As a graphic designer, you have a unique skill set that can be leveraged to create and sell digital assets online. Digital assets are any type of digital content that can be sold online like online courses, or licensed for use, such as stock photos, illustrations, icons, and more. By creating and selling digital artworks online, you can generate passive income while showcasing your design skills to a global audience.

The global digital asset management market size is projected to reach USD 8.0 billion by 2027, with a CAGR of 13.6% during the forecast period, according to a report published on Marketsandmarkets.com.

In this article, we’ll explore the steps you need to take to create and sell digital assets online as a graphic designer.

1. Identify Your Niche

The first step in creating and selling digital artworks online is to identify your niche. As a graphic designer, you likely have a specific area of expertise, such as creating illustrations, designing logos, or creating digital patterns. By focusing on a specific niche, you can hone your skills and stand out in a crowded marketplace.

To identify your niche, consider your experience and skill set, as well as the market demand for specific types of digital assets. Research what types of digital assets are currently popular and in demand, and assess your own skills and expertise to determine which areas you can excel in.

2. Create Digital Assets

Once you have identified your niche, the next step is to create digital assets. There are many different types of digital assets you can create, including illustrations, icons, logos, fonts, and more. Choose a few specific types of digital assets that align with your niche and that you enjoy creating.

To craft digital assets, you’ll require essential software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, or the versatile Colorcinch. For those seeking anime-style transformations of their photos, there’s a plethora of online tools to turn your vision into reality. Additionally, you can tap into online resources, providing cost-effective or free templates and design elements, to effortlessly create stunning digital assets.

When creating digital artworks, it’s important to follow best practices to ensure that your assets are high-quality and appealing to potential buyers. Use high-resolution images and pay attention to typography and color schemes. Moreover, ensure that your digital assets are optimized for web use.

3. Branding

Once you have created your digital assets, the next step is branding. Creating a strong brand identity can help your digital assets stand out in a crowded marketplace and attract more buyers.

Explore the option of designing a logo using a free online logo maker. Additionally, consider creating a website or portfolio where you can showcase your digital assets, along with captivating previews or mockups. Your packaging should be visually appealing and professional, with attention paid to typography, color, and layout.

You can use an engaging interactive pitch deck maker to showcase your assets and impress future buyers or even potential investors that are interested in your creative work.

4. Selling Your Digital Assets

There are many platforms where you can sell your digital assets, such as Creative Market, Envato Elements, and Shutterstock. Each platform has its own requirements and fees, so it’s important to do your research before choosing a platform.

Third-party platforms offer an alternative option to create a website for selling digital products. Among the popular choices are Dukaan, Gumroad, Amazon, and Etsy.

When selling your digital assets, marketing is key. Promote your digital assets on social media and through email marketing campaigns. Utilize flyer templates to effectively market and sell your digital assets – showcase their features and benefits in visually captivating promotional materials. You can also offer discounts or freebies to entice potential buyers.

Your product descriptions and listings should be detailed and informative, with attention paid to search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure that your digital assets appear in search results. In addition to this, to successfully promote your digital assets via email, consider having a DKIM generator to ensure that your messages deliver to email recipients’ inboxes.

5. Building a Customer Base

To succeed in selling digital assets online, it’s important to build a customer base. Consider building a website or portfolio to showcase your digital assets. Use social media platforms to promote your work and connect with potential customers. You can also build a mailing list to stay in touch with customers and offer exclusive discounts or promotions.

Providing excellent customer service is also important. Respond to customer inquiries in a timely manner, offer refunds or exchanges when necessary. Provide clear and detailed instructions for downloading and using your digital assets.

6. Pricing and Revenue

Pricing your digital assets can be tricky. As you want to strike a balance between earning a fair price for your work and making your digital assets accessible to potential buyers. Research what similar digital assets are selling for on various platforms and set your prices accordingly.

It’s also important to consider revenue strategies to increase your earnings. Consider offering bundles of related digital assets or creating custom digital assets for clients. You can also offer exclusive access to new digital assets or offer discounts to repeat customers to encourage loyalty.

Conclusion

Creating and selling digital assets online can be a lucrative way for graphic designers to earn passive income and showcase their skills to a global audience. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can identify your niche, create high-quality digital assets, brand and package your assets, and sell them on various platforms while building a loyal customer base.

Remember to price your digital assets competitively and strategically. Always focus on providing excellent customer service to ensure the success of your digital asset business. With dedication and hard work, you can turn your graphic design skills into a thriving online business.

About Guest Author: Piyush Shah

Piyush is a skilled SEO professional with 7 years of experience. He is currently working as Head of SEO at Dukaan. He writes about SEO, Marketing, and E-commerce and has had his content published on reputed websites.

The post How to Create and Sell Digital Assets Online as a Graphic Designer appeared first on Photo to Cartoon – Cartoonize Yourself & Create Avatar Characters for Free.

With so many balls to juggle, designers need to be as organized, efficient, and productive as possible. So, here are 10 productivity tips for designers.

Being productive is essential for working better especially when you are creative.

Graphic designers have a lot to do and sometimes it can take a toll on their routine, work efficiency, and health. Trying to do too much can also put you in a productivity trap, and you may end up procrastinating and wasting time.

But to save your day, we have come up with 10 productivity tips and hacks that will help you achieve your goals on time and with efficiency.

Let’s get started!

1. Set Clear & Realistic Goals

Designers, as creative individuals, can find it difficult to stay on task and complete tasks on time. However, having a clearly defined objective and a plan for getting there can help a lot.

Setting goals for oneself could lead to more productivity. You can keep your focus on the task at hand by setting concise, attainable goals.

Your desire to keep moving forward will increase as you get closer to your goal. The more determined you are to succeed, the more effort you will put forth. As a result, you can develop and learn, making the work more enjoyable for you.

2. Create a To-Do List

The best way to stay on top of your tasks and daily/weekly/monthly goals is to create a to-do list. Planning out all of your work and tasks from different projects you need to work on in advance makes it easier to stay organized and hold yourself accountable. You will have a plan ready to refer to and make sure you’re on the track.

The best way to do this is by utilizing free online project management software and task management apps like SmartTask, Todoist, etc. These apps allow you to set your goals, create to-do lists of all you need to do, create tasks and subtasks accordingly, centralize all your communication related to your work, and easily track the due dates, progress, and milestones.

Additionally, incorporating useful project plan templates can further streamline your planning process, providing a structured framework for organizing tasks and ensuring efficient project management.

3. Use Time Management Techniques

Adopting the right time management techniques help professionals work more efficiently, streamline their workflows, and work better. Here are some of the techniques that can help you get more organized and productive:

GTD or Get Things Done

This process works to help you move planned tasks aside by recording them on a piece of paper and then breaking them down into actionable work items. You can also do this with the help of a to-do list app. The GTD approach consists of five straightforward practices: capture, clarify, organize, review, and engage.

Pomodoro Technique

With this method, you divide your job into timed segments (generally 25 minutes) using a timer. Each interval is referred to as a “Pomodoro,” named after the tomato-shaped timer that Cirillo created. After each Pomodoro, you can take a short break (generally 5 minutes) and come back. This technique works well for creative thinkers.

The Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix is a decision-making tool that helps you decide between tasks that are important, not important, urgent, and not urgent. It divides tasks into four boxes that indicate which you should focus on first and which you should delegate or delete.

Kanban

People can see all the work they need to perform at once thanks to Kanban, which uses the power of visualization. A kanban board is a tool being utilized, and the tasks are organized in columns that show where they are in the execution process. The to-do, in-progress, and done columns are on the simplest Kanban board. Kanban is efficient because it enables you to concentrate on and complete your most crucial activity before moving on to the next.

Time Blocking

Time blocking is a planning technique that breaks up your day into smaller timepieces. You concentrate on a single activity or a set of related tasks for the duration of each block of time. By focusing solely on the task at hand, your tasks are finished faster and with greater precision.

4. Make Use of the Right Technology

Technology has drastically changed the way things work, and the same is true for graphic designers. Now there are plenty of tools on the market that help designers get the most out of their efforts while saving a lot of time. If you work on a Mac, consider using a powerful and effective Mac cleaner to optimize the performance of your device.

There are productivity tools that help with planning, organizing, and time tracking (SmartTask, Todoist, TimeCamp) which enables you to focus on the actual work rather than just understanding what should be done. Then there are collaboration and communication tools that aid in efficient collaboration and communication with designers, teams, and clients (Slack, Zoom, Discord). For efficient time management and task coordination, consider utilizing online appointment scheduling software alongside these productivity tools to streamline your daily schedule.

Again, choosing the right design software as per your skills and expertise is also very important for better productivity and ease of work. For example, if you are a beginner and don’t know much about designing, tools like Colorcinch can be the right one to start with. Or if you want to sketch, draw or convert your handwriting to text, you need a pad that allows you write on a laptop digitally. And if you need to create eye-catching flyers or banners to market your brand, why not utilize a flyer maker.

