Generally speaking, a graphic designer is a specialist who creates visual images of the elements of our environment through the means of graphics. They develop unique individual styles of various products, including the company’s symbolics, book and magazine covers, illustrations, printing types, etc. A good designer should combine artistic talent, excellent taste, and thorough knowledge of technical software/tools. Besides, graphic specialists don’t merely create nice pictures. Their product must solve some challenging issues – it should be bright, memorable, recognizable, and reflect the essence. This is impossible without analytical skills.

Numerous jobs in graphic design can be explained by a variety of directions. Each specialization requires the knowledge of specific tools, means of manifestation, and influence. As a rule, one specialist focuses on one or two of them. Let’s take a closer look at the top 5 most demanded graphic jobs.

Jobs in Graphic Design – Brand Graphic Designer

Facing harsh competition, all companies and manufacturers are looking for ways to stand out from the crowd and attract customers` attention. Unique style, product packing, and service presentation can significantly increase customers` recognition and, consequently, income. Brand designers help companies to draw attention through various sources. They develop logos, signs, promotional merchandise, corporate colors, and other recognizable graphic elements. Then, the whole set gets the unites style, forming the future corporate identity. Besides, modern brand designers take active participation in the development of the company’s apps, websites, digital products, and self-presentation on social media.

Since a successful or unsuccessful brand style plays a significant role in the company’s future, hirers have a lot of requirements for brand designers. Artistic skills and specialized education are some of the most important. You can study brand design in various educational establishments in the world. The recommended programs include Graphic Design, Brand Management, and Marketing, Art.  

Usually, brand designers work for design agencies or themselves. According to the Glassdoor.com website, a beginning brand specialist’s salary starts from $40 000 per year. Leading professionals earn $60 000 – $85 000 annually. Thus, brand design proves to be one of the highest-paid jobs in graphic design.

Jobs in Graphic Design – Motion Graphic Designer

Motion graphic designers are specialists who combine art, design, and IT technologies. They are engaged in the creation of motion graphics. These are short 2D-graphic videos where animation replaces static images.

The main task of motion designers is to attract and hold attention, maximally informing users about the product. And since motion graphics combine video, audio, and text into a single animated story, they perfectly fit for this purpose. Simultaneously affecting hearing and vision, these stories have a stronger impact on the viewers’ emotional perception.

One should note that motion designers do not create cartoons. Unlike a cartoon, these graphics don’t have a complete plot; it only briefly expresses an idea or concept. Motion designer is a new, demanded, and promising jobs in graphic design. Television, the Internet, mobile apps, advertising, games all hire motion graphic designers. Besides, businesses often apply animation graphics as the means of presentation, visualization, and illustration of ideas.

As far as the profession is in high demand, you can find dozens of colleges and universities worldwide to study motion graphics. There are Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, tutorials, online courses, etc. An average salary of a motion graphic specialist varies from $50 000 to $65 000. The best designers` income reaches $90 000 annually.

Environmental Graphic Designer

Environmental graphic designers carry out the comprehensive design of public spaces. Firstly, they help to organize the urban environment in the projects of residential complexes. Since the urban population is growing, we face the necessity to fit everyone with maximum comfort, functionality, aesthetics, and environmental friendliness. As you see, this is an urgent and challenging task; that’s why environmental design has increasingly become such a popular profession.

Also, these specialists take part in the creation and recreation of urban historical places. They save the history and try to fit new locations into the old context so that no one will be hurt. In a short word, environmental designers create a new organic and balanced face of the city.

 On the one hand, environmental designers deal with graphics. On the other hand, they need thorough architectural knowledge. That’s why the best way to become an environmental designer is to get a Master’s degree in one of the colleges and universities. According to statistics, the average annual income of environmental graphic designers swings between $60 000 – $64 000. However, experienced specialists earn over $90 000, the highest range reaching $108 000.

Packaging Graphic Designer

It’s not a secret that even the world’s best product will never be in demand without proper presentation and promotion. In fierce competition, success requires catchy advertising and packaging. These two elements help attract customers` attention, give them a brief yet bright and informative description, and provoke the desire to buy it. Packaging designers create a powerful tool for product promotion through the design of bottles, cans, labels, packets, boxes, etc. Since the modern market faces overproduction, packaging designers justly occupy their place at the top of most demanded jobs in graphic design.

To become a packaging guru, you should get a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Graphic Design. The choice of the educational establishment is tough since there are many schools, colleges, universities, as well as online programs and degrees. Consider the Industrial Technology and Packaging Program at California Polytechnic State University, BFA in Packaging Design in Fashion Institute of Technology (New York), Packaging Design and Communication at Mid Sweden University, and many others.

If you’re looking for high salaries, this profession is definitely for you. An average packaging designer’s income reaches $69 000 – $71 000. The leading specialists get over $90 000 – $120 000 per year.

Jobs in Graphic Design – Type Graphic Designer

Typeface design is quite an exciting area of graphic design. Here, specialists create readable text fonts. Apart from uniqueness, these fonts are aimed at solving certain tasks. The font is created to suit the circumstances where it’s used. For example, types may become a part of the brand identity or be applied to merchandise/advertisement for promotion.

Like all graphic design branches, type design can be applied in all the fields mentioned above, including motion videos, packaging, a project of the residential complex, and so on. Fashion is changing rapidly, but each typeface should fit the times and stay durable and independent. Though it may seem that people have tried everything in this sphere, type designers manage to offer absolutely new and fresh ideas. 

As a rule, type designers get classic education in design, graphic design, or art. The more specialized knowledge is acquired on additional courses. However, nowadays, one can find decent university programs like MA in Typeface Design at the University of Reading, England, or Postgraduate Certificate in Typeface Design in New York. Junior specialists get up to $45 000, while senior type designers can earn over $80 000 per year. The salary depends on whether you work for one company or agency or have private clients.

Jobs in Graphic Design – Conclusion

Undoubtedly, graphic design is one of the most promising and beneficial directions in the labor market. It provides unique opportunities for self-expression and a decent income. So, if you feel artistic gift and creativity, do take a chance!

The post Top 5 Most Demanded Jobs in Graphic Design appeared first on DesignWebKit.

