[THE BLOGGING DIARIES] How I Make My Blog Graphics

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a tutorial on how I take and edit my photos, and you guys seemed to enjoy it.

So, now I’m finally going to be posting my tutorial on how I make my blog graphics, mainly the ones I use for my Featured Images! This was second place when I asked my followers on Books Amino what they wanted to see, so therefore, it came second.

Personally, the app I use to make my graphics is Canva. It’s free, it has templates that I can work off of, and it’s quite easy to use, so I highly recommend it!

For the most part, I use my own photos as the background for my graphics, but if you’re not into that, I think Freepik is the best way to go! It’s an amazing website where as long as you credit who made what you use, you can use anything, and it has LOADS of pretty designs, so don’t be scared to use it!

After opening the Canva app, there is a long list of templates that you can scroll through along the top of the app. Personally, I click the “Instagram” button, and pull the screen down so the “Search Instagram Templates” pops up. I usually just type “Where” and it takes me to the template that I usually use!

You might be wondering why I use “Instagram,” and not the official “Blog Graphic,” but there are a couple of reasons why. One, because I’ve attempted to use “Blog Graphic” templates and they are much harder to manipulate to your liking. Also, because I much prefer squares over rectangles as my Featured Images, but this is all personal opinion. Feel free to use “Blog Graphic,” if you’d like!

After selecting the template, I’m taken to this. I click on the template, then scroll through my Camera Roll for the picture I’d like to choose as my background, then select it, which changes the background!

Now, I can edit my background photo. I usually skip over the “Colors” section and just use “Filters.” As you can see, there are unlimited choices for what filter you can use on your photo, but I personally choose “Wry,” because I like my graphics to be softer than my pictures (which are usually super bright). But it’s all up to you and what you prefer! After that, I double click the text on the screen and delete it.

After that, I click away from there, I’m taken to a screen that says “Tap something to start editing.” Click the “+” in the corner that’s surrounded by a circle, then click “Library,” and you’re free to choose a shape!  Again, there are unlimited choices for which shapes you can use and different designs to implement, but I personally prefer to use the square.

After choosing the square, I double-tap it, which gives you the choice of editing the shape. You can change the color of it if you want, but the only thing I do is play around with the transparency of the shape. For me, the setting I like best is at “75.”

After editing the square, I go back to the home screen, click the “+” again, but this time click the = “Text.” There are loads of pre-formatted font designs and such that you can click on and edit the text, but I usually just like to click the “+Add some text of your own” bar. After I do that, I just type in the title of my blog post and click “Enter.” You’re then taken to a set-up where you can change your font. Obviously, there are lots of things you can do to change the font, but I only play around with four things: the color, the “B,” the “AA,” and the font.

Regarding color, tap on the black square next to the number 42. There are default colors, but I use pink, so I just click the square with a “+” in it under “Used.” I then scroll to the area on the bar that shows me pink, and then just guess by sight which pink to use. Since the update, coloring is ten times harder since it doesn’t even bother to save the color you use (which I hate with a fiery passion), so I work with what I got.

I then click the “B” and “AA” to bold the font a little, and then click the font and scroll through until I get to “Amatic Small Caps,” which is what I use, but there are endless font choices! After that, click on the number to scroll through and make my font bigger or smaller, then click the “Share” button in the top right hand corner to save it to my images.

And, behold, this is the final product:

And, basically, that’s how I make my blog graphics!

I’m hoping that helped you guys out a lot! Much like I said in my first two tutorials, if there’s anything specific you want me to make a tutorial on, feel free to leave your ideas in the comments; I’d love to hear them!

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