Substack Image Design

Design postmortem to show how one should design the image header to a substack post.

While an article or web-page has an f-shaped eye-reading pattern; article image headers are somewhat different. And design is different from art.

In Art, we take away the core to reveal the journey to discover that core. In design, we subtract focus points until we get a set of focus points that reveal the core of the story.

But, it becomes clearer if I show some of my mistakes. So this is a postmortem on my mistakes and what the ideal substack image design should like to highlight an article title.

 

 

Image Design Mistakes

 So the first example of mistakes is this:

  It reeks of too many focus points. Yes, it is an attempt at providing social validation in app screenshots since I talk about front-end app design. But, the overwhelming focus points get in the way of providing that social validation.

How about another mistake? This is more recent:

 Here, the problems are more subtle. Still too many focus points.

And a vector image abstraction is not a strong enough social validation for the subject I am talking about.

Now, let's revisit the image header.

Image Design The Right Way

 So here is the image header again:

Now my brand along with my name word mark does not have the reputation to provide social validation. That means that instead of using multiple images for social validation, I need to instead have one stellar image providing the social validation.

Of course, your social validation image will be different.

 Thoughts

  So this is basically it. Reduce the focus points and get more specific about the image, showing social validation. Doing both will dramatically make your substack image header be more effective.