So, make sure you know what areas you need help in and pick the tools accordingly to streamline your graphic design process.

5. Build a Healthy Routine

The most important thing is to develop a routine during working hours. Your routine should have room for everything from taking breaks to having lunch to taking care of your health. Also, while working in a proper routine and environment, you will find yourself more focused and productive.

If you don’t fix certain work hours and daily routines, you will end up doing one task in another’s time, stretching your work hours throughout the day, and leaving less time for your personal life.

In short, you will end up disrupting your work-life balance, which can eventually lead to bigger issues such as dissatisfaction, reduced productivity, mental stress, and more.

6. Reduce Digital Distractions

Falling down the rabbit hole of using social platforms at work can be extremely tempting and distracting.

So, if you are constantly checking your emails and messages, it is a concern in terms of productivity, and you end up wasting time that could have been spent on producing more quality work.

To avoid such scenarios, you need to minimize your digital interactions. You can plan a certain time slot for just checking email and messages, etc., and turn off the social alerts and notifications for the rest of the time to concentrate better on work.

7. Keep Moving

If you’re working in a creative role, it’s important to declutter your mind and keep the flow of fresh thoughts and ideas coming in. But the longer you work on the designs without taking breaks or doing anything else at all except working, the more sedentary your mind and body become.

However, the best way to get out of the clutter is to stay active, and having a regular fitness routine has enhanced my productivity.

8. Take Care of Your Mental Health

Mental health problems are experienced by 1 out of 6.8 in the workplace. And 12.7% of all sickness absence days are due to mental health conditions.

There will always be certain circumstances that might hamper your mental health and productivity. So you should consider these factors and understand the balance between our state of mind and work. Patience and time efficiency are often key personality traits in these situations.

Always remember that it is your mental health that comes first, and if you are mentally healthy, you can think better and work better.

9. Take Regular Breaks

Most of us spend our workdays sitting at our desks, chained to our cubicles, straining our eyes in front of the computer screen, hoping for more. But on the contrary, overworking or not taking breaks in between leads to reduced productivity, stress, and bad mental health, ultimately hampering overall performance.

Stepping out of the chaos of the workday not only gives our minds but also all our other senses a much-needed break. Taking adequate breaks throughout the workday also improves focus significantly.

You can plan your lunch or go for a walk when you feel drained or distracted. These breaks will also help you clear your mind and boost your creativity level, which is very important for graphic designers.

10. Stay Away from Unproductive Meetings

We now work in a more collaborative environment, and graphic design undoubtedly entails attending numerous meetings to discuss plans, issues, work briefs, feedback, and so on.

But there are times when the meeting can turn into an unproductive discussion that leads to a lot of wasted time, confusion and reduced productivity.

To avoid this, make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to discuss, and invite only the necessary people and decision-makers to the meeting. Also, avoid adding too many people to the meeting, which can unnecessarily stretch the meeting.

Wrapping Up

Graphic designers are required to produce a greater amount of work every day, either individually or as a team. It can take a lot of time to complete a design project if you are not well-prepared or often find yourself procrastinating.

And adopting the right practices will help you stay on track. So, following the above productivity tips will help you fight procrastination, get more work done on time, and maintain a healthy work-life balance.

About Guest Author: Shyamal Parikh

Shyamal is the Founder of SmartTask, an online work management/automation software. He actively shares strategies and techniques that improve a team’s productivity.

The post 10 Actionable Productivity Tips & Hacks for Graphic Designers appeared first on Photo to Cartoon – Cartoonize Yourself & Create Avatar Characters for Free.

Do you want to get that rough look on your images? Nowadays, there are plenty of free resources to choose from with just a click of your mouse, and enhancing your photos has never been more accessible. One popular effect on photo enhancement is the grunge texture.

You can only achieve that vintage look with these 10 free grunge overlays available to download for everyone. Just pick the texture that will best fit the goal you are editing towards and click. It’s never been easier.

In this article, we will be giving you our picks of the best grunge texture available online plus a bonus tutorial on how to achieve the grunge effect using an online editor.

What is Grunge Texture?

The grunge texture is a photo style that’s been trending among recent photographers and editors. Grunge is taken from the original word meaning grimy or rough, and the photo effect is similar to that definition.

Grunge textures or overlays have a rugged look that creates an organic or realistic effect on your photos. The finished look gives a vintage or rebellious look depending on the editor’s intent, as it is less uniform and structured.

The Characteristics of a Grunge-styled Photo

A grunge-styled photo can be identified by gritty backgrounds, rough textures like crumpled or torn paper, faded or aged materials, and even urban architecture or scenery. When added to an image, these effects can range from extreme to subtle changes.

The general colors used for grunge photos range around the shades of brown, beige, grey, and black. Editors and photographers remove bright colors and replace them with tamer, subtle, and natural colors.

History of Grunge Filters in Photography

Grunge filter photography is a style of photography that has been around for years, although it’s gained popularity recently. The idea behind grunge filter photography is that the images are supposed to look like they were taken with a dirty camera or on an old film camera.

There’s no one way to achieve this effect and no single tool or technique that defines it, although most people use photo filters or apps on their phones to do so. Grunge filters have become a staple in modern photography because they harken back to the old ways while also looking fresh and exciting.

10 Free  And Paid Grunge Textures Online

1. Prairie Girl Soft Grunge Textures

The prairie girl, soft grunge texture pack is a gorgeous set of 20 overlays. The package consists of light pastel-colored textures similar to thin and roughly applied paint on walls. The soft and natural look is perfect for creating elegant designs on printed stationery or packaging.

2. Rust Textures

This rust texture pack comprises 50 designs, all handmade with exceptional quality. The dark browns and oranges mix agreeably to create a rusty effect that would go well on websites or dramatic backgrounds.

3. Film Dust Grunge Textures

If you want a cinematic vintage look, then the film dust grunge textures will do the job. The pack contains 12 handmade textures that combine the elements of dust and grain effect to imitate the old films that used to dominate the silver screen.

4. Heavy Grunge Textures

The heavy grunge textures are a pack created from original surfaces, with 10 grunge textures available for download. The provided overlays are simple and easy on the eye effects of rough concrete or metal surfaces, depending on your choice.

5. Grainy Gradient Textures

The grainy gradient texture pack is a brighter take on the grunge effect. The collection contains 50 textures with many mixed, vibrant colors that give a sort of 90s CD-era look.

6. Wrinkle Paper Textures

One way to achieve a sense of nostalgia in your photos is to add the classic wrinkled paper effect to get that vintage look. The wrinkled paper textures have six overlay options for you to choose from, all available with just a click.

7. Dirty Grunge Textures

The dirty grunge textures have 5 overlays that give off old and roughened surfaces. Adding this texture with the grimy and messy look will give your images an abandoned or weary vibe.

8. Plastic Shmashtic Textures

Get a more modern and rough effect by trying out the plastic shmashtic textures. This collection has 65 plastic textures and objects that you can add to your images. The extensive array of options allows you to choose the best for your image’s enhancement.

9. Free Tortured Paper Texture

The tortured paper texture collection is a delicate yet rough effect that can be added to your image for a dramatic and melancholy feel. The pack had 30 textures of paper being ‘tortured’ with materials ranging from acetone to candles.

10. Soft Grunge Textures

The soft grunge textures were handmade and created by spreading ink or paint onto paper, giving them a softer effect if you want to achieve an aged look for your photos. Complete with five options, add it onto posters or presentations to level them up a step higher.

How To Add Grunge Texture Online Using Colorcinch

There is an easy way to achieve the overlay effect without using Photoshop. We will show you how to add grunge texture to your photos using Colorcinch.

Step 1: Open Colorcinch and Upload an image.

Step 2: Click Overlay on the left side of the panel and it will open a tab of overlay filters. Navigate through it and pick Texture.

Step 3: Choose a Texture filter and adjust the Slider to change the opacity. Click Apply if you are satisfied with the adjustments.

Bonus Tip: You can have more control over the Texture Filter by clicking on Settings. Try the different Blend Modes until you get your desired output.

Let’s take a look at the final output:

Summary

With the many free packs and options available to editors and photographers online, the community has reached an era of easy and accessible artwork. The vintage grunge look is a popular trend as it gives photos the ideal outcome of an old-fashioned finish.

Choose from these 10 free grunge textures to give your photos the boost they need. Or to save you from all the hassle, use the tips we gave you.

The post Grunge Overlays: Where to Find Them and How to Create Your Own appeared first on Photo to Cartoon – Cartoonize Yourself & Create Avatar Characters for Free.

Graphic design might appear to be a difficult subject to study since it combines elements of marketing, arts, tech, and customer relations. Graphic designers might be understood most simply as visual storytellers. A competent designer’s task is to employ visuals to convey a story that supports a company image and stirs up emotion.

