Use the Pantone® Colour of the Year 2021

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The Pantone® Colour of the Year for 2021 is a combination of two colours: PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray and PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating (Yellow). Do you find them “warming and optimistic”? I hope you do – we need all the warmth and optimism we can get in 2021. Consider these colours for your next promotional gift … Read more

Get ready for the Return to Work

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If you need Social Distancing signs for your business, retail or warehouse premises, please contact Barry at Adamson Design. Here’s what I can supply: “Keep 2m Apart” Floor Stickers Sneeze Guards Health advice Posters Individual Desk Dividers for Social Distancing in offices Social Distancing signage on posters or roll-up banners to advise your customers. The … Read more

Banner and Image Sizes for Social Media, April 2020

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Left of pic showing brunette plus map for Sculptur Hair Design, Glasgow; right side shows student-age woman with blonde-brown balayage long hair.

I’m hoping you are all safe and well. Looking beyond lockdown, I’m sure many businesses will increase their use of social media as advertising, so here’s a list of the dimensions of Banners and Images for some social media. All files use the RGB colour mode (sRGB preferred by Facebook) and a minimum resolution of 72dpi, send JPEG or PNG files. The image above is one of the post images I’ve designed for Sculptur Hair Design’s advertising on Instagram, using the landscape size.

LINKEDIN IMAGE SIZES

Profile picture (mugshot) size is 400 x 400 pixels and company logo size is 300 x 300 pixels.

Your personal Background or Cover Image (Banner) size is 1584 x 396 pixels. When creating your banner, avoid anything vital (particularly text) being covered by your circular profile picture at the bottom left – and also when the circle moves to the centre position when viewed on mobile.

INSTAGRAM IMAGE SIZES

Profile picture: Minimum of 110 x 110 pixels.

Images for Posts: Create your artwork for the maximum dimensions, as Instagram often reduces the quality of the image during the posting process. Square Post 1080 x 1080 pixels, but upload using the maximum 2048 x 2048 pixel size. Landscape Post 1080 x 566 pixels, though smaller sizes like 600 x 400 pixels are used. Portrait Post 1080 x 1350 pixels, these will appear onsite as a 600 x 749 pixel image.

FACEBOOK IMAGE SIZES

FB profile photo (mugshot) appears on your desktop page as a square at 170 x 170 pixels, your upload size should be a square pic at 400 x 400 pixels. The profile pic is often cropped into a circle, so keep your “mug” central and also consider how strong your pic will be when it is shown smaller on smartphones (128 x 128) and tiny (36 x 36) on feature phones.

Cover photo (banner) will appear at 820 x 312 pixels on desktop computer but only 640 wide x 360 on mobile, so make allowance for both sides of your desktop image being cropped, keeping the vital pic and info central. A good artwork size to work to would be 820 x 360 pixels and expect that to be cropped top and bottom on desktop. Minimum size accepted is 400 pixels wide x 150 pixels.

Personal Facebook page only – on this, the circular mugshot overlaps the cover banner, which, like LinkedIn, is at the low left on desktop view and central on mobi view.

Facebook posts – a widescreen post photo is 1920 x 1080 pixels, while a portrait format pic is 1080 x 1920. I suggest you post tall, portrait-format pics as often as possible, which dominate the news feed, leading to greater visibility.

FB Video posts – traditionally 1920 x 1080 pixels widescreen, but use square 1920 x 1920 for more impact; you can even use tall 1080 x 1920 video but it will be cropped top and bottom.

FB Ads – previously limited to only 1200 x 628 px, the new more impactful square ads are 1200 x 1200 pixels. NB Text appearing ON the image should be limited to 20% of the image or may be penalised, this refers to text within the picture, not the accompanying body text.

FB Group image – 1640 x 859 pixels, getting cropped slightly both top and bottom.

FB Event image – 1920 x 1080 pixels, mobile varies slightly.

TWITTER IMAGE SIZES

Profile picture size is 400 x 400 pixels like LinkedIn. Twitter Header picture is 1500 x 500 pixels.

Promotional Goods supplied to HYG

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My client Fair Deal ordered promotional goods branded with the logo of their Help Yourself Grow project. The project trains young people with learning difficulties to develop skills in Gardening and Cookery. The promotional goods selected were a tote-bag with green piping and handles, ballpen in matching colours, notebook with silver cover and a lime green trolley-coin keyring. All items were strongly branded with their logo and contact details, as you can see from the close-up photo. In 2019, Fair Deal came back to me for a new supply of branded promotional goods. Please get in touch with me if your social enterprise needs promotional goods or help with branding and advertising for an event.

Poster Design – recent work

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Graphic Design for theatre For my client Alex of Off World Productions, I selected a colourful and dramatic photo as the main element in this A3 Poster for his play on the Edinburgh Fringe, then built the typography around it. To keep the graphic design consistent and to aid recognition, the A5 Flyer and Business … Read more

Recent work – Promotional Goods

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Some of my recent work has involved design and print of Promotional Goods branded with my clients’ details. Have a think if colourful pens, notepads, badges or trolley-coin keyrings branded with your logo would attract customers to your product or services. The Office Furniture Centre selected quality 5-metre tape measures which were ideal gifts for … Read more

Tips on Exhibition Stands (2)

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Here’s some further points re Exhibition Stands – these are more general advice and less about design. Getting your exhibition stand – with your exhibition stand, order the type of wheeled transit case that has a wraparound graphic and a wooden counter-top (shown in the stand at left), they give you more options for your … Read more

Tips on exhibition stand design (1)

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Picture shows a four-by-three size exhibition stand I designed for Russell & Russell Accountants. Wider than most exhibition stands, it's a dark blue curved wall with the R&R logo top left, white bulletpoint text in the centre and contact information along the foot. The curved endcap corners have a lighter shade of blue. I'm shown standing in front of the stand in the workshop.

Take a 3-by-3 “curved wall” exhibition stand – from a design point-of-view, don’t look at it as a huge canvas to be covered with lots of images and offers. It will be more powerful with a single message, for example, a single colour or a great photo over the whole wall, with a bold headline, … Read more

What is brand identity and what is logo design?

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A brand identity for Kellmack Property Consultants, composed of the word Kellmack, the Mack part appearing white out of a five-sided polygon with irregular sides. Property Consultants appears below. Colours are bright red, white and black.

In my opinion, it’s easy to picture Brand Identity as the big brother of Logo Design. Even better, imagine Brand Identity as the big family supporting Logo Design – while he’s the dashing go-ahead youngster that gets the family noticed! Logo Design Logo Design is the eye-catching image, icon or symbol that your business is … Read more