There are so many really awesome graphics available and it’s important for you to have branded images for all of your social media channels. There are lots of ways to create these graphics but today I want to talk about staying within your brand, because branding is so important. I should be able to look at a graphic and know that it’s for you before I even see your logo. How? Because it’s in your color, it’s got your font, and it’s got all your information.

Coolors

One of the biggest mistakes I see when people are trying to brand their own stuff is that most logos are one or two, maybe three colors max. Mine’s purple, white, and orange. So you see the same colors over and over again, and that can get visually boring, especially on a platform like Instagram. One of the best things you can do is take your logo and upload it to a website called Coolors. What happens on that website is you upload your image and identify what color you want — for example, purple for me — and then it will generate a color palette that goes with your color. It’s amazing. This way you’re not just getting the same color over and over again. It’s a very neat, FREE tool that will keep auto-generating palettes until you find one you like. It’s a great way to generate different options to use for your colors for your branded graphics.

HTML Color Codes

The second tool I’m going to tell you about is something nobody knows about, and I refer to it as my secret weapon. I use it for Canva almost every day and it’s the ugliest website you’re ever going to see. But, it’s super effective! If I have a picture I’m using and I need to match the color, yes, you can go on Canva and do a custom color and you can guess, but that takes forever. There’s a shortcut to that and it’s called HTML Color Codes. So what does it do? It will color match colors online so you don’t have to and gives you a code to copy and paste into Canva. Sometimes it’s a little glitchy, but it’s a free tool and I use it all the time. I would tell you that 98 times out of 100 it works beautifully. The color will match so exactly that it looks seamless.

How the Two Work Together

I can take a logo from a client and put it into HTML Color Codes, in case the client doesn’t know, and then I can take that same color code and upload it to Coolors and get my palette generated. These are two awesome graphics tools that go hand-in-hand, and they are tremendous when you are trying to make your own custom graphics.

Branding!

I love Canva, I use it all the time. In this day and age you really don’t want to get sued because you used somebody else’s image. I got a text from a client last week who asked if they could use other people’s images on their blog and I said, “Um…no.” Unless you know the photographer and you get their permission it’s not ok. It’s a great opportunity for you to use your own images. I use Pinterest a lot for inspiration and I may find a cool quote I want to use. I can take that and make a graphic for my brand. That’s awesome and that’s what you want. You want people to glance at your Instagram feed and see your brand everywhere, your colors, your palette.