Communicating without knowing how to design
3 min read
An amateur club's communications are often a volunteer with no training, on a Sunday evening. Good news: decent visuals don't take talent, but simple rules held all the way through.
Two colours, one typeface, and that's it
The classic failing is accumulation: four colours, three typefaces, two effects. Start from the two shirt colours, add white and a text grey, a single typeface in two weights. That's enough.
Two club colours, white, a grey for text, one typeface in two weights. That deliberate constraint produces cleaner visuals than any amount of total freedom.
A template beats inspiration
A blank page every week gives uneven results. A template moves the effort: built once, all that's left is to fill it in. And it transfers, where a knack doesn't.
The three mistakes that show most
Three slips are obvious even to an untrained eye, and fixed in a single move.
- Text on a photo without contrast: a white name on a light shirt becomes unreadable. A dark overlay on the photo, even a light one, fixes it.
- Stretched logos: a crest squashed to fill a box is spotted immediately. Always keep the proportions.
- Text against the edge: a margin of at least 60 pixels on every side is enough to let a visual breathe.
Photos, a subject of their own
A head-on photo, in daylight, against a clear background does more than any filter, and makes cutting out clean. No processing rescues a photo shot into the light in a changing room.
Pick a tool that matches the real constraint
A general-purpose tool offers total freedom and forces you to retype everything. A tool built for sport starts from existing data, with ready-made templates: less freedom, far fewer possible mistakes. One visual a month, the general-purpose tool is fine; ten a weekend, retyping becomes the real cost.
Frequently asked questions
- Does an amateur club need brand guidelines?
- A formal document isn't necessary. Writing down two colours, one typeface and the logo position is enough to get the consistency you're after, and fits on half a page.
- How do you cut out a player photo without Photoshop?
- Most creation tools now include automatic cut-out, Timline included, straight in the browser. The quality of the result depends mostly on the source photo: sharp, head-on, against a clear background.
- How many templates cover a season?
- Five or six: announcement, line-up, result, player portrait, standings, and one free template for one-off posts.
Enter the fixture once, the visuals follow
Announcements, line-ups, results and player focus, generated from your data.