How graphic designs can help content writers?

Content writing is the process of writing, editing, and publishing various kinds of content on traditional or digital media platforms. It encompasses every activity a writer takes to write and improve content for a specific reason - marketing, magazine promotion, advertising, branding, blogs, etc.

Content writers are brand storytellers - they put their writing and editorial skills into action to help brands tell their stories most convincingly and engagingly. They write and publish a wide range of products from blog posts, to ebooks, social media copy, ad copy, press releases, video or podcast scripts, whitepapers, company profiles, website or landing page copy, product descriptions, and articles, guides, and many more.

Over the years, content writing has become an integral part of business growth and development with the reformed content specialty - content marketing. A lot of businesses now thrive under the umbrella of content marketing combined with strategic SEO to develop brand-specific and customer-focused content to increase brand awareness, attract new customers, build relationships with customers, and increase conversions, sales, and revenue.

According to a report by HubSpot,

“82% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing, 10% report not using content marketing, and 8% are unsure if their company uses content marketing.”

For highly skilled and talented writers, your strong writing prowess can help you tell amazing brand stories, however, aligning your creative writing skills with graphic design can help you create better stories.

In this guide, we will provide you with valuable insights on how you can benefit from graphics design as a content writer and the best tips to make this work.

Content writing is the business of writing and promoting quality content for different purposes. It is a crucial aspect of modern marketing practice that is used to generate leads and increase brand awareness and sales.

As a writer, your main focus could be on constantly writing and producing content on blogs, social media channels, websites, landing pages, mobile apps, etc., to help organizations reach and connect with a wide audience, you must not also forget the importance of graphics design to improving your writings.

With the persistent drop in the average human attention span from 12 seconds in the early 2000s to 8.25 seconds in 2022, it is becoming more and more difficult to gain and hold on to people's attention now. The reality of this for modern writers is that you have to align your content with visually striking designs to grab people’s attention and compel them to read/interact with your content.

The power of visual narrative in brand storytelling and marketing should never be ignored. In as much as your high-quality content will determine how long readers read your content, a creative and attractive design influences their interest in your content and decision to keep reading it.

Here are a few different research data from various sources emphasizing the importance of visuals in content creation:

65% of digital marketing executives claim visual assets like images, infographics, illustrations, and videos are imperative to brand story communication - myMarketing.io.

Articles with images get 94% more views as opposed to those with no visuals -Optinmonster

Subsequently, this guide will walk you through all you should know about the use of graphics design in content writing.

Image: Dribble

The average human attention span is within 8 seconds. A visually striking design with compelling copy makes people notice and interact with your content. Lending credence to the popular saying that “content is king”, good quality content that fails to grab people's attention falls short of the royal title.

Hence, you must create a stunning layout and structure for your blog or website with attractive designs to attract people to your blog and improve your blog posts’ readability.

Image: Dribble

In the creative industry, people are mostly influenced by professionalism and a clear showcase of talents. Similarly, in writing, the only reason people visit your blog, website, or social media channel is to feed their minds with valuable information that will bring them back for more.

However, the outlook, layout, and aesthetics of your writing platform influence how they perceive and deem it worthy of their time. Adding creative designs to your website or blog boosts your professional outlook and compels your readers to read your content and return for more.

Image: Creativeboom

A well-thought-out content design strategy and the use of creative visuals in your blog stimulate readers’ interest in the content. Imagine reading an average blog article with 1500 words with no image, infographics, illustration, or simple designs, the appearance of such a blog already looks boring, long, and tiring to read. Except if the information is very important, readers don't hesitate to hit the back button at the clear sight of such blogs.

Adding visually engaging designs and images arouse the reader’s interest in your content and increases your content performance.

Image: Abdz.do

Most times in writing, writers use complex data or information to buttress their points or pass a message across to the readers. Graphic designs like infographics can help you visually represent the data or information simply and clearly so that readers can easily see and understand.

Visualizing data into charts and graphs - bar charts, line charts or pie charts, flowcharts, gauge charts, funnel charts, etc., or line graphs, bar graphs, pictographs, histograms, paragraphs, etc., aids readability and content engagement.

Image: Abdz.do

The use of visually appealing and engaging designs like infographics, illustrations, title image templates, and call to action aids users’ deep connection and engagement with your blogs.

Good use of creative designs in your blogs keeps readers glued to your content and influences their willingness to share the content with others via the social media buttons

Image: Abdz.do

A brand personality is the set of human characteristics that you attribute to your brand. It is the combination of emotional, intellectual, and behavioral attributes that is unique to a brand and is consistent over a long period.

Creative graphics design gives your brand a personality in line with the brand’s culture and values. A skilled and talented graphic designer must reflect this personality in the brand messaging, images and marketing campaign so much that when potential customers see your digital marketing campaign design, they can easily tell your brand culture and its target audience.

The five main dimensions of brand personality are Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness.

Image: Abdz.do

Similar to the previous point, good graphics help blog visitors and users find their way around the blog and interact with your blog posts to achieve their goals and objectives. A good user experience makes your blog fun, engaging, useful, and easy to navigate, thereby increasing readers’ loyalty to your blog.

