In the fast pace and competitive world of online and offline marketing amongst charities, it can be difficult to capture the attention of your audience. Imagery is one of the best ways to grab an audience’s attention.

This week, we spoke to Andrew Heppinstall from Validus Media to get his advice on creating engaging graphics that attract attention.

Here are the top tips for designing graphics that will get your charity noticed.

1. Use striking images

Whether you’re designing a poster for a store or a graphic for social media, you want to catch the public’s eye and make them interested in your message. Never underestimate the power of a great image. The impact can last a lifetime if done well.

If you don’t have a suitable image, then purchase one. You have so little to lose and stand to gain so much if done correctly. The investment will be worth it.

2. Use colours and contrasts

This is a little more technical. You may need to hire a professional. By using clever contrasts of colours and shades, you can make your artwork really pop.

Different colours represent different moods, and people associate colours with different things, so use a blend of colours that go well together whilst sticking to your theme. You may need to do a little research into the psychology of colour.

Using different fonts and sizes will create depth.

3. Don’t bombard people with too much information

Don’t include too much stuff. If you give people too many elements to read and decipher, they won’t bother investing the time into working out what you’re trying to say to them.

Keep it simple. What is the problem, and what do you want the person who is reading about it to do?

4. Follow a theme

If you’re making more than one element for a campaign, you can look into keeping a certain theme running throughout them all to add consistency and give the public something to look out for in the future.

This is a good idea if you’re launching a campaign that has many digital and non-digital elements. This way, your audience will recognise that the billboard they’ve seen matches the ad they saw on Facebook, and they’ll recognise your organisation.

5. Get creative

There are so many organisations just like yours. How do you make sure you stand out from the crowd?

Depending on the platform you are using, you can turn your poster into an interactive piece, where clicking on different parts of the image will lead to different things.

Or you could turn your image into a gif or video, which allows you to add different aspects, such as music.

It’s about working out who your audience is and what they’ll best respond to.

6. Think about the rest

Having great imagery and graphics to advertise yourself is a fantastic start, but it is just a conversation starter. Once you’ve attracted them, they’ll want to know more. That’s where you have the opportunity to really sell yourself.

If you’re driving people online, you’ve got to include relevant, relatable and factual information to engage the reader even after you’ve secured their attention. This is where you’ll turn them into supporters or donors.

Spend as much time looking at the design of your landing pages as you do those initial attention-grabbing posters and social media gifs. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. The content you’re taking people through needs to be just as attractive and well thought through as everything else.