A detailed walk through on how to design your Solsea marketing images with free templates!
I recently made my first NFT collection on Solsea called Monofroogs, but quickly realised there were limited resources on how to design marketing images for the NFT collection, and also limited templates.
So I created some to help make this process just a little bit easier in the future.
In this post, we’ll go through:
Feeling ready to design already? Here’s the Figma template to speed up the process!
On Solsea, a collection should have:
Let’s break down the best layout and design for each image.
A collection header should act like a blurb or a 3-second intro to your collection. Its aim is to showcase your group and what people expect to find when they click on it.
A collection header image should:
A collection should not have:
Some layouts for your header might look like this:
The top row focuses more on negative space and showing off your amazing NFTs. (Don’t forget to be creative with the background colours & designs).
The second row is more about showing off the variety of your collection; if you have 100s of NFTs that are not overly detailed, this is a terrific way to show a glimpse of your collection.
Notice all the designs leave room for your collection icon, which will sit in the lower middle of the header.
Your collection icon is going to be seen and used EVERYWHERE! Maybe it will also be your display picture on platforms like Discord and Twitter. You want to make sure it’s eye-catching and clearly shows a single NFT or element of your NFTs.
My icon for Monofroogs actually sucks, in my opinion. It doesn’t clearly show my NFT, and it takes up way too much of the frame, taking away from the outline of the froog!
My best tip for designing an icon is to design it while it’s a circle, and not a square. It will save you from going back and forth.
Bonus tip: make it more iconic by using a contrasting background, usually solid colour or gradient, to make your image pop!
Better versions of the Monofroogs collection icon would have the following characteristics:
I know you will be fine with the icon if you leave a little space between your image and the edge. So let’s move on to vertical banners!
A vertical banner is usually displayed in line with many other collection banners. It will not have the name of your collection under it.
Because of this, your design for a vertical banner will be a little different than the last two we talked about.
If your NFT doesn’t have a background, it could also be worth adding a background to help your NFT stand out or compliment it.
In the image below, ‘BOTS LIFE’ has an outstanding banner, in my opinion.
Some sample layouts for the vertical banner might look like this:
The first two layouts focus on the NFT and would be a fantastic layout for detailed NFTs. You can see the examples screenshotted from Solsea above using these templates.
The third template would be perfect for landscape NFTs or NFTs with scenes behind them.
The last one is amazing for simpler NFT designs (like Monofroogs) and allows you to showcase the variety of your collection.
The last asset you need to design is a horizontal banner. This will have a lot of the same elements like the vertical banner.
A horizontal banner should be:
I have created 6 templates I would use for a horizontal banner below and explained what cases I would use them:
The first column is perfect for detailed NFTs or NFTs collection with a clever collection name.
The last column is perfect for simple NFT designs (like Monofroogs). It would also work if you just showed off the elements of more complex designs, e.g. eyes, sunglasses, hair etc.
The last template is probably best for a collection with a cheeky name or where text/font plays a crucial role in your collection. I love this design because the text and NFTs work together to create a harmonious design!
These are just a couple of my opinions so take them with a grain of salt. Rules are meant to be broken in the art world, so be creative and experiment!
Tweet me all your fabulous designs @nivaaz_nft, or ask me some questions!
Find all the templates and layouts in the Figma community here.
Support out Monofroogs below