fix

10 (Mostly Free) Tools for Designing Contest Landing Pages that WOW

This content provides recommendations and resources for enhancing your contests with images, fonts, colors, and design tools.

By Jane Vance ・3 min read
Best Practices

Looking to take your contests to the next level? