5 Sites for DIY Graphic Design

It’s no secret that consumers enjoy pretty images, creative designs, and eye-catching sales materials. Presenting your story in the form of an image, infographic, or case study is not enough. Your design must be catchy, creative and match the branding found on your website and other pieces of content. In order to increase brand awareness and drive customer engagement, your materials must carry a professional look and feel to them.

To many, the idea of doing your own graphic design is overwhelming. Experts spend years going to school to learn these skills. How could you possibly create your own designs? Well, first let’s clear a few things up. Yes, if you have the budget, you should be hiring a professional graphic designer. No website is going to replace their skill and experience. However, if your current financial situation does not allow for this luxury, we have listed five websites below that will help you with your graphic design. We also added in suggestions on what content you should create with them.

 

#1 - Canva

Arguably the most popular do-it-yourself design website is Canva. Canva covers almost all of your design needs including social media images, event materials, marketing content, and much more. They supply you with a library of pre-made templates that allow you to skip the difficult designing part. All you need to do is replace the current color with your brand’s signature colors and replace the fonts they provide with the ones on your website.

Canva is an excellent source for social media materials such as banners, quotes, announcements and more. Their paid version allows you to create your own template library complete with your branding colors and fonts. Then, each time you need to create a new image, you can go into your personal library and tweak a past design. This method allows you to save time and make sure your branding is consistent across all platforms.

 

#2 - Vennage

Next up on our list is the lesser-known infographic making platform called Venngage. For a small monthly fee, Venngage allows you to use their pre-built templates to create your marketing content. Their user interface is incredibly simple and allows you to easily swap out colors, fonts or images. They also provide a library of images and icons to add where appropriate. Their templates work very well with brands that want to give off a fun and energetic vibe.

While they offer several types of materials, they are best known for their deep bench of infographics. They are perfect if you need to display information to your customers in a fun and creative way. For example, you may want to outline the five problems your customers have that your company can solve. You may also want to promote multiple products at once. Instead of dumping all of that copy into a boring document, Venngage can suggest multiple options to choose from to ensure your readers actually stop to consume the message.

 

#3 – Adobe Spark

For more established brands that need a higher quality of design, we suggest Adobe Spark. Adobe are the makers of popular design programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator. Spark is a program they developed that does the heavy lifting for you. Similar to the other two, you are presented with templates for you to manipulate as needed. Full disclosure, it will be very helpful if you have some design experience before using this tool. Beginners can learn it but it will require time and energy you may not have.

Adobe Spark is an ideal tool for more complex designs such as videos, webpages, or social media graphics. For example, if you are ready to promote your business through a series of videos, you can use Spark’s library for inspiration to get started. If you are counting on your paid social media campaigns to bring in significant revenue, Spark will provide the templates you need to produce high quality, professional looking content.

 

#4 - Infographia

If your marketing and sales materials rely heavily on infographics, then you will want to check out Infograpia. Where Venngage is more colorful and fun, this platform supplies you with professional looking templates for more serious content such as materials you are presenting at a high level meeting. Besides the traditional vertical format, they offer horizontal options which are perfect for presentations and pitches.

These types of infographics are perfect for anyone who needs to tell a story to an audience. For example, if you are conducting a pitch meeting or on boarding new hires, you can create and present slides that cover topics like the company timeline, core values, top products, and revenue breakdowns. This platform is currency being used by industry heavyweights such as Google, Samsung, Disney, Uber and Harvard, which speak to their quality and effectiveness.

 

#5 - SlideQuest

We end our list with a type of design that often gets overlooked, which is presentation slides. Meeting presentations have often been labeled as unengaging and downright boring. SlideQuest helps you turn the tide and create presentations people will actually want to listen to. They have broken their entire library up into different packages depending on the story you are telling and style that matched your brand.

SlideQuest is your solution if you are constantly creating presentations or need a set template for other teams to work off of. Their packages include themes such as pitch decks, project management, data displays and more. These templates allow you to skip the hassle of designing the slides yourself. They also help you avoid a last-minute scramble to create a slide you didn’t know you needed.

 

Conclusion

We end our list with a type of design that often gets overlooked, which is presentation slides. Meeting presentations have often been labeled as tedious and downright boring. SlideQuest helps you turn the tide and create presentations people will actually want to listen to. They have broken their entire library up into different packages depending on the story you are telling and style that matched your brand.

Let’s Talk!

Are you looking to amplify your marketing? Perhaps you are ready to use these tools yourself but need some help to get started in terms of branding guidelines, brand voice, and content strategy? We are here to help!

Please send us a note at contact@360gatewaybrands.com and we will reach out to set up a FREE introductory call.