According to Pablo Solomon, a lot of what they produce combines form with functionality. He says, “your functional purpose should be achieved in the most aesthetically beautiful and impactful way possible.” “Designers utilize their visuals to transmit thoughts in the same way that musicians use their songs, poets use their speech, and dancers use their moves.”

As a student you might know that expressing your thoughts in the appropriate way may be a challenge. Especially, when it comes to writing papers on complicated topics. Luckily, in this case you can turn to an essay writing service available online. There are many companies that provide custom writing help in different disciplines. So if you can’t express your thoughts properly or be a good storyteller, delegate this type of task to professionals.

So, the ultimate goal of a designer should be to satisfy their client’s desire to express their brand’s concept visually.

Pros of having a graphic design degree

Graphic design is innovative and challenging

Do you appreciate a good challenge, being creative, and assisting people with their problems? You’re going to love this feature of graphic design. It all comes down to this.

With distinctive design solutions, designers assist their clients in expressing essential concepts, attracting and engaging targeted customers, and making an impact that lasts.

Graphic design is the career for you if you’re seeking a job that challenges you every day and feeds your imagination.

Observing the public debut of your graphic designs

Nothing is more thrilling than finishing a project and watching it go online for the entire world to enjoy, just ask any web artist. Designers like seeing how users respond to their work, whether it’s a web page they helped build or a TV show they collaborated for.

Your skill as a designer is highly validated in this area of the business, which is rewarding and fascinating.

Numerous career opportunities exist in graphic design

What you can accomplish with a degree in graphic design is incredible. Many diverse workplaces provide opportunities for talented designers. Typical possibilities include:

• marketing and sales companies
• TV and movie studios
• publishing businesses (newspapers, magazines, book publishers)
• small companies and large corporations
• municipalities.

Working environments may have a significant impact on the types of tasks you take on. You may dedicate your days to creating record and paperback covers, or you could concentrate on digital advertising campaigns, corporate reputation, and branding.

You’ll probably try a little bit of everything right after graduating from graphic design school until you acquire experience and discover your ideal match. However, you may also try to work on different projects while still in college. Just turn to Edubirdie to get help with your studies and delegate some of your papers to expert writers. This way, you will be able to focus more on starting your career in graphic design.

Remember that designers may also work from home and as independent contractors, choosing the tasks and sectors they wish to work in. Jobs in graphic design are numerous and versatile. Many businesses also seek out monthly graphic design services to maintain consistent branding and marketing efforts.

Cons of having a graphic design degree

Coping with criticism and objectionable clients

This is the point at which the “challenging” nature of graphic design might turn out to be a trick. Keep in mind that graphic designers don’t merely create for their own enjoyment. They must follow client instructions.

That entails maintaining a budget for the project, being fully aware of each client’s requirements, and providing a finished product that lives up to the requirements.

And if your design approach falls flat, you’ll need to take the criticism in stride, apply what you’ve learned, and try again. Large design projects frequently require a lot of back and forth communication. To acquire the client’s acceptance of the final design concept, several modifications are necessary.

As you attempt to find a solution, you’ll need to bargain with clients, handle their requests, and maintain your professionalism. This procedure can be drawn out and annoying at times, but it’s all a necessary step in the design process.

Many tasks and short deadlines

Everyone would want their design concept completed as soon as possible, regardless of where you work after getting education in graphic design—a TV/film studio, online marketing firm, publishing company, or local business.

You’ll probably be managing several projects at once and working under pressure to finish tasks by specific dates. Although this is true for many professions, designers may find it particularly difficult to accelerate the creative process.

With practice and patience, designers learn to manage their heavy workloads, making the balance a bit simpler. However, it might be a little stressful when you’re just getting started in your graphic design job.

Lots of time spent in front of the screen

Graphic design uses a lot of fascinating digital technologies and software tools. This is fantastic, but it takes a lot of time spent seated at a desk and gazing at a monitor.

Make sure you take frequent breaks and get some exercise, or you’ll suffer with back discomfort and vision problems!

About Guest Author: James Hughey

James Hughey is a graphic designer and brand manager. James is passionate about writing, so in his free time he writes articles for online magazines. He also has his own blog on graphic design where he shares valuable tips and tricks for this field.

The post Pros And Cons of Getting A Graphic Design Degree appeared first on Photo to Cartoon – Cartoonize Yourself & Create Avatar Characters for Free.

Graphic designers are in high demand these days, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change anytime soon. As all businesses move online, they need talented graphic designers to work on their branding and online positioning.

That’s why launching a graphic design business may be a profitable venture if you have the grit, commitment, and talent to make it work.

This article will outline the six steps to launching a successful graphic design business:

1. Create a name

The name is the first thing clients will notice when seeing your business, so you should create a memorable one. If you’re working as a freelancer, you may want to incorporate your actual name so you can build some recognition.

You can either go with your full name or something like “your name+Designs”. While you want your name to stand out, you should also try to keep it simple and easy to remember.

If you aren’t working solo and are launching a graphic design agency like ZillionDesigns.com, you will have to look for something different. If you can’t come up with a name, business name generators are always good for inspiration.

2. Create a portfolio website

After you have your name, it’s time to put it out there by creating your website. Setting up a website is easier than you think. You can make one with no prior web-design experience through services like WordPress. Domains are generally fairly cheap, and a worthy investment considering how much more professional you will look with a website.

The website name should be your full name or the business name you decided on in the previous step. You also need to think about the domain extension you pick, as this can impact how your portfolio site is perceived, as well as how searchable it is.

It’s best to keep the website simple and only include content like:

• Your bio
• Services
• Portfolio
• Pricing

The portfolio you put on your website should be samples of your best work so that potential clients can see you at your best. If you don’t have a portfolio yet, work on some personal projects that you can show to potential clients. You can also do some gigs for free until you build your portfolio up.

3. Determine your services and pricing

The other two pieces of information you need on your website are the services you offer and their pricing.

Graphic design is a rather broad term, and you probably don’t want to take on all types of projects. Determine your strengths and only offer services that you’re comfortable with. Offering niche services or specializing in specific services is the best way to stand out from the crowd.

When it comes to pricing, you can go in two directions:

• Charge hourly or
• Per project

Many beginners go for the first option as it’s easier to get started. However, there are some downsides to charging hourly. The main one is that your income will depend on the number of hours you work. At a certain point, you will reach a limit on how much you can earn. Clients may also nag you about how long a project should take.

The second option involves setting custom quotes for each project, so you and the client will know how much money is involved up-front. You won’t have to track your time, and you can charge what you’re worth. When creating quotes for projects, ask for detailed descriptions to know exactly how much work is involved.

4. Develop a business strategy

Now that your graphic design business is set up, you need to think of your strategy. Some of the questions you need to answer in this phase are:

• How are you going to get clients?
• Do you want to work on individual projects or for one or two important clients?
• Will you work alone or hire contractors?
• Where do you see your business in 1, 5, or 10 years?

The answers to these questions should give you a clear picture of where you expect your business to go. This stage of the process is about setting clear goals and mapping out ways to achieve them.

One of the things you can think about is how much you want to earn in a given timeline. This will help you determine which projects to take or pass on and how many you need to work on to reach your goal. You can use a timeline maker or a timeline template to showcase the evolution of your projects and highlight milestones.

5. Find your first clients

After creating your graphic design business and deciding on a strategy, it’s time to look for your first clients. Finding clients can be challenging initially, so it’s important not to get discouraged until you get your first few projects under your belt.

To find clients, use the information you’ve figured out in the previous steps. By now, you should know whether your ideal clients are small, medium, or large businesses. You should also know what industries they’re in. Having this information makes it easier to know where to look for them.

If you’re targeting small or medium-sized clients, freelancing sites like Upwork or Fiverr are the easiest way to get started. Beware that these sites will take a small fee for each job you do, so you should look to move away from them once you start growing.

For larger clients, you can look for postings on job portals. In today’s digital age, LinkedIn has become an essential tool for sales professionals. Utilizing LinkedIn for sales allows you to connect with potential clients and establish meaningful relationships with them. Remember to include your website when communicating with clients or applying for jobs, so they can easily see your portfolio, services, and pricing.

6. Deliver great work

The first few clients are the hardest to get, and they’re also the most important. At the start, you should look to overperform both in your work and communication with clients. This will help you get some much-needed testimonials under your belt, which will be crucial in getting even more work. Referrals are very powerful.

Make working for you as easy as possible. Check out this must-have design tool to help you with your creatives. Communicate clearly and deliver on your deadlines. If you can’t meet a deadline, let your client know instead of submitting the work days later with no explanation.

If you impress your clients, they’ll be more likely to become repeat customers. You can also use their testimonials to promote yourself on social media or on your website.

7. Work on good communication with your clients

One of the attributes clients appreciate most is good communication.

Communication is a skill that doesn’t come naturally to everyone, but it can be learned through experience. To be a good communicator, you also have to love what you’re doing and appreciate the clients that make it possible.

