<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/18051801_s-300x200.jpg" alt="Blog Graphics" width="300" height="200" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-10483" />When you want your blog posts to stand out, you typically hear that having great images is the trick. It captures an audience and makes the content even clearer to the reader. Not everyone has a degree in design and yet everyone that maintains a regular blog is trying to offer images to their posts. If you aren’t a designer and yet still require graphics for your blog, what do you do? 

Posts with graphics are easier to read and are more likely to get shared and now you can create your own graphics that will look like a pro made it. You don’t have to worry about the competition beating you with their graphic designer expense that doesn’t fall into your budget. Take a look at how to create excellent graphics for your blog posts from scratch without any skills or an expensive payment needed. 

<h2>How to start </h2>

You don’t have to be too talented to create blog graphics and you likely only have minimal experience with Photoshop that doesn’t go beyond cropping images or adding filters. If you can learn a few additional skills then it may serve you in this process. Getting familiar with the program and learning things like resizing, selecting parts of images, how layers work, how blending works, and how to create simple shapes like circles and rectangles will make your graphic creation easy. 

You’ll also want to take a look at how to use the font tool, how to use grids and guides for laying out elements, and how to important patterns, brushes, and shapes. A few hours later and you’ll know everything you need to make your graphics. 

<h2>Creating the graphic</h2>

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/38419631_s-300x300.jpg" alt="Blog Graphic Design" width="300" height="300" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-10484" />Once you’ve learned the seven skills you need to work on this on Photoshop, you’ll begin by choosing your colors; one dominant color and some additional colors. Just like Facebook chose blue and Snapchat chose yellow, you need a dominant color to be recognized by and it should probably be what your website’s color already is. There are professional color palettes to help you learn what colors work together since even the slightest difference can work against you. Think about the psychology of colors in marketing. 

Next, choose your font based on what looks good and what will pair well together. You’ll pair well together with fonts of the same family, such as PT Sans-Serif with PT Sans. Check out the WhatFont extension to see what your favorite website’s fonts are used. For example, Buzzfeed uses Proxima Nova for their headings and body text. 

Now you’ll need to choose your images by either buying stock images, using free hero images, or paying for hero images. Then choose things like your shapes, patterns, and brushes. Your blog will stand out with strong colors and bold fonts but you can’t do this without building blocks like icons, shapes, and brushes. Choose a clean, subtle pattern to make your design pop. Visualize data with icons at places like IcoMoon.io and then check out Pixeden.com to access a graphics library. 

<h2>How to incorporate all of these tools into your graphic</h2>

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/14363412_s-300x283.jpg" alt="Graphic Design" width="300" height="283" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-10482" />You’ll first start with your header image to offer a glimpse of your post’s content and have something for social media. Then create the in-post graphics to highlight key information and give structure. Limit graphics to quotes, key information, the data to be focused on, and things that could be chartable. Decide how to represent it and mix and match your design elements. Finally, make sure you keep it simple, take ideas off of what is already working, and be willing to purchase what you can’t create such as the time of a freelance designer or the license to a design. 

Seeing that graphics in blog posts get more views and shares, increases the likelihood of getting the information across, and allows your readers to process the information faster, it’s really important to have excellent graphics for your blog posts. Use these tips to create them yourself and make them great.  If you don’t have the time or the ability to create great graphics, consider outsourcing them to someone that can make your graphics look great on your blog.
