One of the most crucial steps to success with Pinterest, is quality pin design.

The pins you create are a direct reflection of you and your brand. It’s like you and your content have been wrapped up in a tiny little present for your audience to open.

Unfortunately, they are also being thrown hundreds of presents at the same time, so your pin needs to be the one that stands out. Luckily, I’m here to help!

Designing graphics just so happens to be a hobby of mine. I’ve been creating digital invitations, party printables, and more for many, many years. During this time, I’ve done my share of research on graphic design and how to make appealing images.

So today, I’m sharing with you the fundamentals for good Pin design. I will also preface by saying that I create almost all of my graphics in Canva. I was using Photoshop, but quickly discovered that Canva’s setup was a lot easier. You have tons of font options, clip art and even stock photos right at your fingertips. It is a very user friendly program and now I use it almost exclusively to create Pins.

No matter what program I use to create my pins, I try to follow these 7 design techniques in each and every pin. Today, I’m sharing them with you, in hopes of making your pin design much easier.

1. Rectangular shape

If Pinterest’s said it once, they’ve said it a thousand times. Pins appear best on their site when they are vertical. Square shaped images just don’t stack up. So be sure that your design is rectangular.

The most recent information from Pinterest suggests that the optimal pin size is ***** so try and stay somewhere in that range. Longer pins will be cropped so there’s really no point to creating them.

2. Clear, timeless fonts

If a reader has to struggle to read your Pin, they aren’t going to stick around and click through. Why should they? They have tons of different options.

Be sure your fonts are clear and easy to read. Try to make sure they are more timeless than cute and trendy. Fads come and go, but your pins on Pinterest will be out there for a long time – if not forever!

I do like to combine fonts in my designs. I prefer to use a nice bold font and a pretty script front. I recommend trying to stick with two fonts maximum. Any more than that is making reading the pin more of a chore for your reader and is hard to successfully pull off.

3. Quality photography

This one is so important! I see so many pins out there with lackluster images and it makes me cringe. Some of these bloggers are really good writers, but the images on their pins are selling them short.

We are so visual by nature. Pinterest is a visual medium. I cannot stress this enough…if you do not have good quality images on your pin (and in your post) people are not going to be engaged with your work!

One of the easiest ways to make sure your pins stand out, is by having fabulous images. If you are not a good photographer, do not despair! There are tons of sites where you can get awesome stock images, often for free.

Additionally, if you are wanting to step up your photography game, there are resources out there to help you. I’ve mentioned it before, but I am also a photographer. I got my start at a local visual arts school, taking evening classes. I got so much information from those, and now have years of experience to rely on. I hope to soon share some photography tips and tricks with you so be sure to sign up for my email list to see when that becomes available! Until then, do your research and practice.

4. Negative space

In the art and design world, negative space is huge. Negative space is the space around an intended subject. In photography, we use it to draw the eye to the subject of a portrait. It can have the same effect in a pin design.

Too often I see heavily cluttered pins. The busier the pin, the less your viewer wants to interact with it. No one wants to take the time to figure out what your pin is about. So keep it clean and simple. Your viewers will thank you.

5. Bright, warm colors

There is tons of research on how colors affect viewers and the vast majority of it supports the fact that viewers respond best to bright, warm colors.

Studies suggest that warmer colors are stimulating  which can promote action from your audience. Therefore, it makes sense to try and use warm colors in your pins.

I personally prefer to keep my fonts in two colors,  typically black and then a warm pink, red or orange.  I tend to do the keyword in the color to draw attention to it.

6. Catchy unique title

Much like you are not going to read a newspaper article with a weak title, you are not typically going to click through to a blog post with a boring pin title. You want something bold, that stands out and draws your reader in. There are several ways to do this. Strong adjectives, number words, and calls to action typically reasonate well with readers.

A quick search of Pinterest will net you a ton of results on strong titles for your pins and posts. I have several saved on my blog board and have referred to them many times before. Be sure to check out my blog board here and follow me. I pin tons of great tips on blogging!

7. Add your web address.

This one is not soley a design technique, but largely a security technique. Hundreds of pins get stolen daily, potentially stealing your traffic. You can try to combat this by adding your blog name on pins, so that the frauds will hopefully be reported.

However, adding your website is also part of the branding process, which adds to your design. By adding your site address, people are getting get another visual of your brand, and hopefully commiting it to memory. This may make them inclined to click on your future pins, if they associate your band with quality content.

7 techniques for amazing pin design

These 7 tips have proved to be very helpful in the success of my pins.  I find that my pins have a good repin and click through rate and have been helping to steadily grow my blog traffic.   You can see my pins and more of what I’m pinning on my Pinterest profile.

Have other tips for designing pins?  I’d love to hear them!  Please leave them in the comments.