Your clients are the sole reason you’re in business. Try your best to be clear, easy to talk to and to the point in your communication.

Sure, you can’t escape “customers from hell” every once in a while, but most people are kind and just want their work delivered as promised and on time.

8. Collect payments

Asking for money can be awkward, especially when you’re just starting out and haven’t established a proper payment system yet. But you have to treat your graphic design work as a business from the beginning if you want to make it work. We already talked about setting firm prices, but perhaps even more important is to know how to collect payments quickly and efficiently.

If you have a complicated payment process, clients will get tired. Thankfully, there are several online payment tools that will make payment collection easy. Not only that, but some of them will even let you manage your projects and send invoices, all within the same ecosystem.

Another great feature of using a tool is the ability to create professional invoices quickly. That’s a great alternative to writing up your own invoice template on Google Docs.

As your business progresses, you can look into ways to create an in-house payment system by collecting your clients’ credit card information.

9. Ask for referrals

Asking for referrals can be uncomfortable. But ask any seasoned business owner what the quickest way to grow is, and they’ll tell you it’s referrals. Referrals are also called word of mouth. It’s when customers are so satisfied with a product or service that they talk about it with people in their circle.

Although the term “word of mouth” points to in-person communication, it also covers conversations people have online.

This step ties back to step seven, as they go hand in hand. Delivering great work equals happy customers and growth through word of mouth.

The least-awkward way to ask for referrals is to incorporate a subtle referral request in your work process. For example, when thanking a customer for doing business with you after a project ends, you can say something like, “Please refer a friend who might need graphic design work.”

If you’re finding work through a freelancing website, instead of a referral, ask for the client to leave a good review on your profile.

Conclusion

Starting a new business venture is always an exciting step. With hard work and skill, you can take your graphic design skills from a hobby to a full-time job. Remember to value your clients and deliver the best work you can, and you’ll start to see positive results sooner rather than later.

The post How to Launch a Graphic Design Business: 9 Steps to Success appeared first on Photo to Cartoon – Cartoonize Yourself & Create Avatar Characters for Free.

Have you noticed that the world of graphic design has been evolving faster lately? It doesn’t stand still and there are increasingly more different directions. This is not surprising, because graphic design is one of the most important components of any business or brand. But without what you can not imagine any unique design? Of course, without typography, which is an essential part of any design, and that’s what we will talk about today. We’re going to show and tell you about an interesting and unique kind of font called monospaced fonts.

Surprisingly enough, we can now find so many different fonts on the Internet that one can get confused. This is a problem because most of them are almost the same and don’t even appeal to users.

What is a Monospaced Font?

There are so many beautiful and interesting font packs with which you can make masterpieces in the direction of graphic design. One of them is the monospaced font, which is always distinguished from others by its universality.

In a nutshell, monospaced type appeared with typewriters – the same kegel pad saved production costs. Monospaced fonts were invented for purely technical reasons and go against all previous typographic traditions.

At the dawn of the computer age, many machines also supported only monospaced fonts. This is why such fonts are still associated with something more technical. Nowadays, monospaced scripts are most often seen in software source editors.

Why Use Monospaced Fonts in Design?

Surely you have the question, how do these fonts take root in graphic design, if initially created purely for technical needs? Well, let’s look at a few cases where these fonts can be a great way to express yourself creatively.

• Accident and small sets of texts

For this case, you won’t find better fonts than monospaced ones. This is not surprising, because such scripts, though associated with programming and computers, are very lively in contrast to other objects.

• Uniqueness

As we have written many times about the uniqueness of these fonts, it is their calling card in the world of graphic design. A successful application of this font can turn any product into a masterpiece.

• Versatility

The monospace script can be used almost anywhere you want. Here there is only one limitation. It is only your imagination.

• Simplicity

Monospaced fonts never overwhelm the design, so they are perfect for minimalist works.

Best Monospaced Fonts 

1. Aurora Monospaced Font

Aurora is a very friendly monospaced font. It contains as many as five weight variants with rounded ends, which makes it a bit softer than the usual ebony monospaced font. It is actively used in graphic design for banners or logos.

2. Destiny Monospaced Font

Take a look at this amazing product. It is strikingly different from the classic monospaced typeface. This font has a certain softness and subtlety that allows it to be a great part of any project. The script can easily be used to create accent headings.

3. Clinomania Serif Monospaced Font

If you thought you’d seen all the monospaced fonts, you’re wrong. Just look at this extraordinarily interesting element that doesn’t look like any other in its category. These wedge-shaped, broken ligatures give it an innovative, fresh look and the ability to be applied in absolutely any project.

4. Twinkling Monospaced Serif Font

Moving on to the next even more interesting variant. Check out how the two styles get along, namely the monospaced and serif typeface. This is the benchmark for versatility, which you may apply in various works. Just rely on your imagination and crest amazing designs. It is perfect for logos and banners, prints and ads.

5. Sequoia Serif Monospaced Font

Another equally fascinating and cool script that is closer to the classics but has softer ligatures. Its extraordinary friendliness allows it to be used on any product, whether it’s a label on some shampoo or a sign in your store.

6. Solitude Serif Monospaced Font

We couldn’t miss this stylish monospaced font. Using it will enhance the romance and lightness of the design, so don’t overload it with other elements with a similar mood. It blends absolutely with the most different letterings, but you should always consider its individuality. Therefore, if you need a really interesting design, then definitely try this typeface.

7. Idyllic Serif Monospaced Font

Do you want something as unusual as possible? Then check out this monospaced font option, which might throw you off. If you want to give your project an unusual design, then this font is perfect for this purpose. But try not to overdo it, because the ligatures are hard to read.

8. Pluviophile Serif Monospaced Font

Another interesting alternative among the classic monospaced typefaces. It seems that some of the characters are handwritten, which makes it close to life. Such a variant will successfully dilute the most boring design, and attract the attention and interest of the user.

Wrapping Up

So, we looked at the best monospaced fonts. Now you have to choose the perfect one and start creating your masterpieces. Some of them are still fresh and were released recently, but have already managed to gain a lot of popularity, while others are timeless classics that don’t get old. As much as we would like to say that these fonts are the best for 2022, no, they are the best for years, maybe decades. Did you know that not all visitors see your website the way you do? Consider using the Font Resizer – make your Joomla or WordPress site easier to read & give the visitors the option to change the font size of your text.

The post 8 Best Monospaced Fonts For Designers in 2022 appeared first on Photo to Cartoon – Cartoonize Yourself & Create Avatar Characters for Free.

Watch out for these design trends!

Trends, trends, trends. You either hate them, love them, or don’t bother with them at all.

But the thing about trends is … they happen for a reason.

People establish trends when they notice an uprise in audience engagement. So, if they notice their audience is veering toward black and white photography over color, then their next step will be integrating more black and white photography into their portfolios.

If they notice that clean, modern fonts are in demand over dramatic, complex fonts, then what’s their next move? Steering away from complex fonts and opting for more modern ones instead.

In other words, trends are like guides. They’re here to steer us in the right direction or at the very least, show us a few new tricks of the trade.

By staying ahead of photo and design trends, you can ensure that you’re creating the visuals your audience is drawn to most.

If you’re curious what trends to be on the lookout for in 2022, we’ve got just the article for you.

In today’s article, we’re peeling back the curtain on photo and design trends along with why they’re important. We’re also sharing five trends you can start taking advantage of right away.

Ready to get started?

Here’s what you’ll learn today:

• Why is it important to take advantage of photo and design trends in 2022?

1. Using imagery to support diversity and inclusion movements
2. Making information more digestible with descriptive icons
3. Optimizing email marketing campaigns with responsive templates
4. Personalizing blog content with custom featured images
5. Enhancing palettes with the “color of the year”

• How to choose the right photo and design trends to capitalize on in 2022
• Wrap up

Why is it important to take advantage of photo and design trends in 2022?

Taking advantage of photo and design trends is important if you want your work and business to be seen. It’s not about throwing out your trademark photo and design choices. It’s about finding ways to add in new techniques to make your work even better.

Hopping on the trend bus may seem overwhelming, but the key is to capitalize on trends that make the most sense for your goals.

For instance, if you’re a portrait photographer, then keeping up with the latest urban photography trends may not be necessary. But trends like using vertical composition and trying your hand at iPhoneography might be worth checking out.

The same goes for design. If you’re a graphic designer specializing in logo creation, taking advantage of trends like 360 photography may not make sense. But trends like implementing the color of the year and optimizing for readability could uplevel your work in powerful ways.

Here are some other reasons it’s important to take advantage of photo and design trends:

1. Encourage virality by integrating the most current, popular trends

If increasing awareness is a goal of yours, infusing trends into your work might give you that extra visibility oomph you’re looking for.

