Best Graphic Design Principles for Social Media in 2021

The heart of social media promotion is graphic design because visual communication is the most relevant feature for social media interactivity. From photo edits, videos to GIFs and animation, every crucial social media post needs the touch of stunning styling and a strategic concept. It is significant to engage audiences as they scroll through their news feeds which will in turn inspire them to visit your page. This is not an easy task because your posts, no matter how well designed, are always in competition with a content jargon that every social network is flooded with.

Plus Promotions, being one of the most reputable digital marketing companies in Ireland, are the up-close witnesses to the rise of social media, emerging as one of the most powerful platforms to streamline an audience and bring about brand awareness at a very low budget. However, when it comes to graphic designing for social media, the expectations and competition are high. Very high. So here are some of the core principles that we follow to make your social media graphics more visually and emotionally impactful and stand out in the crowd.

There are so many things that can make your engaging social media graphics misleading. It often happens with people who manage their social media promotions on their own and create content without the core knowledge and skills. Here are some of the common mistakes to avoid:

• The use of free stock images that look stunning at a glance, but might raise unrealistic expectations of a customer.
• Logos and fonts looking similar to that of a competitor or big brand can confuse the audience.
• Flashy graphics being more focused on promotional aspects, leaving insufficient space for crucial information.

Misleading the audience is never anyone's intention. However, when individuals start to create content without any professional or technical knowledge, and by taking inspiration from competitors’ social media posts with the most reactions, the result often turns out to be something very different from the actual objective. And because visual content is more perceptive than written content it can often go on to hugely mislead audiences.

So yes, as much as you need to create impactful content, you should also make sure that it doesn't turn out to be something misleading. You can always seek the guidance of the best graphic designers at Plus Promotions to give you an insight into the graphic elements that will perfectly work for your social media promotional campaign, aligned with your business objectives.

Clarity Is Key

Nowadays, most of  social media user activity is mobile-based. Even though we are in the age of cross-platform applications, and all kinds of graphics are technically accessible and viewable across all devices, it doesn’t change the fact that the size of the screen does matter for how we look and react to images and other graphical content.

Therefore, you need a consistent visual hierarchy of font styles, colour schemes and text sizes and image placement. Try ensure that the graphic content and the entire message in it can be processed and perceived by the user in a matter of 3 seconds. Allow enough breathing space between the fonts and images and implement more contrasting backgrounds that are soothing to look at.

Win With Minimalism

Minimalism always calls out for the “Less is More” mantra. However, minimalism is not all about having limited elements, but is more about giving everything a dedicated space so that there is no clutter on the page. So how does one implement minimalism for social media graphic design? Below are a few tricks:

• Leave tons of breathing space between images and text.
• Don’t confuse breathing space with negative space, so maintain a balance of placement for each element like focal image, primary font, secondary font, fine print etc.
• Follow the modular system for creating grid-based layouts
• Use neutral colour schemes
• Say less with more - can you define a whole idea in 1-3 words?

Try Out Motion Graphics - It's Really Cool!

At Plus Promotions, we have been working with motion graphic designing for a few years. Motion graphics, aka MoGraphs, are mainly created with video animation tools. The idea is to create a visual illusion of motion or movement that can be dynamic and eye-catching. Think GIFs, short 3-5 seconds videos, logo animation, Instagram stories and lots more. You can have complete audio-visual content. But don’t forget the core principles of motion design - have sound controls in place because most people prefer to browse social media content with the sound turned off. Make sure to keep it simple. Remember motion graphics are not like videos.

These are the core principles that we always maintain at Plus Promotions Graphic Design Company in Ireland. We recommend the same. For more information and guidance on graphic design for social media, feel free to get in touch with us.