Make your blog stand out with branded blog graphics

The branded blog graphic. Not a new thing by any means but something that I think holds a lot of people back from really taking their blog to the next level in terms of not only being branded, but standing out in the sea of sameness that is out there in the internet land. 

What is a branded blog graphic you ask? Well there happens to be one right underneath this sentence ;-)  

Why use branded blog graphics?

Ties your blogging into your brand

You may or may not have a blog associated with your business, but if you do, you want to make sure your brand ties in nicely within your blog. Having graphics within your blog posts that tie in with the elements of your branding will tie everything together nicely and create continued consistency of your brand message. 

Your brand is more recognizable

Incorporating elements of your brand within blog posts and on your blog page itself (translation: Sidebar baby!!) points people to your brand without being super obvious or in their face. I'm sure many of you photographers out there are highly familiar with the statement "I knew it was (so and so's) photo instantly because their style is so recognizable". You want the exact same thing to happen with your brand. The more elements you can put out there in the world to show off who you are will result in this same thing happening with your brand itself. 

Here is a great example. This is a screenshot of a popular RTS pinterest board in which I am a contributor (I am able to add pins to it specifically). My graphics are similar but different and very recognizable amongst the other pins on the board. You instantly know that they are all from the same website or brand. 

Consistency and cohesion

Consistency and cohesion both contribute greatly to inspiring a sense of professionalism and trust with your audience or target. 

I know that when I land on a blog and the images are all over the place or use different fonts and styles on every other post, it just makes me feel uneasy. I get a sense that the writer or blogger can't make up their mind and or can't make a decision on direction and any trust or confidence I had in their content kinda sorta flies out the window. I hate to say it but its true!

But when I land on a website that has consistent branding and messaging throughout the site, it bolsters the trust I have in what that blogger or website owner has to say. I know that sometimes it feels like your branding might become tired and you want to try something new, but be strategic about it and make changes slowly and purposefully. 

I recently went and updated quite a few of my graphics because even though they were branded, I felt like they still weren't cohesive enough. I reduced the number of designs I use and changed out the old graphics on my past blog posts. I am super pleased with the results! 

Example of previous graphics: 

Example of new graphics: 

How do you create branded blog graphics?

Adobe Illustrator

The initial design of my blog graphics was done during my branding process which happened back in June of 2015. Lauren and I talked extensively about this as this was super important to me going forward as someone who is heavily invested in blogging, but also not so good at any sort of graphic design. 

She set up a template for me utilizing my branding colors and showed me how to use Adobe Illustrator going forward to update my new graphics with current title and also how to add personal images into the template if I want to go that route instead of using a template with the solid color background. 

Although Illustrator has a learning curve, for the limited things I need to do with it, it actually works really really well. I can usually create a graphic (once I have landed on my blog title) within about 5 minutes or less. 

Sometimes, when I'm really on my game and have blog posts planned out far into the future, I can go in and create multiple graphics at once to save time. 

Fonts

Its important to keep your fonts and style cohesive. I struggled with this for a while as well. The fonts associated with my brand (fertigo pro and district thin) are not flowery or flowy or romantic. But then I have to remember that neither am I! My brand is a very good representation of who I am as a person and I'm simply not a flowery, pink-y, super sweet romantic-y type of person. I'm more structured but fun and I think my fonts actually portray that really well. 

I do have a secondary font that I can use when the occasion calls which is a little more "loose" and I've incorporated it a few places within my site and plan to use it more in the future! 

Size

The size of your blog graphic is another thing you need to consider. You will see tutorial after tutorial tell you that your graphic has to be a vertical image for you to get any interest on pinterest at all and while I do think there is some truth to that, I feel like your title and branding have MORE impact. I get 10-20 repins a week which I consider a huge win considering I don't push pinterest as much as I should and have limited presence currently. 

Although I do think that your images should likely not be horizontal (landscape) because those images do tend to get lost in the pinterest landscape, a square or vertical image on pinterest does tend to stand out from the crowd. 

See below...that poor image in the top row is hardly noticeable next to the other images. Its hard to see, there is no branding with it and it almost looks squished next to the bigger, branded images surrounding it! 

Alrighty! I hope this post has been helpful to you in some way if you are considering adding branded blog graphics to your current blog posts! Put a little bit of time and energy into it and you'll see it pay off in big ways down the road!