2. Shapeshift your skills according to your audience’s changing needs and demands

Never lose sight of your audience’s changing demands. Nurture your audience with new photography and design work during every stage in the customer journey.

3. Learn new ways to demonstrate and work with art

Keep your muses and inspiration close by learning new ways to approach your art.

4. Always remain in a state of learning

Going through the same motions for years on end without learning new skills can turn design and photography stale. Implementing trends into your work can help you remain in a learning state — and improve your art in the long run.

1. Using imagery to support diversity and inclusion movements

While it’s unfortunate how late this trend popped up, we’re thankful it finally did.

Diversity and inclusion efforts are taking the world by storm, and the same couldn’t be more true for design and photography.

In today’s photography and design, we’re seeing more black, brown, Asian, and Arab people featured in campaigns, among other minority groups, too. We’re also seeing more body-positive images, including people of all shapes and sizes, and people with disabilities featured, as well.

In fact, diversity and inclusion trends are so prominent they’ve been making their way into branded style guides and company culture expectations.

If you peruse blogs often, you’ll see increasingly more diversity in featured images, like the one below in an article about gifting money to children.

You’ll also notice that digital illustrations are more inclusive as well. From changing skin tones to using plus-size figures, illustrated people are no longer small and fair-toned but rather display a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors.

Some other ways diversity and inclusion movements are showing up in photography and design trends include:

• Gifs and memes (appropriate ones, of course)
• Stock images
• Company videos and testimonials
• Pop-culture references
• Fashion and hair photos

2. Making information more digestible with descriptive icons

In a Google-focused world, information is like currency — but only if it’s digestible.

The days of jargon-filled writing and using complex graphics are long gone. Today, information must be valuable, relatable, personalized, and most importantly, easy to understand.

The cost of not making information easy to understand? Risking not being seen.

If your information is cluttered and lacks proper structure and images, search engines won’t rank your content well. If organic marketing is a key pillar in your growth plan, that’s a big deal.

When it comes to trends, we’re seeing a lot of descriptive icons that make information more digestible.

For instance, if you take a look at the information listed on this invoice parsing page, you’ll notice descriptive icons are placed above features, like this example shows:

Reading a plethora of features isn’t just tiring. It’s boring, too.

Including something as simple as descriptive icons can make the content easy to scan, read, and understand.

3. Optimizing email marketing campaigns with responsive templates

Email marketing is one of the best ways to stay in touch with your audience. But in a sea of newsletter subscriptions, how can you be sure your content will stand out?

There are several email marketing trends you can follow, like creating a VIP members club or implementing high-impact videos.

But the trend we’re highlighting today gets a few extra points. Why? Because it’s a trend that’ll never go out of style.

It’s called: using responsive email templates.

With responsive email templates, you can always count on a look, feel, design, and structure designed with the reader in mind.

In other words, you’ll spend less time getting the technical stuff down right, and more time writing valuable content for your email subscribers.

Here are some ways to make the most out of responsive email templates:

• Choose templates in line with your brand’s colors, logo, and aesthetics
• Choose templates that are simple and place less emphasis on the “bells and whistles”
• Test your top picks to see which templates your audience connects with most
• Learn from existing templates and use that information to create your own

4. Personalizing blog content with custom featured images

While stock images are still in demand, when it comes to featured images, they’re becoming less and less popular.

Why?

Audiences are becoming pickier about the content and images they want to consume. What’s more, audiences are starting to notice the same stock images dispersed across other blogs and channels.

Imagine you just stumbled across an article you’re eager to get information from, and you notice the header image is the same as another article you read.

It loses its sparkle, doesn’t it? You might even begin to question whether the content in the article is unique enough to deliver the value you’re looking for.

So, what’s taking the place of these overused stock images?

Custom featured images.

For instance, if you look at this blog on building a SaaS marketing strategy, you’ll notice the featured image at the top was custom-designed:

Not only does the custom image differentiate this article from others, but it also helps to further establish a brand image.

In other words, custom images make your content unique and solidify your brand image at the same time.

In the future, we’re anticipating that custom images will supersede stock images on all fronts. We’re expecting they’ll take the place of stock images entirely, not just in feature images.

5. Enhancing palettes with the color of the year: Peri Purple

Hopping on color trends is another popular option in 2022, and what better way to take advantage of this trend than to implement the color of the year into your photos and design?

Color is a top pillar of great design, and the new Pantone color of the year, Peri Purple, is expected to be a hit. Previous color trends that have made their mark include Millennial Pink and Gen-Z Green.

Here’s what Peri Purple looks like:

Peri Purple is meant to symbolize the global spirit of the moment — where physical and digital lives are merging in new ways. In a pandemic world, Peri Purple is just the color we need.

Peri Purple has blue qualities and violet-red undertones, so if blues, reds, oranges, purples, and/or yellows are in your brand colors, you’ll love this trend.

You can also play with variations of Peri Purple in case the exact tone isn’t a good match for your brand.

Take a look at some of the other variations below:

While tons of brands are taking advantage of this color trend, we especially like the way this travel nursing companies brand is doing it:

In this example, you’ll notice the brand features a banner at the top of the page with a background that includes several variations of Peri Purple.

This is a fun way to play with color without overwhelming your audience since all hues in the spectrum are soft and natural.

Here are some ways you can infuse the color of the year into your graphics and visuals:

• Integrate Peri Purple in your email backgrounds
• Add a variation of Peri Purple to your website banners
• Use Peri Purple as a background color in your infographic templates
• Use a variation of Peri Purple as a background in your photoshoots
• Add Peri Purple to your brand palette for the year — switch it out for the new color of the year when it changes
• Snap a photo of all of your products that include Peri Purple or variations of it — use the image in your product photography marketing plan

How to choose the right photo and design trends to capitalize on in 2022

The trends we covered in this article don’t even scratch the surface of what’s popular right now.

In fact, if you’re looking for even more trends, you’ll love our article called 14 Latest Photography Trends You Should Not Miss Out in 2022.

But the problem with so many trends is it can be confusing to know which to try out.

In this section, we’re taking the guesswork out and sharing six easy steps to decide which trends to capitalize on, first.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Consider your priorities

Why do you want to integrate trends into your design and photography? Are you feeling stuck? Are you looking to improve your current aesthetics? In this step, get laser clear on your priorities.

2. Choose specific, actionable goals

What do you hope to gain by integrating trends into your design and photography work — and how will you know that you’ve succeeded?

For instance, do you want to gain more visibility? Are you hoping to encourage virality? Do you want to be more inclusive?

Jot down specific, actionable goals.

3. Analyze current photography and design trends

Read through your favorite photography and design blogs (cough, cough …) to spot the latest trends. Write down a list of the top ten trends you think will help you reach your goals.

4. Pick your trends

Study the trends a bit more and reduce your list to three to five trends, for simplicity’s sake.

5. Test your trends

Implement your new trends and set metrics to see what’s working and what’s not. Ask your audience for feedback for a deeper insight into what they’re thinking.

6. Pivot and drop trend if necessary

Analyze which trends are helping you reach your goals and which ones aren’t. Pivot when needed and drop any trends that aren’t helping you get closer to your goals.

Wrap Up

Trends happen for a reason. They’re like guides — here to steer us in the right direction and teach us something new.

Staying ahead of photo and design trends means creating visuals your audience cares most about — and growing your reach in the process.

In today’s article, we peeled back the curtain on photo and design trends. We shared the importance of taking advantage of trends and gave you five examples to reference. We also shared how to choose the right trends to capitalize on in 2022.

Here’s a quick refresher of the photo and design trends we covered today:

• Using imagery to support diversity and inclusion movements
• Making information more digestible with descriptive icons
• Optimizing email marketing campaigns with responsive templates
• Personalizing blog content with custom featured images
• Enhancing palettes with the “color of the year”

Looking forward to trying out any of these trends? Have you tried any of them recently? Leave a comment below to let us know what you think.

Looking for a photo editor plus a suite of photo and design tools you can access on the go?

Then you’ll love Colorcinch tools. Head to this page to edit your first photo today. No sign-up required.

About Guest Author: Vikas Kalwani

Vikas is a product-led growth marketer and B2B Marketing Specialist skilled in SEO, Content Marketing, and Social Media Marketing. He manages partnerships at uSERP and is a mentor at 500 Global.

The post Top 5 Design Trends to Watch Out for in 2022 appeared first on Photo to Cartoon – Cartoonize Yourself & Create Avatar Characters for Free.

A wise man once said, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but the truth is that people DO judge a book by its cover.

Similarly, a blog logo is like a book cover. It is the first thing your visitors notice about your blog.

It’s also a visual representation of your brand identity, values, and vision. Just think about Nike, Apple, McDonald’s, etc., logos.

These logos are instantly recognizable, and each carries specific connotations in our minds. When you see one of these logos, you immediately think about who they are as a brand and what they sell.

That’s the power of having a good logo.

So, if you’re going to start a professional blog, you need to design a logo that stands out from the crowd.

