A non-designer’s guide to creating online visuals

Images have never been more important in social media.

They’re the key to driving greater online engagement, much like a great headline in advertising.

The only issue is if, like me, you aren’t über-skilled in graphic design, creating eye-catching images can be difficult.

How can non-designers still create engaging images for social media? One way is by learning simple, repeatable design principles.

Here are three key that will help you create engaging images every time:

1. Create a simple and balanced layout.

This is what the table in my Airbnb looked like this morning:

This is what the table looked like about 30 seconds later. Do you notice any difference?

Both images contain the same items. I didn’t remove anything from the table, yet the second picture’s slightly altered layout looks so much better.

The lesson here is simple: The layout of the elements in your images makes a huge difference.

Take a look at these two examples:

Doesn’t the second image look a lot better? This is because of two design principles related to image layouts: proximity and alignment.

Proximity