Let’s get real about designing graphics for a minute. You’re a blogger, or in other words, a writer. Getting crafty with graphics can be overwhelming. It can be time-consuming to create something that actually looks good, if you’re lucky. But you know it’s necessary to create awesome images to go with your posts to share on social media. So what’s a blogger to do? Find and use a graphic design software, that’s what!
Graphic designing software makes it easy for non-graphic designers to create images that look good by providing templates that aid in the creation of a perfect graphic. The templates will vary on the type of design you want to create, for example a Pinterest graphic will have a template that suits Pinterest, while a Facebook Ad template would be more suitable for Facebook. Most of these services give you access to free stock photos (and I love free stock photos), various fonts, and clipart icons to pull together an awesome look.
Since Pinterest is my favorite platform to share on, I’ll be sharing how to easily create a Pinterest graphic using FotoJet.
What Is FotoJet?
If you’ve been searching for an easy-to-use graphics editor that’s also free, I’d like to introduce you to FotoJet. FotoJet is a graphic designing service that has templates for all sorts of needs like Facebook ads and posts, social media headers, Pinterest graphics, and other marketing graphics for print. In addition to offering pre-made templates for creating graphics, FotoJet has a photo editing software so you can get a perfect picture before adding it to a graphic or a collage. Oh yeah, you can also use their website to create photo collages! How cool is that?
FotoJet is a free service that allows you access to everything mentioned previously, but they do have a paid option as well. Just in case you need more templates and photo effects. They have two pricing options, and both are a steal of a deal! You can purchase FotoJet Plus for only $4.99 on a monthly basis. Or you could save yourself the trouble of having to purchase it every month and go with their yearly deal for $34.99, making it only $2.91 per month.
You can compare the benefits of their free plan and Plus plan laid out in the image below.
What you should know about Fotojet
With FotoJet’s free service you don’t even need to have an account. Yep, that’s right. You can start creating and editing without needing to sign in or sign up. You’ll have basic access to editing tools and templates. The advanced editing tools included in the Plus plan really make it worth it. You’ll have access to basic editing tools and also sharpen, dehaze, vignette, noise, focus, selective filter, and color splash (my favorite).
Currently FotoJet is available on Mac and PC and will not work on a mobile device. Their FAQs rumor that they are working on a mobile app for phones, coming soon!
Because FotoJet makes it easy to use their software and don’t require you to have an account or download an app, you’ll need to save your work to your device every time. They don’t store your work for later. But don’t worry, if you try to leave your work without saving to your device first, you’ll receive a pop-up warning to make sure you really want to exit without saving.
How to design a Pinterest Graphic Using FotoJet
You know I love using Pinterest to share blog posts and that I’ve been using Pinterest to grow my blog from day 1, so I’m going to show you step by step how to create a Pinterest graphic.
Pinterest users favor vertical images that clearly state what the user will find by clicking through to the website. I usually have the post title and make sure to include my domain name. Here’s a pretty easy walk through for creating a Pinterest graphic using templates with FotoJet.
1. Create a Design
Head over to FotoJet’s website and you’ll have the option to create a design, make a collage, or edit a photo. You’ll want to select Create a Design.
2. Choose Pinterest Graphic
Pretty simple. Under Social Media Post, you’ll find Pinterest Graphic. Once you select it, a new page will open up with their graphic designing software.
3. Scroll through their templates
There’s a template for everyone’s taste! You’ll notice some have a little crown in the right-hand corner and those are the templates you’ll have access to with a Plus plan. You just click the one you like to add it to your blank slate. If you want to change it, just click another!
4. Edit the background to your liking
To get a look that matches your brand, you’ll want to make changes to the provided picture in the background. I’ve erased the picture entirely, and chose a background from their selection.
5. Edit the existing text
Since the default text won’t be relevant to your blog post, you’ll want to remove the current text by double clicking the text box and hitting the backspace key a few times. This will leave the text box, allow you to write your own message, and keep the font.
I like that FotoJet separates their font options by type like handwriting, serif, and display. It’s a cool feature for non-graphic designers to easily sort through font types.
6. Edit and add images
Some templates will have images you don’t want to keep. You can remove them entirely and find one that works better. FotoJet has options to search for pictures on Pixabay, Facebook, or by URL. You can upload your own images from your computer. And there is also Clipart, which I used in my design.
7. Save your design
That’s it! Once you have added your personal touch to their template, you’ll want to save your design to your computer. Keep in mind that your images won’t be stored by FotoJet for future use, so don’t forget to save. Upload your graphic to your blog or Pinterest. You also have the option to share your design over social media when you hit save!
Now that you know how easy it really is to use FotoJet’s software to create a customized graphic, head on over to FotoJet.com and make a few of your own.
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My opinion of FotoJet
FotoJet is almost like having a graphic designer hold your hand through the whole creation process. I’m serious! FotoJet really works the easy aspect for creating graphics in record time. I’m all for easy and I think the fact you don’t need to sign in is brilliant.
It also gets a point for being one of the cheapest options for graphic designing. If you like to have control over editing your photos first, I think that the paid plan is worth it because of the advanced photo-editing tools. Having access to their photo-editing tools is also a time saver because you won’t need to go to another service to edit your picture first.
I do wish they had an app because I like the ease of editing images using a touch screen.
All in all it’s a great service to aid in the perfection of social media graphics!