The good news is that creating an iconic logo doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. It can be pretty straightforward if you know what tools to use.

In this post, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of designing a blog logo. As a bonus, we will list some of the best free logo designing tools.

But first.

Why Do You Need a Logo for Your Blog?

A logo is one of the first ways your target audience becomes familiar with your blog and brand. It tells who you are and what they can learn from reading your blog. But, without a logo, readers may not be able to identify your blog again quickly.

Furthermore, when people see a professionally designed logo for a company or blog, they’re more likely to believe that the company is reputable and trustworthy. This can lead to increased sales and help your business grow.

In short, a blog logo is crucial for:

1. Grabbing users’ attention
2. It builds brand recognition and identity
3. It builds trust
4. Show off your professionalism
5. Help you marketing

Now you know the benefits of having a blog logo, let’s see what type of logo you should create.

What Type of Blog Logo Should You Design?

Blogs are not just for individuals. A blog can be a hobby, a company, or even a brand blog. As with any business, you want to stand out from the competition, and one way to do that is with a great logo.

The purpose of your logo will depend on the type of blog you have, but in general, it should reflect your professionalism and represent your brand.

There are several types of logos used by blogs. Some people prefer text-based, some logo-based, and some graphical logos. And while there are many different types of image formats to use, some stand out better than others.

To create your blog’s logo, consider using one of the following designs.

1. Wordmark Logo

A text-based or Wordmark logo is a simple design that includes only the name of your blog. This type of logo is often used by established brands that are recognizable without the need for any graphical elements.

Wordmark logos are often used by companies and brands like Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, etc.

To create a Wordmark logo, you can select any font and color for each letter. You can also choose different font sizes, spacing, and formatting text.

If you have a shorter name, you can place two words together or stack them one on top of another. In the end, the goal is to find something that looks great and represents your brand well.

2. Pictorial Mark Logo

A graphic-based or pictorial mark logo is a type of logo that uses graphics or illustrations that represents the brand’s values, ethics, and ideals.

Some graphic logos use just one image; others might use multiple images to represent the company.

These logos are ideal for businesses who want to communicate an abstract concept through their logo design. For example, Nike’s swoosh is the company’s graphic-based logo, but the text “Nike” isn’t included.

Graphic-based logos are usually simpler than typographic logos, and they are primarily used as representations of blogs that have established themselves as brands.

3. Combination of Both

This type of logo is a combination of both graphics and text. In other words, it contains a graphic image (called a logomark) and the company’s name written in text. Some great examples of such logos are Disney, Dell, Pizzahut, etc.

The following seven-step process will guide you in creating a beautiful logo that will look great on your blog.

7 Steps for Designing a Blog Logo

1. Think About Your Audience

The first and most crucial step in designing a blog logo is to think about your audience. The more specific you can be about your target audience, the better.

To get a clearer picture of your audience, ask yourself:

• Who am I writing for?
• Are you targeting millennials or baby boomers?
• Writing for women or men?
• Are they young or older?
• How will my brand change over time?

These are just a few questions to ask before you start designing your blog logo, which will help identify the best color scheme, typography, and design elements for your brand.

For example, if you design a logo for an older audience, consider avoiding trendy typefaces in favor of something more traditional.

And if you have multiple audiences in mind, consider creating more than one version of your blog logo, so it appeals to each one.

2. Use Design Sites for Inspiration

Unless you are a professional logo designer, your first attempts at creating a logo are unlikely to impress your audience. The best way to avoid this is to look at great logos for ideas.

When looking for inspiration, don’t just look at other blogs in your niche.

Instead, look around at logos from big brands in any industry and see if you can find any elements you like. The more variety, the better! You never know what might spark an idea or help you find the right combination of colors or fonts.

Get inspiration from a marketplace such as Creative Market, which offers millions of graphics, icons, stock photography, and pre-made logo designs.

Explore the site for ideas or buy any interesting assets. By looking at all the different items available on the site, you can better understand what logos you can create.

3. Choose a Color Palette that Reflects Your Website

Every blog has a color scheme that makes it unique — whether you’ve chosen one or not.

Before you start designing your logo, you want to ensure that the colors you choose work with your brand and overall blog aesthetic.

If your website has a crisp, clean look, you want to select colors that reflect that style choice. If you have a more artistic, bohemian feel to your site design, you’ll need to pick colors that evoke that mood.

As you start brainstorming your blog logo ideas, it’s best to choose 3-5 color palettes that match the overall look of your website.

One of the best ways to create a color palette is with Adobe Color.

This free tool allows you to browse through thousands of color palettes created by other designers.

You can also create your own using the color wheel and even adjust your chosen colors until you find the perfect combination for your brand.

4. Pick the Right Font

After picking a color palette, choosing a font for your blog logo design is next. There are a lot of fonts out there, and it can be overwhelming to pick the perfect one. So, here are some valuable tips for choosing fonts.

First, start picking two fonts max. The best blog logos use one or two fonts, and some use just one.

Secondly, avoid using too many fonts; this can make your logo look messy and difficult to read. Instead, use a clean font that’s easy to read. This will ensure your logo looks great on smaller devices like mobile and tablets.

In addition, the font you choose should fit with the tone of your site; for example, if your site is fun and casual, then a stylish script font might be a good choice, but if it’s more formal, then a serif or sans-serif font would be better.

Luckily, there are some online tools like BrandCrowd help you design thousands of text logos in just seconds.

Enter your blog name and click on the search button to get started. Within seconds, you will have dozens of attractive logo options. You can use these logos or edit them freely to suit your purposes.

5. Make a Few Versions

Sometimes a single logo isn’t enough. There are times when you need to use it in different situations and colors.

A good example is a website’s favicon, which is the icon that appears on your browser tab. It might be small and light on detail, but it needs to be recognizable as your logo, right?

Making multiple variations of your logo will help you make sure it looks good everywhere they are used.

So, when designing your logo, it is essential to create at least three variations. You can use the same core design and only tweak the colors or size to make these variations.

For example, if your first version uses a complex font and has an illustration, your second version could use a simpler font and focus on the illustration.

6. Create Your Logo Using a Logo Designer Tool

If you are not familiar with design principles or don’t have enough budget to hire any designers, you can still design your blog logo with the help of free online design tools. Remember that the cost of logo design doesn’t determine if it is the best logo for you or not. You can absolutely design your own logo or have a professional logo designer do it for you.

There are several logo designing platforms available, and we recommend using Colorcinch.

Colorcinch is an online free logo maker tool that allows you to create your unique logo in just a few clicks. The process is straightforward and intuitive, even for people with no graphics skills.

You can use the default image or upload your photo from Facebook or your computer. You can also change the logo’s color, add a picture, add text, and more.

Colorcinch is free to use. However, the free version of the tool comes with several limitations. If you want access to all the premium features and graphic collections, you need to upgrade to the premium version, costing you only $3.99 per month.

7. Upload the Logo to Your Blog

Once your logo is ready, it’s time to upload it to your website as a transparent PNG file. This will ensure it looks great on all backgrounds.

1. Uploading logo to your WordPress site

If you are using WordPress CMS, follow these steps.

Step 1. Log in to your WordPress admin panel.

Step 2. Go to Appearance > Customize > Site Identity.

Step 3. Under the Site Title and Tagline, you can see the Site Icon option.

From there, upload your logo and hit the Publish button.

2. Uploading logo to your Wix site

Step 1. Go to the Settings tab and click on the Business Info.

Step 2. Click on the Add Logo option under Your Profile section.

Step 3. Upload your logo and then Save it.

3. Uploading logo to your Squarespace site

To upload a logo to your Squarespace site, follow these steps.

Step 1. Click on Edit of your site preview.

Step 2. Hover over the header and click Edit Site Header.

Step 3. Click Site Title & Logo.

Step 4. Then Upload Your Logo and click Save.

That’s it! Now, you have successfully uploaded a logo to your website.

You can also check what your logo looks like by opening it on another browser.

Wrapping Up

Now that you are familiar with creating a logo, it’s time to apply your knowledge and make it yourself.

Before you begin designing a logo, you need to determine what kind of logo you want to create; there are many different kinds of logos, and each one needs a slightly different approach.

Reflecting on your business, making an initial sketch, and researching the logo design process will be much easier.

I hope you found this little guide on “how to design a blog logo” helpful and informative. Hop on and try our powerful image editing tool for free.

About Guest Author: Jyoti Ray

Jyoti is the founder of WPMyWeb.com, which specializes in social media, marketing, and SEO. He writes and has been featured on JeffBullas, SurveyAnyplace, SearchEngineWatch, and more.

The post How to Design a Blog Logo in 7 Easy Steps appeared first on Photo to Cartoon – Cartoonize Yourself & Create Avatar Characters for Free.

