool.
- Add your own music or use one of their selections.
- Record a narration to play over your video.
- Change the size of the video from widescreen to square.
- Add your logo to your video.
- Add end credits and an “outro” slide to the end of your video.
Stock Photos
AdobeSpark provides you with an endless option of really good, free stock photos – better than most free stock photo sites. But what I really love is that my AdobeStock subscription syncs with my AdobeSpark app to easily find any photos that I’ve already licensed through AdobeStock.
I have used AdobeStock to create social media posts and stories, Facebook ads, graphics for my website and my client’s websites, lead magnet design, and so much more!
Logo’s
Okay, so I’m really going to give away a big secret right now! My logo for Floresta Marketing was made using AdobeSpark! Using some of the app’s different tools, I put together a simple, but classy logo for my business and you can do it too!
Now, I’m all for DIY, but if you can afford a professionally designed logo, please invest in one! But when you’re a die-hard bootstrapper like myself, I say, give it a shot! See what you can come up with. Sometimes the best designs come from those who already have the vision for their business image.
Conclusion
You don’t have to be a professional graphic designer in order to create compelling marketing assets to advertise your business. You just need the right tools. Adobe Creative Suite provides small business owners with amazing opportunities to create their own marketing graphics.
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