They will get a comfortable reading experience from your web page. This element is so vital in the designs of websites and graphics designers spend lots of their time to get perfection in this terminology. Let me show you the best practices for improving the selection of the right typeface in your web graphics but before that just learn a few basics of typography:

Typography Basics

You will find a majority of the information available on any web page is written in textual form. The graphic designers use different fonts and their families to blend their web graphics in a stylish way. This presentation of textual data is chosen by following a certain set of rules known as typography.

Typography defines the readability and its comfort level in any textual design. The font type, size, spacing, and orientation will show off the mood of designers. They present different characters mixed with symbols and fancy letters in such a way that the reader can’t recognize the brand message hidden in these designs. It is probably the easiest way to send your brand message and goal to your consumer’s mind without any hurdle.

Why Is Font So Important in Web Graphics?

The feel of choosing the right typeface for your web design can come over time. Graphic designers need to practice this exercise for long hours and will get this sensation at the end of the day. It is important to practice this expertise in the right way, otherwise, you may mess with the situation. If you are planning a successful website design and need to improve the readability and usability of textual content of your web design then you should choose Avenir Font Family for the best practice in web graphics.

As a website owner, you need to spend more time choosing the right typeface for your web design. The textual content should not be challenging for the readers to understand and read. For this purpose, you need to follow best practices to select the right font for your web design. Keep reading and find the best possible way to design perfect textual content that feels better on the reader’s eye and you can convey your brand message to them.

Things to Remember When Selecting Font in Web Graphics

There are plenty of ways to optimize your typography in a user interface. There is a certain set of rules or crucial things which should be looked for while choosing the perfect font for web graphics. Let me show you the easiest way to improve the readability of your textual data in web design.

Branding

The most important thing in choosing the right font for a web design is to go for the typeface which matches your brand’s character. The designers hide the brand message and its business goal in their visual designs so that the reader can’t realize the branding inside the typeface. The spirit of your brand should be integrated with the characters and symbols of the selected font. It is vital to choose such a type that is a perfect representation of your brand.

Legibility

The textual data in any web graphics should be legible. If you choose an unclear or unreadable typeface for your design then the reader might disregard your design. You can decorate the titles and headings of your text in some fancier way. The body text must be legible on all types of screens and it should be comfortable for the eyes of its viewer.

Serif vs Sans

Serif typefaces are usually great for printed text. They are more readable in digital formats. It is not a good idea to use serif fonts for all textual content of your website. You can use serif fonts in titles or headings but if you looking to describe these headings in body text then you should go for sans serif font. They have more readability power in blocks of text and viewers can understand your message in a better way.

Font Family

You should know the size of the font family which you have selected for your web design. There are certain occasions where you have to choose similar fonts family for a single web design. The most effective way to choose different styles and weights in your textual content is to go for a font with a superfamily.

Limit the Total Number of Fonts

You can limit yourself to a total number of typefaces for a single web design. It will improve the usability and scalability of your content. You may apply different typefaces for different headings, but the textual data should be visible in one way for readers. The headings and body text should be distinguished from each other in font combinations. This will also improve its usability and readability. The readers comfortably understand the intent of your text.

Avoid Using too Similar Fonts

Using multiple fonts in a single design looks so creative and increases visual diversity. You can present your textual data more innovatively. Just remember that these typefaces may not clash with each other. If you are looking to choose two fonts for a single web design then rest assured that these two typefaces should not look identical to each other.

When Selecting Two Fonts, Use Decisive Contrast

When you are going for multiple fonts, this combination should generate harmony between them. There should be a substantial amount of contrasting variations between these typefaces. If one thing is similar in these fonts, the other point should have a conflict with the first one.

The best way to use decisive contrast is to mix your title, headings, and body text with serif and san serif typefaces.

Useful Tips

Here you will find some pro tips which can be used in any web design:

• Limit the number of fonts in a single design
• Try to choose sans serif font for body text
• Never use all caps
• Avoid text animations and extra spacing between lines
• Limit the total length of a single line
• Try to select standard fonts for web graphics
• Keep the total number of fonts minimal
• Try to pick a typeface that can work in several sizes

Role of Font in Web Graphics – Our Verdict

As a web designer, you need to get familiar with all the best practices of choosing the right font for your web design. This feel will come with the passage of time and routine exercise but once you get the sensation of according to your web design then you can easily pick the right font for any design in just a few minutes. If you are looking for the best font for the textual content of your web graphics then you must go for Avenir Font Family for this purpose.

It is important to keep the total number of fonts minimal and use sans serif typeface for the body of your textual data. The spacing between lines and characters needs to be identified to a certain limit. Further, remember that standard fonts are easy to read and provide a specific look to your textual content. I can hope that these practices will give you lots of confidence while choosing the typeface for your web design.

The post Guidelines for Effective Use of Avenir Font in Web Graphics appeared first on DesignWebKit.

So, here is a list of popular and unconventional graphic design resources. Creativity and ideas are unlimited there, letting everyone find a cool idea that might become real in the future.

Graphic Design Resources – DesignCrowd

If you are looking for a good value design for your next graphic project, you should consider checking DesignCrowd, as one of the most popular graphic design resources. It offers different kinds of designs at an affordable price. Although local profiles aren’t as fulfilling as they are on sites like Fiverr, you can still get an overall impression of designers’ professional skills.

At DesignCrowd, you can apply on-site filters to adjust the search to your professional needs and personal preferences. Once you find graphic designers with the required qualification, you can start your design contest. You will be surprised at receiving the first offers from all over the world within less than 24 hours.

99designs

99Designs is known as one of the largest graphic design resources. This is where you can find freelancers with expertise in almost 100 different types of design services, including interface design and e-commerce design. Since 2008, the platform has developed a database that involves almost one million designers and artists. It provides young and experienced designers with an opportunity to compete for graphic work.

If you are looking for a graphic project, you will be able to conduct a design contest where you can select a freelance designer with the best proposal. For your convenience and safety, every single designer is thoroughly screened to ensure you’re only dealing with the best.

Dribbble

Dribbble is a platform for talented designers who want to deliver their work to potential clients. If you need a professional graphic designer, icon artist, illustrator, typographer, and other creative specialists for your project, you can check the extensive freelancer’s design portfolio on the website. Local specialists share screenshots of their works to grab the potential clients’ attention. Apart from being a job board, Dribbble also serves as an online store where you can buy completed design and graphic projects.

Dribbble is free for graphic designers. But it’s not so easy to become a member. The platform is very selective by adding new members on an invite-only basis.