Your website is often the first experience people have with your business, so you must design it right. Your website is where you’ll start to build a relationship with your customers, including the location where you’ll generate leads and build brand awareness. Having a website with poor design can negatively impact your sales by causing people to leave your website before they even get a chance to look at your offerings.

A business’ website should always be designed with the audience in mind and provide a good user experience. If your website isn’t performing as well as you want it to, you may need to take a look into improving your website design. Here are unique ideas to improve your website design and user experience.

1. Remove Distractions

While you want your website to be unique, you don’t want to overdesign it and have elements that distract visitors from the messages you’re trying to convey. For example, complicated animations, long content, and too many colors can detract from telling potential customers who you are and what you offer.

Your audience has a short attention span, so your website needs to be clear about what users can expect to find in different site areas and why they should choose you over the competition.

Always start by having brand guidelines to work off of. Your brand guidelines should tell you the types of fonts and colors to use throughout the website, including imagery, logos, and iconography. Without a guideline, it will be challenging to design pages with a clear message. You should also avoid too many design elements, including interactions and animations. If there’s too much movement on the site, it can be overwhelming for the end-user.

Check out ShareAble for Hires’ homepage design, for example.

As you can see below, the website follows clear brand guidelines while not detracting from its main message, which is the benefit of its service for small businesses. They also have two button colors, one for those who are already members and another for those who want to try out the service. Their fonts and spacings are also cohesive and look good together, whether light, medium, or bolded.

In this same example, the hero image also demonstrates the brand messaging of offering fast background checks without distracting from the main copy.

2. Social Proof

If you enjoy online shopping, you might read the reviews for every product before buying it. Most people prefer to purchase products that have at least four stars. When looking at reviews, you start to trust the product and believe it will deliver on its promises. The same is true when it comes to your website. Social proof in the form of testimonials from real people increases trust with your customers and makes them more likely to convert.

There are different types of testimonials to choose from. Many successful businesses opt for video testimonials so your website visitors can see a real person speak about the product or service. Videos also hold your audience’s attention for longer, giving your brand more time to develop trust.

You can also choose text testimonials. But you must ensure they look legit and your audience will believe they came from real people.

3. Create a Call-to-Action

When a visitor is on your side, you want to guide them to different places to nurture them and eventually lead them to convert, such as contacting through a call widget, making a purchase or filling out a form. You should always lead your website visitors down a path without making them do too much work or think on their own. You can point them in the right direction with quality call-to-action (CTAs).

The placement of your CTAs matters. Placing them in front of your audience makes them more likely to click the buttons you want them to click. A few good places for CTAs are the top right of your navigation, the bottom of web pages, and below sections where you ask them to take action on your website.

When considering your CTA’s, never lose sight of the buyer’s journey. You can put CTAs anywhere on your site, but if someone isn’t ready to make a purchase, they won’t take action of any kind. So instead, understand where your user is in the customer journey from the page they’re on.

For example, if they’re on a website reading a blog about how to choose the best dog bed, they’re probably not ready to make a decision yet, so a CTA asking them to buy your dog bed isn’t going to work. Instead, they might be interested in getting in touch with your enterprise contact center for further information about a specific product before they purchase.

4. Organize Your Navigation

Website navigation is a crucial design element that inexperienced web designers often overlook. The navigation displays the site’s main areas that your users can visit. This allows them to visit certain pages rather than looking through many pages of your website to find the information they need.

Sites with confusing navigation typically have high bounce rates because users don’t know where to begin to find the right information. Overstuffing navigation, confusing text, and a lack of organization can make it challenging to navigate your website. If users can’t find what they came to the website to find, they’ll leave.

If you want to improve your website navigation, you should consider your navigation hierarchy. Some pages of your website are more important than others and should be front and center for your users. Organized navigation helps your user find what they’re looking for, which means lower bounce rates and higher conversions.

Effective project management ensures that these improvements are implemented systematically and efficiently.

5. Have a Scrolling Homepage

A few years ago, website owners believed having a home page that was too long would scare customers away, forcing them to shove as much information as possible onto a tiny screen. However, nowadays, people expect your website to scroll. If users notice your website doesn’t scroll, they may think your website has thin content that won’t hold up to the competition.

Having a scrolling homepage allows you to put anything you want on it, including testimonials and reasons why your customers should choose you over the competition.

6. Optimize for Mobile

Every website should be responsive to be easily accessed on mobile devices. Consumer-facing companies should make mobile a main priority. Most of your visitors will be searching for you using their smartphones. Optimizing your website for mobile means being visually responsive. But it also means tailoring your mobile version to address the needs of mobile visitors. For example, someone coming to your website via their smartphone might have different expectations than someone on a desktop.

7. Test Everything

Every time you make a design change to your website, you should know its impact. You can easily A/B test different design elements with Google Optimize or another website A/B testing software to learn what changes impact your website and whether those impacts are positive or negative. By continuing to test your website design, you can find ways to increase conversions without too much effort.

These unique and mind blowing ideas ideas are not only good for your website design. They can also help you build a relationship with your audience and generate leads.

About Guest Author: Matt Casadona

Matt has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a concentration in Marketing and a minor in Psychology. He is passionate about marketing and business strategy and enjoys San Diego life, traveling, and music.

The post 7 Unique and Mind-Blowing Ideas To Better Your Website Design appeared first on Photo to Cartoon – Cartoonize Yourself & Create Avatar Characters for Free.

Want to know what SEO is?

This is a seemingly complicated process shrouded in mystery by SEO experts who know how to make a website high in search results. It turns out, however, that SEO is a relatively simple tool for getting traffic from Google.

You can come across many articles related to SEO on the Internet, which cover many aspects of website optimization for search engines. Some are really good but often written in a language incomprehensible to the average recipient. You don’t have to know the details and conditions in the industry to find out what SEO is (or website positioning).

Knowing and respecting the principles of SEO has long-term benefits that cannot be achieved at such a high level in any other way. Find out how to improve the health of your website and influence its position in the search engine. Learn the fundamental principles of Google positioning. Also, find out which activities to avoid.

A good SEO agency can create a specialized growth plan to identify the best digital advertising channels & sales tactics to generate high quality leads.

When analyzing their website for SEO, owners often try to improve its position in search engines. It seems that all the parameters are in the right place.

In the meantime, for example, with simple negligence, it is easy to omit elements essential to search engines or misconfigure them. Then the website looks great at first glance in terms of SEO, but it can get stuck in a far from the dream position. Inaccurate analysis of SEO data creates many problems. However, it is enough to pay attention to the basic mistakes, often made in passing, for the website to gain value for Google and other robots.

What is the job of a graphic designer?

A graphic designer is a profession that requires creativity, aesthetic sense, and knowledge of computer programs. Due to the development of technology, the work of a graphic designer has changed dramatically in the last half-century.

Graphic Designer – This person deals mainly with the visual layer of projects. It’s someone who can understand graphics programs, design or illustrate, and simply put it all together into a beautiful, coherent whole. However, the project scope, topics, and programs used can be very different.

A graphic designer is an extension of the hand of an art director or client—someone who simply implements other people’s concepts and ideas. As a graphic designer, you will depend entirely on yourself, which team and clients you will find, and how you will further direct your path.

What skills should a graphic designer have?

Neal Taparia, who runs a brain training app called Solitaired, states that graphic designers are not only there to make images look aesthetically pleasing but simple and effective. Essentially, they should help businesses to convey their message more powerfully. Therefore, graphic designers should be able to communicate ideas and create visually.

To do this, they need various skills, such as knowledge in Adobe Creative Suite and the ability to convey the client’s voice. Taparia thinks that an excellent graphic designer is expected to have at least knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Microsoft’s PowerPoint templates, etc. (although, Adobe programs are still the most used in the industry). InDesign also adds whether the graphic designer will be engaged in delivering flyers or catalogs, or HTML and CSS, whether he will be involved in preparing graphics for websites as part of his work.

Here you can do many things, from the thick internet and print campaigns (print, billboards), packaging design, newsletters, presentations, company documents, branding. The ability to design and work with text is crucial.

Statistics in the US say that in 2020, a graphic designer’s salary was about $ 53,380 or approximately $ 25.66 per hour. What is very interesting is that according to Zippia’s statistics, over 118,080 graphic designers are employed in the USA.

As Brain Reed once said, “Everything is designed. Few things are well thought out. ”

The job of a graphic designer is not for everyone. Not everyone can have a good sense of graphics and drawing.

Why is SEO important in the work of a graphic designer?

When we think about increasing the traffic on a website, we usually focus on the website’s position in the ranking of websites and on all external activities – AdWords, social networks, etc.

If your site has many interesting photos, you can get extra traffic by optimizing them properly. Plus, you can use a powerful SEO task manager to ensure that your image optimization efforts are systematic and effective. 

Managing photos on a website are not just uploading them to a website directly from the camera. Instead, you can do many things around them to make your photos start building traffic through Google Images.

Therefore, it can be assumed that SEO image optimization is such a thing.

