Top Banner Design Tips for Effective Advertising (2024)

Whether you’re walking down the street or browsing the internet, you’re never too far away from a banner competing for your attention. When you’re looking at creating your own, the question is: What makes a banner effective?

These banner design tips will help you create a banner that makes your target audience want to be a part of what you’re promoting.

The perfect banner design catches the eyes of viewers and helps them understand a piece of information quickly. It could be a brand name, an event, an upcoming sale, or even a new product.

No matter what it’s for, your banner needs to be:

High-Quality

The images and graphics on your banner need to look professional. You can hire someone to help you with this or use an online design tool to create a high-quality asset without design experience.

Easy to Read

The font and text size you choose for your banner are critical. If people can’t read it, the time you spent creating your banner will go to waste.

Consistent with Your Brand

If you have your own business or a social media presence, your banner should align with your branding. Otherwise, you’ll risk confusing your audience and having the banner design be completely ineffective.

Ready to make your next banner? Let’s take a look at several different banner types, complete with professionally designed banner templates that you can customize yourself!

Banners for Businesses

Sale Showcase

Want to create a banner that will help you increase sales? Get more eyes on your business by drawing attention to a specific project or promotion.

On Brand

Make an impression on the people who see your banner with a design that includes your business name, logo, brand colors, and slogan.

Be Present

Encourage people to come to your next event with graphics that draw them in and simple text to explain what they can expect.

Life of the Party

Choose a fun design with modern geometric elements to capture the attention you want and boost attendance at your next event.

Banners for Social Media

A Matter of Focus

Influencers need to grow their audience, and people need to know where to follow them. The combination of an out-of-focus image with a social media handle in the center will help your audience navigate to the right place.

One-Stop Shop

Hitting the character limit on a social media bio is frustrating. Use this banner design to give your audience every piece of important information in one place.

A Bit of Variation

Keep things consistent across your entire business website while still keeping your users engaged on every page by creating multiple variations of your banner.

Making a Statement

If you don’t want to include photos in your banner design, include geometric design elements and lots of white space to allow your message to stand out.

How to Make a Banner in Shutterstock Create

Figuring out how to create your own banner might seem daunting, but with Shutterstock Create, you can create a beautiful banner in minutes.

1. Start a New Project

Choose a banner template that fits your needs or open a blank canvas if you want to start from scratch.

2. Choose Visuals

Add graphics or images that will help your banner stand out. These should be in line with your banding.

3. Add Text

Say what you need to say with an easy-to-read font. Make your text pop with text effects like curved text or an outline—or experiment with text size and spacing.

When you’re done, click Download on the top toolbar to export your design, or share on social media.

Having a concept in mind for your banner is just the first step. To make your banner stand out in a noisy, online world, you need to include unique elements.

Use these ideas as inspiration to make your banner as eye-catching as possible.

Banners with Text

You don’t have to solely rely on the words you write to make a statement. Choose a unique font to make an even bigger impact.

Banners with HD Backgrounds

Make this design your own in Shutterstock Create.

If you want your banner design to give your audience clarity about your business, idea, or event, you need clear photos. Using low-quality images could draw attention away from important information.

Animated Banners

Give your digital banner a quality that makes it stand out by adding animation to your text or graphic.

You already know you have something important to say and that other people need to see it. Use these banner design tips to create an asset that gets the message across and encourages the action you want your audience to take.

Cover image via aurielaki.