Not-Your-Average Tech Blog Imagery
At the start of this year when launching Tradecraft (our monthly publication), we took a critical look at our blog imagery and realised it wasn’t doing our content justice.
We’d fallen into the typical tech company blog rut of using stock photos of desks, Apple products, writing utensils, planners…all the typical visuals you usually expect to see when talking about digital marketing and blogging. It was uninspiring and we knew we wanted to do something different. After all, having the right imagery to accompany an article not only helps set the tone, but can encourage people to share it, pin it, or click on it. And seeing yet another desk photo in your Twitter feed isn’t very enticing is it?
Knowing that we wanted to shake things up, we started exploring what imagery would best suit our brand and our content. We’re big fans of the HelpScout blog and the gorgeous custom illustrations they use for their articles. Since illustration can be incredibly useful for representing digital concepts we considered working with an illustrator for our posts, but ultimately decided that for our audience, the personal connection that photography brings is important. So we had to find a way to make it work.
The aim of our blog is to educate bloggers and give them the tools and knowledge they need to run an online business, so we asked ourselves what it is that inspires our readers. What do they aspire to? What kinds of imagery represents the life they hope to lead as a result of starting a blog?
We ended up settling on what our Marketing Director, Barrett, perfectly describes as “hipster-chic, outdoorsy, Instagram-perfect imagery that’s very much of the moment we’re living in and representative of the lifestyle so many of our readers are attracted to.”
Rather than being a literal representation of a topic (a surefire way to end up with a lot of photos of computers), our imagery is now more aspirational or conceptual. And if we do decide to use a workspace shot, we go for a more crafts(wo)man aesthetic rather than a clean, white IKEA-catalogue scene.
The interesting thing is we’re still sourcing our imagery from the same stock photo sites (Unsplash and Death to the Stock Photo are my go-to’s), but through making different decisions in the photos we pick we’ve been able to completely change the look and feel of our imagery.
This was a great start, but we wanted to take it further.
Even though we were being selective and choosing more interesting photos, when you’re using stock photography you’re always aware that another company could use the exact same image on their blog too. We wanted to add an extra layer of ‘uniqueness’ to our imagery without adding a whole lot of extra time to the creation process. I’m just one marketing designer after all, so efficiency is key!
I still liked the idea of custom illustrations, but knew I didn’t have the time in my schedule to commit to that. What we came up with is adding a layer of hand-drawn elements to the photos. This adds just the right amount of personality and flair to customise the photos, and embracing the hand-drawn aesthetic means I don’t have to spend too much time perfecting the drawings.
The result is a set of images that have a strong and recognisable visual aesthetic and does justice to the quality of the content. They feel personal and unique yet not too time-intensive to create. Plus they look great both in a post and shared on social media.
So that’s the change we made, and the reasons behind it. Now here’s a more in depth look at my process for creating a blog image for Tradecraft:
Choosing the right imagery
First I read the article to understand what it’s about. While it’s usually easy to get an idea straight away from the title, sometimes there are subtle themes or concepts in the post that really lend themselves to imagery. When I’m reading I’m taking note of any visuals that pop into my head or looking out for any metaphors that could suit the topic.
There are four different approaches I take to coming up with ideas for imagery:
1. Physical:
Stepping out of the screen and thinking about the physical equivalent of a digital topic, like this image of someone reading outdoors that I used for a post about eBooks. I try to keep these to a minimum as they can get cheesy if overused.
2. Metaphorical:
A physical representation of a theme or concept in the article. For example, I chose this image of a construction site for an article about blogging platforms, because it was about how to start building your blog. To come up with these I often ask myself what the process would look like if you were building a physical object rather than a digital one.
3. Textural:
If there’s not a strong metaphor or physical representation that springs to mind for an article, especially if it’s a complex how-to, I often reach for an outdoorsy texture, like this stack of wood I used for an article about list segmentation. It fits the aesthetic of our blog and provides an interesting background for some hand drawn titles.
4. Inspirational:
While we want all of our imagery to be beautiful and aspirational, another photo style I reach for when there’s not a specific metaphor in mind is beautiful scenery or a cityscape. These fit with the idea of reflecting the life bloggers hope to lead by running a successful business and provide a great backdrop to integrate hand drawn text, like this image for a post with links to 100 high quality blogs for inspiration.
I always want to make sure I have a good mix of all four types of imagery in an issue and after reading an article I generally have an idea or two about what imagery could a) represent the topic and b) fit with the Tradecraft aesthetic.
Stock photography has come a long way from cheesy photos of handshakes, board rooms, and people looking overly happy to be eating a salad. The aesthetic of the image matters just as much to me as the content, which is why I search for what’s available on Unsplash or Death to the Stock Photo rather than a traditional stock photo site.
I choose images that work well together as a set as well as look beautiful on their own. If it’s a photo I would double tap to like on Instagram, it has a place in Tradecraft. And just like an Instagram account, I don’t want to use the same photo twice.
Adding hand-drawn elements
Despite being a designer, I’ve struggled with my drawing abilities since high school art classes where my still-lifes were hard to decipher and my portraits looked more like cartoons. Rather than accepting defeat though, I’ve embraced this as my ‘style’. It’s a tad messy and a far cry from the perfect lettering you see in time-lapses on Instagram, but it works well with our crafts(wo)man aesthetic.
To add the hand-drawn layer to our imagery I use my iPad Pro with the Apple pencil and an app called Procreate. I Airdrop the resized stock photo I’ve selected to my iPad from my computer, add a new layer, and start drawing.
Like with the photo selection, there are a few different approaches I take to imagery:
1. Lettering:
Sometimes I’ll simply take a favorite Procreate brush and hand letter the title of the article or a portion of it. Whenever the image lends itself to it, I also like to integrate the lettering into the photo, like the ‘k’ poking through the bike tire on this image for an article about writers block.
2. Icons:
Often I’ll mix icons in with lettering (that’s what I did in the feature image for this post!) but sometimes it’s enough to simply draw an icon (or a few) on it’s own, like this image for our side gig budget article.
3. Integrated doodles:
I enjoy making the illustration layer as much a part of the photo as possible, so sometimes I’ll doodle on top of the image to help represent a concept. This can really help bring photos to life and connect them with the article topic, like this image here for a guide to opt-in forms.
Also as I do for the photo selection, I like to mix up these types of imagery in each issue to keep things interesting. So far I’ve stuck to mostly using white for the drawing layer as a way to unify the imagery, and also because it’s one less thing to think about!
Rather than create the feature image as each article is finished, I prefer to set aside a day to work on them all in one batch. I’m sure this helps with creating a cohesive set, and it lets me really get into the flow of drawing.
You can export as a Photoshop file with layers, or as a flat image from Procreate, so once I’m happy with the drawing I Airdrop a jpeg back to my computer ready to be uploaded to Wordpress.
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That’s how I create the feature imagery for Tradecraft, and how we got out of our blog photo rut. If you want to check them out in action, head on over and read our latest issue, Design for Non-Designers.
