Businesses need customized, high-quality images on an almost astonishingly frequent basis. You need covers for ebooks, infographics, featured blog post images, branded images for your site, visuals for email, and what feels like a million different images for multiple different social media platforms. And all need to have cool designs that are visually aesthetic and engaging.
That’s a lot of images, especially considering that many small and medium businesses don’t have a budget to keep a graphic designer on retainer or on staff.
This is where graphic design tools like Snappa come into play. We utilize intuitive drag-and-drop design software that comes with hundreds of stock photos, pre-loaded graphics, gradients, and more. We also have hundreds of completely customizable templates you can use to create professional-quality images in just a few clicks.
Looking for some inspiration, or cool designs that you can customize to make your own quickly? Let’s take a look at 14 different versatile cool designs and templates that we offer for our subscribers.
1. Modern Simplicity
All of our templates are versatile, and some are meant to be easy to customize regardless of how you want to use it. This is a great example. Switch up the logo, change the stock photo, adjust the text and background colors to create a clean, modern design that looks great.
2. Bold & Geometric
Bold, minimalist backgrounds like the geometric design in this template can be eye-catching. And since they’re relatively simple, the content you’re quoting jumps out. This would work great for a contemporary brand or message.
3. Light & Fun
Remember that you can customize any part of any of these templates, but we’re a little in love with this template exactly as is. The soft yellow and bright teal contrast perfectly and are fun, light, and airy, especially with the font. You can use this for fun, light-hearted brands, and it would also do well when it comes to content for kids.
4. The Progress Bar
Tell me that when you see that interrupted column in the left hand side doesn’t look like some sort of progress bar. You can’t, right?
This simple design works wonders for content and images conveying progress, whether it’s through something like weight lifting or even a skills-based program to save more for retirement.
5. Colorful Circles
This template was built to help advertise coworking spaces, but it’s one of those ultra-flexible designs. Tweak the colors of the circles to brighter yellows and oranges and slap it on a beach picture and you’ve got something about summer. Make the circles red, white, and green, and you’ve got something for the holidays. Check out more circle design ideas!
6. The Perfect Holiday Greeting
Speaking of holidays, it doesn’t get much better than this (and we know that plenty of our subscribers might be looking for exactly this right now!). This is all a single background image that features a soft blue circle that contains all the text. The blue and green color combo is sophisticated and festive. All it needs is your customized text!
7. The Blurb
Social media images in particular can perform well when you add text to them. A quick blurb about a blog post underneath its title, for example, can increase clicks dramatically. The rounded corners and shadow design look clean and fresh, and can easily be adapted to any theme.
8. The Multi-Colored Banner
This is a personal favorite for me, because it looks like it had to have been designed personally for your brand by an illustrator or designer. But nope; you can easily customize it with Snappa. “Healthy Breakfast Recipes” can instantly become “10 Ways to Save” or “Must-Have Camping Gear.”
9. The Scenic Route
Sometimes the background image that you choose is a nice accent to help drive your point home. Sometimes, it’s the entire point.
If you have stunning, gorgeous photographs that need to take center stage, this is template is for you. Add context through the headline and then leave it at that, letting the image speak for itself. This is a cool design, no question about it.
10. The Five-Star Rating
We all hopefully have a five-star rated product or service, or at least a few 5-star reviews. Creating graphics that highlight our stellar testimonials can be exceptionally effective for marketing purposes. This template has those five stars already locked and loaded, and all you need to do is list the product or service and choose the perfect background image.
11. The Pretty in Pink
It goes without saying that if this template otherwise works for you and you absolutely detest pink, you can change it. You can change everything! (That’s kind of the whole point!)
That being said, this uses more feminine fonts and designs, and can work well when you’re trying to reach a predominantly female audience.
12. The Minimalist Quote
Sometimes all you need is a great quote. These images can enhance your social media content and blog posts alike. Even better, they’re exceptionally easy to create with this template. Pick a background color that aligns with the mood of the quote or your brand, change the author and quote, and download! Use our image quote maker to get started!
13. The Networking Event
Want to promote your event with great images? It couldn’t be easier. This networking event style has a soothing blue and grey color scheme. The layout is clean and crisp, and the blue circle is a great spot to emphasize important dates.
14. The Split Screen Pin
Some designs really excel on Pinterest, and this is a great example. You’re using a high-quality image with multiple dominant colors (which can drive 3x more repins!), the right Pinterest dimensions, and adding text to the image to explain what users can learn or gain by clicking. Since many users focus almost exclusively on the images while browsing, the text part is key.
Final Thoughts: Creating Cool Designs for Your Business
It’s not simply enough to slap a picture onto an email or a social media post and hope for the best. Users are exposed to an insane amount of media on a daily basis (potentially as many as 5,000 daily), which means that yours needs to be exceptional to stand out.
We can help with that. Our extensive library of templates make it easy for our subscribers to find a design they like that matches their aesthetic, customize it, and download in just a few minutes at the most. You can create cool designs without any design experience or talent, and see the results.
Ready to get started? You can start your free trial at Snappa here.
What do you think? Which of these cool designs was your favorite? Which are you going to use first? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments section below!