In this post, you will, among other things, learn:

• why proper file naming is essential
• what are the benefits of images compression
• how – depending on the situation – to choose the appropriate file extensions
• what is the role of the graphical ALT attribute
• some other interesting issues related to image management on the website

So, let’s get to the point. 

4 Tips for Customizing and Optimizing Your SEO Image

1. Consider the usefulness of photo data and graphics.

The role of images is to build a message and create an impression. They often supplement the text, enriching it through a visual experience.

On the pages of our blog, we often mention that the visual message reaches us much faster than the purely textual one.

Therefore, when you decide to include any graphics on your website, carefully consider their role.

An example would be photos of products in an online store. This is a rather specific type of image because the possible boost in sales largely depends on them.

Among other things, the shots from different angles and their presentation on a white background and in everyday use should stand out. Therefore, it is also vital that you enlarge selected fragments of the photo to see the desired details.

As you can see, the whole context and all the features that should accompany the photos are very important. Of course, they depend on the specific website. But adding images simply needs to be based on a well-thought-out philosophy.

2. Select the appropriate file formats.

There is a reason why many image file formats are used: PNG, JPG, GIF, SVG, etc. The diversity of technologies stems from the fact that not all are suitable for all types of images.

JPG, GIF, PNG

JPG files should be used for all graphics with a wide range of colors. Photos are a perfect example. Thanks to JPG, we can determine the image quality, where a level of about 70% usually allows us to achieve satisfactory quality with relatively reduced file weight.

On the other hand, the GIF format limits us to a color palette with a maximum of 256 colors. This makes GIFs unsuitable for complex graphics. On the other hand, it is ideal for all icons and images, where we do not have to use many colors – logos, flags, etc. Finally, it is worth adding that animations can also be saved in GIF format.

PNG is divided into two types: PNG-8 version and PNG-24 version.

The first is very similar to GIF. Although it doesn’t offer animation, it works better with transparency and allows you to get smaller files.

PNG-24 is similar to JPG, but it is characterized by one very important feature – no loss of quality. Thanks to that, we can get beautiful graphics, but the larger the color palette, the larger the file size. PNG is commonly used for graphics published on the web and those that use transparency.

Fun fact: there is another such thing as APNG or animated portable network graphics. This format is still quite experimental, but Google Chrome has supported it since July 2017.

It is also worth mentioning that SVG- vector format is utterly different from the previously mentioned one. Ideal for logos and simple graphics that are almost “geometric,” i.e., contain different types of round or angular shapes.

To sum up, the format is like a dress – it should be chosen according to the occasion.

3. Make sure the file names are correct.

This point clearly explains why SEO image optimization is extremely important. Here is a simple example.

If you can see the contents of the folder in which you have (in the list view, no thumbnails) files such as:

IMG_0001.JPG
IMG_0002.JPG
IMG_0003.JPG etc.

Can you tell us in advance what the content of these pictures is?

Of course not. The situation is completely different, such as:

Samsung-galaxy-s9-front.JPG
Infiniti-kk-70-interior.JPG
svadba-tomek-kasia-crkva.JPG

In the cases mentioned above, the name itself can tell us what is inside.

Image files should be named adequately to the content because such action is friendly for us users and search engine robots.

You’ll probably ask yourself, “What about when I have to put a few dozen graphics online?” Then I answer Bulk Rename Utility.

Bulk Rename Utility is a simple program that allows you to manage multiple files’ names simultaneously. For example, in the image above, you can see how several files have been renamed with the help of three options.

This program will save you a lot of time if your task is to rename multiple files simultaneously.

4. Determine the optimal dimensions of the images.

What is the ideal size of a work of art? Nobody will unequivocally answer this question because everything depends on the specific case. The right balance between quality and size is essential because they are directly proportional.

The needs of your customers should guide you. Serve them with pictures of good enough quality.

Suppose you are a photographer, upload thumbnails to the website (custom areas where they are displayed). Then, just clicking on a small image (i.e., performing an action) should result in opening a larger or even full version in the original resolution.

It has many benefits, including saving time for downloading photos and reducing the amount of data used in the first place.

Visual Layout of the Page

The visual appearance of a website is just as important to its success as the content it publishes. These are exciting graphics that attract the reader’s attention, focusing on the most important elements of the page, the most interesting products, or the most critical information that we want to convey to the recipient.

It doesn’t matter if it is a blog post, a company offers, or an article on an external portal. Without properly selected photos, it is challenging to expect maximum success in a company that focuses on noticeable information due to the abundance of available data. In addition, graphics are not only an influence on the reader’s imagination. But they are also an effective positioning tool. So how do you describe images to be more in Google and increase the reach of the web page?

Graphics and photos published on the website must correspond to its context. Thematically selected graphics will have a better chance of improving your site’s visibility because they will satisfy the essential principle for the search engine. They will be helpful and enrich the content.

In the case of articles or product subpages, photos should always be in the most visible place. For example, next to the text to which they are linked.

In technical matters, however, it will be necessary:

• Add ALT parameter
• Appropriate nomenclature of photographs
• Graphic size optimization
• Complete the extended descriptions, i.e., the rich snippet
• Adding an ALT parameter is crucial.

It is good to include a key phrase here, but only if it refers to what is in the picture. In case of problems with loading the image, it will provide users with information about what is in the photo. It is a concise verbal description, which contains the most important information. It is also used by search engines intended for blind and partially sighted people. So make sure it’s updated!

Appropriate nomenclature of photographs. As with positioning PDF files, the graphic in the title must contain a keyword. It is also often necessary to reduce the size of the graphics, especially in the case of stores, where there can be many photos of products. The more of them, the slower the page can load.

Be sure to optimize the graphics so that they are not of low quality at the same time. Large files cause the site to load slowly, which reduces its quality. This has a substantial impact on the position of the page in Google. The slower it loads, the less user-friendly it is. So Google will not highlight it in search results. Page loading speed is very important for mobile users.

Graphics Optimization for SEO

The human eye can easily distinguish a photo of a small cat from a graphic that represents statistics, allowing assessing whether the information in the photo is valuable to the reader and whether it matches the other content on the page correctly. However, search engine robots are not the best at this and still face problems recognizing the content of images on a website. For example, they know that there is a graphic file between the following paragraphs, although their content is a mystery.

From the point of view of website code, this does not look good. Poorly described graphics will not only not help with positioning, but even reduce the effect of the effort invested in building the ranking of the website on Google. So what can be done to prevent this?

What are the common SEO mistakes?

First of all, you should be aware of the importance of proper graphics preparation in positioning. According to information published by raventools.com on the most common SEO mistakes, as much as 63.4% of internet content consists of images. This perfectly confirms the theory that photographs or even abstract graphics affect users much more than a compact text block. However, the same statistics show that as many as 78% of all SEO problems are related to improper image optimization.

Thanks to photos, we know the topic of a given page faster. We also make safer decisions about buying a given product. First, however, we have to find the given page as the user. Therefore, searching through photos is often the easiest way. So, positioning graphics should be taken as seriously as possible from the point of view of SEO. After all, thanks to the appropriate attributes, graphic designers and web developers can use the specific attributes of graphics on a page to help them rank higher in search engines.

How to describe images to be more visible on Google – the most important aspects of positioning photos and graphics?

To properly take care of the proper visibility of graphics on the website and prepare it for display not only to readers but also search engine robots, it is worth paying attention to elements such as:

• Image filename
• Graphic size and weight
• Scaling graphics
• Alt attribute
• Graphic title
• Friendly URL

Is the image file name important for SEO?

The file’s name on the server is important for both the user and the browser, especially when the image is intended to be downloaded.

It will be much harder to assign a file named 2651a0hd.jpg to the appropriate category for the browser if it shows shoes or a bag. Therefore, it is worth including keywords in the title, clearly indicating what the image on the website represents.

Graphic Size and Weight

First of all, the photos on the site should be of the highest possible quality. But that does not mean for that reason, they should be heavy and oversized. The larger the image file, the longer the page load time, obviously not applicable to its optimization. Before you upload an image to the server, it is good to convert it to reduce the image size without any deterioration.

How big should the converted graphics be? Preferably as small as possible, but still legible to the user. The most common rule is to limit the weight of images to 200 KB and .png extensions instead of .jpg for charts, graphics, and screenshots, in which we care about the highest quality.

Final Thoughts

Scott Stevenson said, “Visual design is often the opposite of engineering: it turns solid edges into subjective decisions based on primitive instincts and personal experiences. It is dirty, unpredictable, and complicated to measure. The seemingly erratic behavior of the artist drives the engineers crazy. Their decisions seem arbitrary and put everything in danger without guaranteeing success.”

For this reason, graphic designers must know how to manage SEO.

The post SEO Rules for Graphic Designers to Keep in Mind appeared first on Photo to Cartoon – Cartoonize Yourself & Create Avatar Characters for Free.