Best Graphic Design Resources – DesignHill

DesignHill is a popular freelance platform that serves as a hub for talented graphic designers. If you need someone with sufficient experience in design, you will have three options here. First, you can start design contests and hire the graphic designer with the most exciting design proposal. Second, you can request custom design services from the platform’s own designers. Finally, you can choose One to One Projects where you can find a designer for a graphic project.

DesignHill brings a lot of benefits. Samples are regularly posted so that clients can easily assess the types of work offered. This is a great way to communicate on a creative level.

Behance

Behance is one of the most popular sites to discover creative graphic designs. Being operated by Adobe, it allows designers to sign up with their Adobe ID. Meanwhile, Adobe CC users can post their project works directly to Behance through the creative Cloud. The entire content of Behance is distributed to other online galleries, including

• Branding Served
• Illustration Served
• Web Design Served, etc.

Thanks to the high exposure of graphic design works, more people have an opportunity to access and buy this or that creative project from an excellent designer. To make the website’s navigation more convenient, users can apply creative filters such as a particular school, color, country, or creative tool. Thus, you have a great opportunity to meet people with talent and creative vision here.

Coroflot

Coroflot is a website for web and graphic designers. Since 1997, the local design portfolios have grown to more than 2 million images and more than 150k design projects from young and experienced students across the globe. While some portfolio sites focus on graphic designers, Coroflot pays more attention to all facets of the design world. The site also services as an active job platform with a modern design salary guide. They cover the works in all design disciplines, including graphic, architecture, 3D modeling, industrial, illustration, and many more. What’s good is that Coroflot is free for everyone so you can easily find everything you need there.

Top Graphic Design Resources – Carbonmade

Carbonmade aims to provide high-quality yet inexpensive graphic design works. The resource was initially intended for designers only. Eventually, it became filled with other types of projects for web developers and architects. Carbonmade is easy to use due to its convenient navigation system. Every single portfolio contains information about the designer’s experience, designing vision, and previous works. Currently, there are more than 500k portfolios belonging to talented graphic designers. As you can guess, making the final choice won’t be an easy thing to do.

Most of the above graphic design resources provide simple and complex graphic solutions for any kind of online content. Now that you know where you can find some amazing designs, you should proceed with the search. Depending on how quickly you need to design your project, what your budget is, and the type/frequency of the graphic work you need to do, you should be able to find the best freelance designer on the right design site. But before you go any further, you should have a goal in mind. What kind of design project do you need? What additional features are you looking for? How complex is the graphic content supposed to be?

The post Graphic Design Resources to Find Designs & Free Graphics  appeared first on DesignWebKit.

Marketing is often the most underestimated part of any business. Some say that it is almost useless in the days before the internet, especially for smaller ventures. Most of the people who take it seriously are at the top and need to stand out more. It is why marketing is almost often linked with making ads, as it is thought of as its main purpose. However, there are many ways that you can take advantage of marketing strategies, especially in the modern world, as you can see here.

Market Yourself To The World

One of the main strategies used in this modern era of business is eye stimulation. Most people often have many ways of dealing with information, and they would take it in using the best way possible for their brains. Some like to hear the information, while others use their sense of touch to gain it. However, most people use sight to learn and take in this information for them to register in their brains.

For this reason, many companies have been focusing on building their marketing using graphic design. It is the use of various computer tools and apps to create images that would suit your needs. Here in Australia, many companies like Yada Adelaide offer such services and more depending on your strategy. Some may downplay its importance, but the tech world we live in right now proves that good digital images can make or break a scheme.

The Many Applications Of Graphic Design

Logo Creation

If there is one thing that can represent or business or institution, it would be your logo. It is the symbol of your existence, so it should properly represent what you offer or believe in. Graphic designers can help you recreate the vision that you have for this logo. Remember, it will be used on almost anything related to your company, so it has to look good. There are also many ways that you can make it an effective branding tool, depending on how you use it.

Advertisements

One of the main functions of any marketing department is to make ads for the company. It can be used as paper, as it is still used up to this day. However, with the internet taking over our lives, most people would see them online. You can always make your banner using simple tools like Paint and word processors, but it is different when you have a designer by your side. They can make colorful images and support moving ones, which works great with any campaign.

Graphic Design in Website Making

Another effect of the internet’s takeover of human civilization is the predominant importance of having a website. It is your gateway to the world as a business, a sure way of going global as long as it is your goal. There are several advantages of having good graphics by your side in creating a website. One of the most important ones is optimizing the site and designing it to attract more customers.

Marketing And Sales Branding

As we have mentioned before, everything that your company touches and creates needs to have your logo. It is a good way to get your name out there into the world and relating that logo to your business. Once you have achieved a presence in the local market, it is easy to transition into the world using the internet. However, it is also crucial that the design of this logo, along with other products, must be uniform and corresponds to your goals.

Social Media Marketing

It is also important to have a graphic designer to help you design your social media page. Aside from your website, having a social media account increases the likelihood of having more customers. Based on many research articles like this, more people spend time on social media than anywhere else. Graphics help by adding original banners to the page and posts promoting your products and services. Some can also help with short videos for promotions and other types of engagement.

Graphic Design in Product Packaging

We have also mentioned the importance of having your logo on your products, but there is another necessity in this situation. The design of the product itself is also crucial in creating brand integrity and identity. It is the first thing that most customers will see in what you offer; then, the logo will be next in line. For this reason, it is essential that the packaging is eye-catching and functional, and practical for the brand.

Graphic Design and Presentations

Lastly, graphics genuinely help in almost any kind of presentation using tools like PowerPoint. Many often make these presentations and use stock images as a way to convey their message. There is a reason why it is the most popular choice, but it is not the most effective way. Having original images is so much better as it perks the interest of your audience. If it moves and creates sound, for example, then it is even better to capture their attention.

Graphic Design Importance – Final Points

As you can see, there are many advantages that you can garner from having a graphics designer for your company. It is a good way to market yourselves and create a uniform look in every aspect of the business. Having such an identity helps with customers recalling your services and associating them with your logo. Thus, once they see it in a public space, they are more likely to gravitate to it due to a positive experience.

The post Graphic Design Adelaide – The Importance Of A Designer appeared first on DesignWebKit.

Find A Location

Although graphic design is a profession that is well suited to remote working, it’s a good idea to consider investing in permanent office space. This gives you and your fellow workers a place to collaborate. It is also a professional environment for when meeting potential clients and customers.