Most content writers write a wide range of content that is aimed at achieving their personal or organizational goals. If you are a copywriter writing ad copy for marketing or advertising, or a niche-based content writer writing guides, ebooks, whitepapers, company profiles, brand messaging and values, etc. Creating a visually appealing design to go with your content increases your chances of achieving the content goals - increasing brand awareness, generating leads, boosting engagement, increasing sales, etc.

Consider using the following types of graphics design to improve your content writing and storytelling techniques to achieve your content goals and objectives a lot easier.

Image: All time Design

Infographics are used to visualize large research data sets or concepts that are hard to explain in a clear and visually appealing manner to make them easy for readers to grasp and understand. Including infographics in your content increases readability and engagement. The seven types of infographics to consider are;

1. Statistical Infographics are used to visualize survey results, research analyses, and numbers in a clear manner that is easy to understand.
2. Informational Infographics are used to give a quick run-through of topics, items, or long texts to aid easy readability.
3. Timeline Infographics are used to visualize the developments of an event or process across different timelines.
4. Geographic Infographics are used to visualize data based on geographic locations using map charts.
5. Hierarchical Infographics are used to organize data from the best to worst - showing the progression of data from top to bottom like in a pyramid.
6. Comparison Infographics are used to compare two options or subjects in the same criteria with a simple table.
7. Process Infographics are used to visualize different timelines in a left-to-right or zig-zag direction of steps.

Image: Jane Sorkin

An illustration is a depiction, interpretation, or graphical representation of a text, process, photograph, drawing, or concept. While an infographic is used to visualize complex data or information, illustrations are used to communicate abstract ideas or beautify a web page.

Image: Abdz.do

A graphical character or mascot can help you build your content engagement, connect with your content, and arouse their interest as they read the content. You can use graphic characters to make your content more relatable and easy to remember.

Image: Amo Kannika

Comics and cartoons are valuable tools that can be used in blogs to share and connect readers to the story or content, improve their content comprehension and entertain them while reading the content.

Image: Giphy

Gifs are short animations that writers can use to create humor or entertain their readers and capture their attention. Adding Gifs to your content or blogs increases your blog's chances of going viral. Gifs are also ideal for educating and explaining hard-to-explain concepts in an image.

The first step to effectively using graphics design in your content is to find and use easy-to-use graphic design tools. You can use easy DIY graphic design tools like Canva, Piktochart, Desybers, etc.

It is counterproductive to use visual designs that are different from your content as this can create confusion and make your readers lose touch with the entire content. Ensure that the graphic elements or images you add to your content support your claims and discussions in the article.

Consider adding graphics, tables, and high-quality pictures to improve your blog readability. In situations where you explained concepts, you can add screenshots of examples to help your readers relate to and understand the concepts better.

Plagiarism is a big issue that you wouldn't want to be caught up in. When you get designs or images from other websites, be sure to give credit to the source by adding a link to the sources. Don’t steal from others without referencing them.

Do not hesitate to visualize your complex data, information, or processes in infographics to make it easier for your readers to understand and relate with. Good use of infographics improves user experience - thereby encouraging them to always come back to you.

With the clear understanding that not everyone can be an excellent graphics designer, irrespective of your years of experience in the creative industry, it’s okay and smart to hire a professional graphics designer or agency to manage all your design needs.

By doing this, you can use creative and related designs to support your content and drive growth.

All time Design is one of the leading creative design service providers well known for its excellent service delivery and proficient graphic designers.

With a robust and intuitive platform, All time Design enables you to access incredibly fast and professionally vetted creative designs to empower your marketing efforts.

We offer a wide range of creative services to clients such as booklets, brochures, presentation designs, product packaging designs, books and journals, flyers design, branding, web design, infographics, product marketing designs, custom illustrations, apps, and website UI designs, presentation designs, motion graphics, and animation, and front-end development.

Our team of professional and dedicated designers has a deep understanding of brand and marketing design solutions that will help our clients promote their products or services on social media and other digital media platforms.

All time Design is one of the leading creative design service providers well known for its excellent service delivery and proficient graphic designers. By outsourcing flyer design services to us, you can be assured of the following benefits;

One of our biggest strengths at All time Design is our team of professional, well-experienced, and vetted graphics designers that are readily available to work on your design projects. We give you access to our super intuitive platform to help you track and work on your design projects as well as speed up your creative process in one centralized platform.

Every subscriber has access to dedicated support from the All time Designs team, however, depending on your payment plan, you can get access to more support and a super fast project turnaround period - 2 days for standard subscribers and same-day turnaround for premium subscribers.

With All time Designs, there are no surprise fees or contracts. You get to pay one flat rate and get unlimited designs.

Our designers have access to and use the latest tools and technologies that help create digital marketing designs effortlessly. Our designers have the right design skills to work with these tools and deliver outstanding marketing designs.

All time Design offers you unlimited graphic design requests and revisions, regardless of your plan to fuel your creative terrain. You are allowed to request corrections for all your designs for as much as you want until you are satisfied with the work.

You get complete ownership of the design source files for all your designs