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Psychology of colors in marketing - the business of color
Do your logo's colors resonate with your target audience? We’ve analyzed the data and applied color psychology to help you choose the best colors for your brand.
For the love of design
Designers are storytellers. Problem solvers. Empire builders and inspiration makers. We’ve compiled this eBook to celebrate the creative masterminds behind some of 99designs’ most epic designs.
Running a contest
How to best prepare for a graphic design contest
When running a design contest you’re essentially taking on the role of Creative Director, so it’s important to be prepared to offer the direction and guidance your designers will need to do the job well.
How to run a successful design contest
This article offers tips for running a successful design contest, including inviting designers to the contest, setting flexible deadlines, leaving feedback, and rating entrants reasonably.
SLIDES: How to get the best from your designer
A well-thought out creative brief will help bridge the gap between your expectations for a design project and the outcome. This slide deck will inform you of exactly what goes into the perfect creative brief in just nine steps.
Branding on a budget: how to write a great creative brief
The essentials of a great creative brief include introducing your company and your product, describing your uniqueness, identifying your target audience, and inspiring designers with images you love.
INFOGRAPHIC: All you need to know about Logo & Web contests
Find out how the Logo & Web category works from what information you will provide the designer at the get-go to what you can expect after the contest ends.
Branding
What is branding, anyway?
This article offers a definition of branding, suggests several reasons why branding is necessary to your business’s success, and discusses the basics of visual branding.
How to create a simple brand style guide
There are five elements to include in your brand style guide: your brand overview, your logo and its variations, your color palette, your approved typography, and examples of the images you like.
Tim Ferriss on how to build your business’ brand
In an interview with The 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferriss, we get Tim’s advice on building a personal brand, project planning, startups, maximizing productivity, and more.
INFOGRAPHIC: Small business branding checklist
Branding is a huge part of distinguishing your business from its competition. Here we'll outline 8 essential steps to building a lasting brand.
Marketing
3 tips for writing a mission statement that will set you apart
To write a stand-out mission statement, you should consider your business’s story, identify your company’s consumer appeal, articulate your company’s passion, and reach out to your ideal consumer niche.
Defining your target audience: Who are you serving?
To identify your customer base, consider your consumer’s lifestyle and values. By imagining what he wants, you’ll learn the story of his purchasing habits.
Be Pinteresting: How to grow your brand using Pinterest
This resource offers a number of ways to use Pinterest to your brand’s advantage. Tips offered include investing time and money on the site, building communities, and creating pinnable images.
7 Hallmarks of emails that get a response
This article discusses best practices for making sure people read your emails, including crafting a catchy subject line, using a personalized greeting, and writing direct content.
Venus vs. Mars: The marketing edition
Do men and women look at a logo design differently? What’s important to each gender when they are getting ready to start their respective businesses? See what our survey results revealed!
Free email design templates
People receive hundreds if not thousands of emails everyday - it’s important to make yours stand out. We can help by offering three free email templates: a newsletter template, a promotional template, and a email notification template.
Free PowerPoint templates
An attractive PowerPoint slideshow can make your presentation a hit in any industry! Our three free templates allow you to preview your entire presentation, and our professional designers can also create templates that fit your concept exactly.
4 ways to get your great new design onto a t-shirt
This resource outlines four ways of putting your company’s logo onto a t-shirt: standard or oversized screen printing, all-over printing in a repetitive design, or inkjet or iron-on transfer.
Design 101
File types cheat sheet
Have you ever been confused about which file types to request for different design projects? Check out our file types cheat sheet for the answers to all of your file-related questions!
4 things you need to know about stock images
A guide to using stock images in design projects, this resource describes what they are, defines different stock licenses, demonstrates how stock images can be used in design projects, and explains how to identify them.
EBOOK: Digital essentials for restaurants
There are numerous hurdles to opening a restaurant. Learn how an appealing graphic design identity will help you attract customers and set positive expectations.
INFOGRAPHIC: 3 ingredients for a design that hops off the shelf
In outlining the craft beer boom with industry data, this resource explains the best way for craft beer companies to set themselves apart: by creating unique, specific, and well-designed labels for their products.
Logo design
Find your type: 4 tips on choosing a logo font
It's hard to choose the best font for your logo, but font is an essential facet of your brand's look and feel that shouldn't be overlooked. Check out these 4 tips to find the best font fit for your logo.
Style matters - choosing the right logo style for your brand
Logos help define brands. Wordmark logos use bold fonts and few illustrations, lettermark logos are created with acronyms or initials, and brandmark logos employ only illustration. Find out which style works best for your brand.
INFOGRAPHIC: Retro logo design
Looking to take your logo back a few decades? This infographic shows you how to give your brand a hip and retro feel, outlining exactly what shapes, colors and fonts will achieve the vintage look you’re going for.
The business of color
Do your logo's colors resonate with your target audience? We’ve analyzed the data and applied color psychology to help you choose the best colors for your brand.
EBOOK: 4 steps to the perfect logo
A great logo reveals your industry, personality and point of difference—and looks incredible doing it. Learn how to get the perfect logo for your business by mastering these four steps.
Web & mobile design
Responsive web design – what are we talking about?
With today’s rapidly-evolving technology, responsive web design, or creating web pages that adapt to a user’s device, is essential for small businesses. Pages can adjust to the user’s particular device or be viewed regardless of the device’s screen size.
4 key pillars to great web design
This article helps you make your web page stand out. Try posting a bold statement indicating how your product will improve consumers’ lives, be SEO-friendly, and include important information before the page break.
INFOGRAPHIC: Is your SMB on the road to mobile success?
This infographic reports statistics about businesses’ beliefs in the importance of a mobile presence.
Web redesign case studies
The four case studies shown here demonstrate ways that small businesses improved their web pages using our design services, and subsequently increased traffic, leads, and sales.
EBOOK: Improve landing page conversion
Landing pages are an essential step to any company’s digital marketing strategy. Learn how to turn more clicks into conversions with our free landing page ebook and landing page design templates.
EBOOK: Free website design bundle
We teamed up with Hubspot to outline exactly what you need to consider before undertaking a website redesign or refresh. We’ve also included two free website design templates to kickstart your website redesign efforts.
Social media design
Your ultimate cheat sheet to Facebook design
To design your Facebook page, find a powerful cover photo, choose a profile picture that both stands alone and blends with your page, and pick ad photos that look great in multiple sizes.