Getting a place can be an expensive investment that you need to figure out is right for you. There are going to be a lot of costs involved, such as rent and utility bills like gas, water, and electricity. Thankfully, there is the potential to shop around and get a good deal, as gas, electricity, and business water rates exist in a more competitive, free-market environment, providing the opportunity to change things up. If getting an office space isn’t an option, you can always work from home; you just need to make sure that you have a dedicated space to work.

Get The Equipment

It’s highly likely that you’ll already have some of the basics before considering opening a graphic design studio. However, there’s a high likelihood that you’ll need more. A drawing pad and laptop might have served you well up until this point. But you’re going to have to update and implement new technology to help you create better work for sophisticated clients.

When creating a graphic design business plan, consider hiring a few people to join your firm. They’ll be expecting equipment to be provided. If you’re unsure what else you need, click here for a handy list.

Graphic Design Business Plan – Market Yourself

When opening a graphic design studio and before, creating a graphic design business plan, you have to let the world know that you exist. You need to build goodwill and a reputation. This is where marketing can help, especially online. A visual business such as yourself should definitely get a social account on Instagram or Facebook, and it’s also a good idea to create a professional-looking website too. You then need to build your brand by posting content regularly. Digital marketing isn’t easy. There’s a lot of different aspects to it. However, it’s essential when starting any new business venture in the graphic design realm.

The post Graphic Design Business Plan – How to Start Own Studio appeared first on DesignWebKit.

Building Brand Awareness with Graphic Design – Find a Graphic Designer

If you really want your business to stand out from all your other competitors, then you should consider investing in some professional graphic design. Visual consistency through the whole brand is very important – you can’t expect your customers to recognize your brand if your company looks like one thing on your website and like a completely different thing on Facebook and Instagram. Depending on the amount of visual content you plan to have, you can either hire a branding design company or simply hire a freelance specialist and contact the person whenever you need to get some work done. Freelance graphic designers can be found on specialized websites like Upwork or in specialized Facebook groups for freelancers.

Customize Your Email Signature

All companies have email signatures – mostly to share the name, surname, and contacts of the person who is emailing you. So some signatures are pretty dull and vague. But that’s not the way you should do it. You should use this chance and customize your email signature to boost your brand awareness – and this will cost you nearly nothing. More to it, statistics show that most of the email recipients pay attention to the email signature.

To boost your brand awareness with an email signature, add useful links that lead to your website or social media profiles, use design elements that represent specific offers or other important messages you want to show to your clients. Just make sure all of your links work, use consistent branding, and don’t place too many visual effects into one small space, branding agency ramotion know these principles very well.

Building Brand Awareness with Graphic Design – Create a Brand Identity

A clear and consistent brand identity is crucial for building brand awareness with graphic design. As already said before, you cannot expect your potential clients to recognize your brand if you are representing it differently in different media channels. The graphic design on your website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and your blog don’t have to be exactly the same. But they have to have the same style and carry out the same message.

Amplify Your Graphic Design Elements to Your Website

Website design is more than just beauty and trends and it’s absolutely more than just a face for your e-store. The graphic elements of your website need to be thought out carefully by a professional who has experience with building websites and understands human behavior on websites. Beauty is just not enough in this case.

Graphic elements of your website play a very important role in helping your customers find what they need and in addition – showing something you want to show to your client. Depending on how easy your website is to navigate often determines either the potential customer will stay on your website or leave immediately.

Graphic Design in Printed Elements

Here we are talking about all the flyers, business cards, calendars, posters, product packaging, and everything else you decide to have for your printed advertising section. Surely digital marketing is getting more and more popular than all the printed versions of advertising but the old flyers still have their market share. The trick is to make it as interesting and interactive as possible. And a good creative professional will definitely help you out with that.

Blogging

A blog is always good for business. It created additional value for your customer, gains extra traffic to your website, and raises your SEO score – if you create quality content that is relative to your business. But you probably noticed that the attention span people tend to give for a post or a social media story is getting shorter and shorter, so we can imply that nowadays people are less and less likely to read long articles. Although blogs aren’t dead yet – what can save a great insightful article is some visual elements that explain and divide the text better. Creating quality visual elements also will result in more shares in social media platforms that will also gain you more website traffic.

The post Building Brand Awareness with Graphic Design – 6 Best Tips appeared first on DesignWebKit.

Hey there! This is Tyler, the founder of Ministry Designs, a church website building tool that has been growing by leaps and bounds, thanks in part to some trusty new techniques I’ve learned as a student of the SEO guru Brian Dean. A while back I took Brian’s SEO That Works course and since then I’ve gone on to apply many of the crucial lessons I learned to my own site. But there’s one method in particular that has always stood out to me as one of our favorite ways to get good backlinks – the guestographic.

What Is a Guestographic?

At the end of the day, this is simply another way to get authority backlinks. What do I mean by “authority?” I mean links that connect you to well-established websites and consequently do wonders for your Google rankings.

As Brian Dean himself says, “Great Content + Targeted Outreach + Added Value = Links”

While this formula works well for a host of different strategies for how to get backlinks, the guestographic method has one thing, in particular, going for it: When it’s done well, it has a MUCH higher conversion rate. In other words, many more people are likely to listen to your pitch when an infographic is involved.

The Almighty Infographic

O.K., at this point you’re probably thinking, “Hang on a second, we’ve been talking about guestographics all this time. Why did you just shift over to infographics?” The answer is simple: The “content” part of a guestographic is primarily just a good infographic!

That’s right. If you’re already familiar with the concept of an infographic, you’re about 75% of the way to using guestographics. For those of you who might not know (or need a refresher) an infographic is a graphic that contains …you guessed it, information!

This is one of my absolute FAVORITE ways to get traffic on my site. Why? Because it is an incredibly effective way to both provide crucial pieces of information in a supremely digestible format …and get traffic at the same time.

To that first point, did you know that 65% of humans are visual learners? So, while reading something important might eventually sink in, taking that very same piece of information and making it into a gloriously visual piece of killer content takes it to a whole new level.

It makes it interesting and also attractive to share. If you read something profound and share an article, anyone who has the time to sit down and read it as well may totally agree with you!

However, if you read an infographic that you love and share it, it only takes a few seconds for everyone to read the bulletized and condensed info and react with their thoughts. This kind of strategy, using infographics in general, can literally increase your organic traffic exponentially, and when it’s done in the form of guestographics, that increase can be off the charts!

