Designing for a feed, not a page

A social post is seen for about a second, on a phone, between other things, at about the size of a playing card. Everything follows from that.

Design for the thumbnail. Whatever you make will first be seen small. Open your design, shrink it to the size of a postage stamp, and see whether it still communicates. Most posts fail this test and their designers never ran it.

One message per post. Not three offers, a phone number, an address, four product photographs and a logo. The most common fault in local social design is trying to include everything, and the result is that nothing is read.

Large text, few words. If the headline cannot be read on a phone at arm's length, it is not a headline.

High contrast. Text over a photograph needs a darkened overlay behind it, not hope. Light text on a light background is the commonest readability failure.

Leave space. Crowding is the clearest signal of an amateur design, and removing elements improves almost every post.

Know the safe areas. Stories and Reels have interface elements over the top and bottom. Profile grids crop to a square. Design with the crop in mind rather than discovering it after posting.

Design for stopping, not for explaining. The post's job is to make somebody pause. The caption explains.