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Graphic Design Tips for Social Media

Design tips for social media - web banner

Below are some helpful tips and guidelines when designing for digital promotion.

Tips

  • Leave some space all around the edges, you don’t want copy* coming to the edge of the graphic – this makes it harder to read.
  • When designing for digital, be sure to work in pixels
  • Minimize the amount of copy you use in a post, short catchy headlines are best, use the caption for more details and send the viewer to a webpage for more information.
  • A photo is always welcome and will usually stop a “scroller”

*Copy is the text written on a designed visual, flyer, webpage, print materials, etc. Other similar words include “language,” “caption,” and “description.” When working with Marketing & Communications on design jobs, we typically request that you provide text for the copy and then we may make recommendations on revisions or edits.


Colors

Please use our approved brand colors, which you can find here. Please use the the HEX codes or RGB for web/digital use. Maroon is Ramapo College’s main color, please have that as the prominent color and the other colors like red, gold, gray and cool black as supporting.


Fonts/Typography

For body copy, try to use sans serif fonts. Suggestions: Open Sauce One, Sarabun and/or Arial.

For a header use something a bit more bold like Action Condensed Bold, Bebas Neue, Impact or Oswald.

To see samples and learn how to best use our typography, visit here.


Dimensions

Here are some of the most common platforms and their dimensions. Of course each platform has their own specific dimensions for event headers, profile images, and more – and they are quite happy to update dimensions with every app update. We try to Google periodically to stay in know!

Instagram Story: 1080 x 1920 pixels (Please leave 200 pixels at the top and bottom free of text or the important part of the image, some older phones will cut off the top and bottom of the graphic, you can still put color and/or a design in that space and not leave it blank. See below for an example)

Instagram Feed: 1080 x 1080 pixels

Facebook Feed: 940 x 788 pixels

LinkedIn Feed: 1200 x 628 pixels

Twitter Feed: 1024 x 512 pixels

Archway Event Photo: 640 x 350 pixels


Examples

Instagram Story

Notice the space at the top and bottom does not have anything important placed there, that we would not be upset if it was cut off on screen.

Sample of and Instagram Story Graphic

Instagram Feed

Sample of an Instagram Story Feed Post

Facebook Feed

Sample of a Facebook feed post

Twitter

Sample of a Twitter feed post.


You can learn more about Ramapo College’s brand standards, colors palette, and logo usage on our Design Guide website.