So, What Is a Guestographic, Then?

Once you’ve got infographics on your site, the typical way to get them to work for you is to go around sharing your content and using email infographic outreach to try to get others to share it for you. But asking someone to go out of their way in order to come to your site, take a look, decide if they like it, and then take the trouble to share your content is risky business.

A lot of sharing outreach usually ends up with a pretty poor rate of return. Very few people end up biting (even though those that do still make those other avenues of outreach valuable).

Enter the guestographic.

What makes the guestographic so powerful is that instead of trying to get others to share your content, you offer for them to make it part of their own content! Not only that, but you throw in a little extra bonus content that really pushes the whole deal over the top for most people.

Basically, a guestographic is a magical combination of an infographic and guest blogging, bringing many of the top benefits of each together in one happy place. So, to summarize, a guestographic is basically an infographic that you are offering to others to use as part of their own content, along with some bonus material to boot.

Now that we know what a guestographic is, I’ll take you step-by-step through the process of how to create and use a guestographic for maximum effectiveness.

How to Make an Infographic

The first step in the process is creating a good infographic.

Now, you may already have this down pat and can jump ahead. But for those of you who still struggle with how to create infographics or are entirely new to the concept, I just want to give a few pointers regarding how to make actually GOOD infographics. This is a very important starting point, and if done incorrectly, it can ruin the whole process. Trust me, if you want to bake a delicious cake, don’t use bad ingredients. You don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot before you even start!

When it comes to creating quality, high-performing infographics, a huge part of the success factor is what information you choose to put on them. Sure, making it look attractive is important (and we’ll talk more about that in a second), but really, if the facts aren’t good, no one’s going to want to share it.

You want to make sure that you have high-quality information that answers a few important things:

1. Is the info currently relevant?
2. Is it a reasonable quantity of information?
3. Can you get it done professionally?
4. Does it have your brand and website?

Let’s quickly break each of these down.

Is It Currently Relevant?

The first question is a crucial factor here. If you make a killer infographic about how Facebook grew into a giant social media empire — something that blew up the internet …years ago — chances are you’re not going to get much traction. Everyone knows that information already. It’s old news.

And one of the most frustrating things about the fickle internet world is that whatever is currently the “hot topic” can change quicker than you can change your jacket.

So, before you make an infographic, make sure to research what’s trending in your area of expertise and tailor the infographic to what people are talking about.

Is It a Reasonable Quantity of Information?

The next one, the quantity of information, is also important. Typically you’re not going to cram an entire article on to an infographic (although sometimes that can be the perfect solution, as you can see with this infographic on Neil Patel’s backlink strategies article that summarizes ALL of the content).

You’re going to want to consider exactly what you’re going to include. Make sure that everything you choose to put on there has a purpose and supports the actual topic of the infographic!

Can You Get It Done Professionally?

The next part is simple. Now, sometimes you just can’t afford to pay professionals for everything, but if you can hire someone who knows their stuff in order to make your infographic, chances are it’s going to perform better.

Sites like Fiver and Upwork are great ways to find a huge assortment of freelancers who can create the graphic for you without even needing to hire someone onto your staff.

If hiring a professional graphic artist is out of your budget, freelance or not, (even on the cheap end it can cost a few hundred dollars apiece when done correctly) you can always do some research and use a tool like Canva to start creating your own.

Just remember to keep things like your topic, audience, and focus in mind. Here’s a great article by Neil Patel with a list of 12 different things that can help create some killer infographics.

Does It Have Your Brand and Website?

Finally, make sure to stamp your infographic with your company logo, website, or whatever makes you stand out. It doesn’t have to dominate the image, just make sure it’s tucked in there somewhere. I typically try to make it just big enough to stand out without being a distraction.

After all, you want people to share this, so it can’t look like a billboard for your company.

How to Use Your Infographic as a Guestographic

Alright. At this point, you’ve got your high-quality infographic covering a trending topic. But now, what do you do with it?

How Do You Get It Posted on other Sites?

Here are the basic steps that Brian Dean (and I, myself!) like to use to promote infographics as guestographics, all of which is done to help figure out how to get backlinks for your site.

Get the Infographic Posted on Your Site

This is the obvious first step. After all, no matter how incredible your infographic is, it isn’t going to do anyone (least of all you) any good if it’s just sitting in a folder on your desktop.

You want to get the infographic live on your site. Once it’s created, find a relevant spot on your site to publish it. There you go, the first step is done!

Do Some Research!

Here’s where the “guest” part of the guestographic starts to come into play. The next step in the process is finding sites that relate to your infographic. Please understand, this is an absolutely CRUCIAL step!

If you created an infographic on how organic coffee is grown, you don’t just want to go look up a site promoting Folgers. You want to find the Third Wave, artisan coffee sites that have posts that talk about the life cycle of a coffee plant, where the beans come from, what organic means, and so on.

The sites you find here are going to make or break your outreach efforts, so don’t slack. Make sure to look for quality sites with relatable information.

You can do this by simply Googling sites that relate to your infographic in particular. Just remember, you’re not looking for other sites that simply match up with your own site’s philosophy. They need to relate to your specific infographic and use the right keywords to help it rank.

If you’re stumped about what to Google, type in your keyword for the infographic (we’ll say it’s “organic coffee” from our above example) and see what comes up. If you need to search further, one nifty trick I like to use is to simply scroll down to the bottom of the search and see what other related searches Google suggests.

You can also use an LSI keyword generator to help get an idea of other search terms that might get you the quality results you’re looking for.

The Infographic Outreach

Now we’ve gotten to the official infographic outreach part of the process, the part where you come face to face (or more accurately, email to email) with your prospective linkreators — that is those who own sites that could give you a quality backlink!

Now, when you format an infographic outreach email for a prospect, there are a few things that I’ve found to be helpful to keep in mind to give you the best chance of a positive response possible.

Don’t Be Pushy

This first one is important to watch out for. After all, you’re probably going to be tempted to sell this thing, hard. But really, with a guestographic, so much of the work has already been done at this point, that all you really need to do is let it make the pitch for you.

Instead of explaining why your infographic is so incredible, tantalize them by briefly explaining what you have and then asking if they want to see it.

Chances are you’ll get a positive response pretty quickly.