What is a lightroom catalog?

Have you ever had one of those moments where you learn a bit of information and right in that instant it occurs to you that you are the ONLY person who was not aware of whatever it is that you just learned? The whole world was just humming along in full knowledge of (_____) and here you were completely in the dark the whole time? 

I have had a *cough* few of those moments in my life and I can never decide between feeling excited that I just learned something new or totally embarrassed that everyone already seemed to know and I am just becoming enlightened. 

The subject of the lightroom catalog is one of those "moments" for me. Here I was, just riding along smoothly using Lightroom (for probably a little over a year) and the topic of the catalog and how it worked never even crossed my field of vision. I don't remember exactly what it was that caused it to blink in front of my eyes in a way that made me stop and think, "wait a minute...what was that again? A catalog? How does that work? What does that mean?" But eventually it did and then I finally figured out the joke that everyone else was already in on. 

And I don't mean to say that the Lightroom catalog is a joke, but...you get what I mean right? 

So if you are just coming across this post new in your journey to learn what a Lightroom catalog actually IS and how it works...don't worry, you are not alone. ;-) 

What is a Lightroom catalog?

One of the most confusing things to get your head around when starting to use Lightroom is the fact that your photos don't actually sit "IN" the program itself. I hear people describe it all the time in language that suggests this confusion:

• "I put my photos in Lightroom so I can delete them from my hard drive right?"
• "Lightroom can't find my photos, but i'm confused because I put them in there?"
• "I already put my photos in Lightroom so why would it matter if I moved the RAW files from my hard drive to an external? "

The best way I know to describe how Lightroom actually works is kind of like trace paper. The program sits on top of your photos and makes changes rather than altering the original files themselves. 

Essentially, what you are doing when you are "importing" photos "into" Lightroom is that you are telling the Lightroom catalog where the images are living on your computer, then any changes, edits, tags, crops etc...that you make to those photos in the program are stored in the catalog. Its basically a catalog of changes to the particular photos you have pointed to. 

Where do I find the catalog?

When you originally installed Lightroom, it likely took you through the process of creating your first catalog in order to get started. You probably chose the location then, but you can still find out where it is by clicking on Lightroom/Catalog Settings. From there you can see the location. 

Why do I care about the catalog?

Size

The main reason you care about the catalog is because if you continue using the same catalog and it gets bigger and bigger and BIGGER, eventually (as with most things computer-ish and technical) it will start to clog and get laggy. 

You can approach your Lightroom Catalogs a number of different ways. I know some photographers who create new catalogs for every single client or wedding. I know some who create a new catalog once they reach a certain number of images in the catalog. Some organize by year or month etc... 

I have landed on an organization system that involves creating a new catalog once a year. I like the ability to be able to access multiple shoots or sessions all in the same place without the worry that the catalog will become too big in size. 

Smart Previews

Another brilliant addition to the catalog (I believe it was with the upgrade to LR4) was Smart Previews. 

Even if you don't generate smart previews upon import, LR has to create a sort of preview in the system for you to actually see what is happening to your image. Since the file isn't actually "IN" LR, when you edit the image, you have to be editing "something" and that "something" is the preview that was created upon import. 

With Smart Previews though, LR is storing even MORE information in the catalog itself about the image which accomplishes one VERY important thing. The RAW image itself does not have to be "active" on the computer you are working on. 

Now that is kind of a confusing concept, so let me help break it down. Normally when working in LR, you have "imported" or "pointed to" your images that you want to edit. Lightroom would keep "looking at " or referencing that image while you are working on it. If somehow the system becomes "disconnected" to that image (the file gets deleted or you unplug the drive the image is sitting on) LR would kind of freak out and you wouldn't be able to edit that image any longer. 

With Smart Previews however, LR is building a more extensive and detailed preview upon import so you are still able to edit and work on the image even if its not plugged in or associated with the current computer you are working on. 

This is HUGE because it allows you to work on editing images on different computers or it allows you to unplug hard drives from laptops so you can edit while sitting on the couch (<---and who doesn't want to do that?!?!) 

Find out more about this in my post on Editing the same photos on two different computers. 

And for more information about ALL of this, check out the video below!