Demonstrate an Understanding of Their Site

It is ALWAYS a good idea to include something about their site that shows that you’re up to date and aware of their content.

Don’t just try to bluff your way through with a thinly veiled comment about how “their content is great” or some generic statement that’s true for everyone in the niche.

Read up on their site enough to come up with some quality comments that indicate that you actually BOTH understand what they’re doing with their site AND that you think your infographic is a good option to complement their content.

Before you roll your eyes at the thought of that extra research, though, remember, some of this work should already be done by the time you get to this point.

You already needed to look over their sites in order to research a bit to even know if they’re a candidate to reach out to, right? I suggest taking some quick notes as you check out their blog so that when you come back around to reaching out you have some quick points to remember what to talk about.

Keep it Short and Simple

Yes, I’m going to step into the role of that frustrating instructor that tells you a bunch of things to include on the assignment …and then tells you to keep it short. But trust me, this is all part of the recipe for success with this stuff!

The truth is, “filler content” should be your enemy at all times online, and this is just as true here as anywhere else.

Keep things short, simple, and focused in your email.

Drop some info about their site, throw out the suggestion that you have a good infographic that would be a killer addition to their content if they want to see it, and then leave it at that!

Be Ready for Rejection

This one’s pretty standard in this industry, but I want to include it so that I don’t get a bunch of angry emails expressing frustration because “I did the guestographic technique and I’m getting rejected! Isn’t this supposed to be how to get backlinks easier?”

First of all, this really is one of the best SEO methods out there right now. It’s literally one of Brian Dean’s all-time favorite strategies!

However, that doesn’t mean you’re not going to have a ton of people turn you down …or just plain ignore you. After all, anyone with quality backlinks to offer is likely to be approached by a TON of email requests just like yours.

All you need to do, my friends, is don your rejection armor, put your head down, and muscle through the disappointment.

If you can keep on moving forward, you should eventually start seeing a return for all of that hard work!

Keep Track of Everyone

Another really helpful tip is to keep track of everyone you’re reaching out to in a spreadsheet (or whatever your preferred method of organization is).

Why do this? Because when you start getting responses, it can be really helpful to have a master list of information to go to where you can quickly reference what name, site, post, site philosophy, or whatever else you feel is important is associated with a particular email you might have gotten a positive response from.

Respond

Once you start getting positive responses it’s time to send the infographic. When you do, that is when you can suggest (still casually!) that if they want to post it on their site, they’re welcome to …and you’ll even write a little text blurb, a “mini guest post” of sorts, to go along with it.

When you do this you’re offering them a free infographic …and a bonus of free personalized content!

The “Bribe”

This last personalized content or “mini guest post” is a crucial part of the process, something Brian likes to call the “bribe.”

All this consists of is a brief yet unique angle on the content that is tailored to the particular site.

It may sound like homework, but this is the golden ticket, the home run, it’s what you’ve been working for! (More on that in a minute.)

All you need to do at this point (assuming they agree to your “bribe”) is write up a quick intro blurb for the infographic that will fit nicely into the blog the infographic will reside in.

Make sure the text consists of applicable, unique content that is both quality (remember, this is a guest post. Make sure it looks good!) and SHORT! We’re talking just a few hundred words. Not a skyscraper post!

Extra Note: As you may already be aware, the typical way to write good, quality content online involves using well placed bold and italic words and keeping paragraphs short, no more than three sentences!

Now comes the most important part. It’s the crux of this whole process:

INCLUDE A LINK TO YOUR SITE!

Just one link (don’t overreach here). This one little tag-along action can do wonders for your site, but I’ll explain that in the next section.

Finally, send the text out with a nice note and you’re good to go!

If you’re one of that 65% of visual learners, you can see Brian Dean’s video that runs through most of these steps (though they’re presented slightly differently) here.

Extra Note: Another way you can create guestographics is to literally reach out to other blogs in your niche and offer to design infographics for them for past or future blog posts. Of course, they would have your logo, email, and link attached still, but keep in mind that this method can be quite a bit more time consuming since you would not be able to reuse the graphic as easily if it’s so specifically tailored to one site.

What Are You Getting out of This?

Alright, what did you just accomplish?

Believe it or not, most of all of this work boils down to that one link. That one link is gold.

Sure, the infographic can go viral or at least be shared a lot (again, make sure it’s got your website on it!), which is the other obvious benefit, but there’s another, subtler, potentially MUCH more powerful benefit to this whole thing: improving your Google Rankings.

That contextual link is the vital piece of the puzzle here.

Rather than a quick “credit link” under the infographic, a link that is embedded into a sentence within your mini guest post, right there amongst the content, is going to rank MUCH better with Google, when it sees that it’s within the content of the page.

Now, this might sound like a lot of work for a single link, but, honestly, that’s the nature of how to get backlinks. And, in this case, your chances of success are WAY more likely when you offer them something as juicy as a good infographic that will dramatically improve their own content as well, rather than simply offering them a quick hyperlink to your own article to pop into an existing article they might have.

The Magic of the Guestographic

And there you have it, the guestographic.

Ladies and gents, this really is one of the absolute BEST ways to get excellent backlinks for your site.

So much of the process is in your hands, and yet it remains an awesome, above board white hat SEO method that yields legitimate backlinks for your site while simultaneously increasing the quantity of quality content on the internet with your infographic.

So, the next time you’re scratching your head wondering how to get a few good backlinks for your site, remember our good friend, the trusty infographic, guest post combo that has been so lovingly dubbed “the guestographic.”

It just might be that one little tool that launches your site into the limelight.

The post What Is Guestographic and How to Get Backlinks with Guestographics? appeared first on DesignWebKit.

Infographics have proved to be an incredibly successful medium of communication, and brand promotion. A powerful and persuasive infographic has the ability to influence the customer’s mind and slowly nudge him/her into the sales funnel.

Free Editable Infographic Templates and Tools

However, for any infographic to work and deliver its purpose; it must be created systematically; otherwise you will only end up wasting your time and resources without achieving the desired results. An infographic may appear simple, but without the right set of infographic tools; creating a respectable infographic is not easy.

To be honest, there is no better interactive infographic maker than photoshop. With Photoshop; you can literally create brand new worlds as there are incredible customization and virtually no limit to what you are able to do. The only flaw of photoshop is that it consumes a lot of time and requires an expert skill level to create a good infographic. The good news is that there are dozens of affordable and free interactive infographic makers that can help you to create even attractive and helpful infographics.

Here are some of the best and top leading infographic tools which offer free editable templates.

Canva

Canva is by far the most popular interactive infographic maker for creating beautiful and eye-catching designs. The tool is built by keeping in mind the importance of the thoughtful approach to graphic design. Due to the number of free editable infographic templates offered by Canva, it is one of the most widely used infographic tools.

Here are some of its highlighting features;

• Canva houses a vast library of icons, images, and fonts along with countless options, millions of images and countless templates to choose from.
• The tool makes an effort to help the user create what’s on their mind, with step-by-step guides through the entire process such as choosing appropriate colors and typefaces.
• It also gives you the opportunity to compare and contrast different numbers or make track changes across a given period.

If you want to know how your visitors react to colors have a read at this article, Colors and Emotions in a Website Design which beautifully explains all the details.

Visme.com

Visme.com is the right pick as an interactive infographic maker for you if you want to create an infographic that speaks visually. Visme offers a great presentation along with sophisticated features that can give voice to visuals.

Here are some of its accentuating features;

• Visme offers hundreds of professionally designed free editable infographic templates and over 20 beautiful charts, 100+ fonts and many graphs and tables.
• You can either create your own layout by mixing and matching the pre-designed content blocks from the built-in library or you can also build your own library of content blocks so that you are able to reuse sections of your design in future projects.
• The best thing about Visme is that you can add or record audio and also embed maps, surveys, polls and even CTAs by inserting links and creating pop-ups.

Infogram

If you are on a search for a comprehensive yet clean and easy to use infographic tool; then Infogram is the right choice for you. Infogram offers dozens of basic templates that can easily be customized with the relevant statistics and graphics.

Here are some of its powerful features,

• Infogram offers more than 500 maps and over 35 interactive charts to help you visualize data, including pie charts, column tables, bar graphs, and word clouds.
• Infogram offers easy drag-and-drop editor. The intuitive, lightweight data editor helps you easily edit colors and styles, add icons, and set display options to make your data shine.
• You can create responsive infographics that looks great across all devices. You can also add them to Facebook Instant Articles, publish them on Medium, or use the Infogram WordPress plugin.

Snappa

Snappa is primarily a graphic designing tool, however; it offers a free interactive infographic maker as well. It is ideally suited for beginners and non-designers.

Here are some of its outstanding features,

• Snappa offers preset infographic dimension that is optimized for social sharing across the web
• The drag and drop functionality helps you create custom templates to make infographics that truly depict your brand.
• Access to 500,000+ of high-res, totally not cheesy, 100% royalty-free stock photos available in the built-in library.
• Add some polish typically reserved for professional graphic designers along with customizable graphics, shapes, and text
• You have the opportunity to download your infographics as a web-optimized JPG, high-res PNG, Retina JPG, or Retina PNG
• They also offer free editable infographic templates.

Easel. Ly

Easel.ly is another top animated infographic maker that offers dozens of easily customizable templates. It gives you the opportunity to upload your own graphics which you can be positioned very easily.

Here are some of its top of the line features,

• An instant access to a larger library of free editable infographic templates available
• You can also create your own customized library of icons, charts, illustrations, and images
• You can download your infographic in every major format, share it, embed it on a web page and you can also invite another team member to edit it in this animated infographic maker.

Conclusion

Several marketing studies indicate that infographics are becoming increasingly popular and is an effective communication medium so it should be an essential element of your marketing mix. However, in order to utilize the full potential, you need to be systematic in your approach and use the right interactive and animated infographic maker to make sure that the content is quality with a great design and faster turnarounds.

The post Tools That Offer Free Editable Infographic Templates appeared first on DesignWebKit.

What Is Inside the Graphic Design Bundle

Graphic design becomes popular day-by-day and turns into a thing without which we can not imagine our modern living. The more in-demand it is on the market, the more beginners dream to improve their graphic design skills to impress the audience with fabulous visuals. Therefore, we prepared everything you need starting from corporate logo templates to professional certificate designs in one web design bundle. So, whether you’re a talented designer, web developer, marketer, or website owner, you will find perfectly suitable & necessary web design elements up to your needs. For your convenience, we will give you a short overview of the products below.

Logo Templates

Sometimes, when you’re out of fresh ideas, creating your own logo feels like a big pain in the arse. For this reason, we collected tons of captivating logo designs together with many other web design elements into a one graphic design bundle. Photography, business, restaurant, medical, real estate, and a plenty of other logo design templates categories are waiting for you right away! Feel free to get a necessary template in one of 5 formats, to customize its color palette and text, and work with both vertical and horizontal layouts of the chosen logo design template.

HTML Website Themes

If you are a true HTML-lover, this bundle of good-looking website themes is for you. Here you get a variety of well-structured landing page templates and multi-page themes with a mobile-friendly design and clear code.

Instagram Template PSD Designs

Instagram is not only about posting private photos anymore. For now, it is a powerful machine for business promotion and brand advertising. Thus, this graphic design bundle of professional-looking templates will help you to get all possible profits by creating a proper Instagram look for your brand.

PowerPoint Presentations

You might think that PowerPoint presentations are old-school. However, many people still use them for showcasing their business and they really work well, especially, for charts, maps, infographics, etc. This bundle contains a plenty of unique slide designs for multiple purposes.

CV Designs in All Popular Formats

CV is the key to the job of your dreams. Sometimes, neglecting your CV look can make all your tries to get the job in vain. Fortunately, there are many professional resume templates in this bundle. They will help you to create a valuable CV for a wide range of jobs.

Banner Set For Google AdWords

If you need some professional banners for a strong Google AdWords campaign, this bundle comes really in handy. All AdWords are available PSD and 10 the most popular sizes.

Editable Facebook Cover Photos

These graphic design bundle deals are perfect for creating a gorgeous look of your business profile in Facebook. Whether you have a cosmetics store, a consulting company, a travel bureau, or any other kind of business, these cover photos will work for you. Feel free to work with these files in Photoshop and add your text and company information.

Social Media PSD Images

The social media graphic design bundle also contains multipurpose social media images in PSD format. They will help you spice up your social networking space and run successful business campaigns as well.

Corporate Identity Packages

When it comes to your own business, it is very important to showcase your brand in little things. That is why we added corporate identity packages to these graphic design deals. Here you will find many cool designs for envelopes, business cards, and more. This business stationery will help you to create a unique look for your project.

Icons in AI, PNG & PSD Formats

This graphic design bundle has tons of great icons with a custom design. Feel free to use them for multiple purposes from your job to personal interests.

YouTube Cover Templates

If you need some cool files to plump your YouTube channel, hurry up to get these web design elements. Not only they will help you to personalize your channel but also to create nice mockups.

Certificate Designs

This graphic design bundle provides you with gorgeous certificate designs for multiple kinds of events. Moreover, you can customize each design the way you like. These pre-made solutions will help you to highlight the style of the event you have and will save you a plenty of time.

How to Get This Graphic Design Bundle Deal

This bundle is available for purchase in two plans. Pay $4.99 monthly ($60 per year) or save 40% and get it for as low as $36 per year. After choosing the most suitable payment option, download the bundle and get new stuff every month.

We hope that this web design elements collection will help you to fall in love with graphic design forever.

The post Graphic Design Bundle – Get 260 Creative Elements in One Deal appeared first on DesignWebKit.

Now, of course, that depends on marketing yourself correctly. But you can’t market what you don’t have. For that reason, you need to take whatever actions you can to improve your actual graphic design skills. That’s where daily exercises come in.

Here are some of the best-proven techniques and exercises that will help you get that edge you need to climb to the top of the field. And yes, the view from up there is amazing.

Improve Graphic Design Skills By Reading Every Day

Step one to improve your graphic design skills is to read broadly and widely. Find some of the more interesting voices in the field and follow what they’ve got to say about it. This will give you insights and ideas that otherwise you would entirely be missed out on.

Don’t know what to read? Well, there are plenty of choices out there. You can check out Awwwards, for example. These guys find the best pages out there and then highlight them for you in a central location so that you can see what’s moving and who’s shaking in the design world. Other good choices are MotoCMS design blog, Line25 blog.

Take an Hour To Draw By Hand

You should treat drawing by hand a little bit like meditation. Done right, it can inspire you for the rest of the day. So how do you do it right?

First of all, learn to just draw. The part of your brain that edits and the part of your brain that is responsible for creative insights are not the same. In fact, the more critical you are of what you’re putting down, the harder it will be to actually do stuff.

For that reason, just draw. Don’t erase. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work. This is not about the result. It’s about the inner journey and reflecting on what you’re doing. What comes out onto the page is in many ways secondary.

Don’t know what to draw about? Then just take a regular object, like an apple or a tap, and draw that. Do a different version every day of the week. Try different styles. Then move on to something new.  Make use of handy drawing apps.

Take Courses on Graphic Design

You can get a long way with hands-on experience, but you can only ever get so far without understanding the fundamentals. Obeying the rules of color theory and typography will make it so that your designs go from chaotic to clean.

Now, you don’t directly have to enroll in a school to get this stuff down. There are fortunately a lot of opportunities to do it on your own. My suggestion is to find out the reading lists of the more popular courses and just working your way through those. This will give you a lot of the fundamental knowledge without you actually having to pay to go to the universities.

So work that into your schedule. You’ll be surprised how much you can pick up if you read 30 minutes a day.

Connect With Other Graphic Designers

That doesn’t sound like an exercise, you’re thinking. If it doesn’t, then you’re not doing it correctly. You should learn to set a certain window of time aside every day to engage with other designers. This can be just to stay on their radar, to ask for feedback or to give your own comments.

Doing this every day will help you build up a network. More importantly, the more people engage and comment on what you’re doing, the more easily you’ll know when you’re learning stuff that’s valuable and when you’re just spinning your wheels in the air. That’s important, as most of us waste a lot of time chasing dead ends. Any help you can get to avoid doing that will be incredibly useful to you.

Work on Your Dreams

It can be exhausting to do the same thing over and over again. Unfortunately, that’s where you’ll often find yourself as you’re climbing the design ladder. Down below there is a lot of grunt work that can get incredibly repetitive.

And sure, you’ll become good at that, but that is not what you’re after. You want to be good at a wide range of skills. For that matter, take the time to work on what you love. This will constantly stretch your design muscles in different directions and – more importantly – will make sure that your enthusiasm doesn’t wane. And let’s be clear about it, that enthusiasm is key to continuing your climb upwards.

After all, it’s with enthusiasm that you’ll get noticed and make sure that you keep getting better and improving your graphic design skills.

Fail a Lot

The idea that failure is bad for you is baked into our modern culture. It’s also a pile of horse manure. If babies were afraid of failure, they’d never learn to walk, talk or figure out that the circle really doesn’t go in the square hole. If you’re afraid of failure, then you’ll never learn what it really means to design.

The trick isn’t to avoid failure. Instead, it’s to accept when you’ve failed, to learn what you can from the experience and then to move onto the next thing. In other words, fail fast.

Or, as Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I have only found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”  

Where should you try to fail? Try new techniques, new software and new ways of doing things, for starters. Of course, if you’re very unsure if it’s going to work, then do so on your own time. Then you can relax and you have nothing serious riding on accepting that something didn’t work.

Put Your Graphic Works Out There

And here I don’t mean in the protective circles of people who are your friends and who don’t want to hurt your feelings. Instead, find the meanest and most critical audience that’s out there and be willing to put your stuff in front of them and when you do, resist every urge that you’ve got to defend it. Instead, just take what they tell you.

Here are some things to note:

• Just because they’re mean, doesn’t mean it’s true. We all know there are plenty of trolls out there.
• The reverse also holds. Just because they say nice things, doesn’t mean your design is nice. Some people just say nice things.
• Use the rule of three. If three different people say the same thing, then there might be some kind of value to what they’re saying (be it positive or negative).
• If you can’t take the criticism of absolute strangers who ultimately have almost no effect on your wellbeing, how do you think you’ll do when a client has bad things to say? So, use this as an opportunity to get a much thicker skin.

Final Words

The design is a process. That goes both for what you put out and your career. As long as you keep trying new things and working at it, you’ll keep improving your graphic design skills. If you don’t, then you won’t.

For that reason, build some habits. Create a schedule with tasks that you want to do that will push you beyond where you feel safe. That – and plenty of feedback – will make sure that you keep growing and keep climbing design mountain until finally you’ll be out in the sunshine and dictating terms instead of reading them.

The post 10 Proven Ways to Develop Your Graphic Design Skills appeared first on DesignWebKit.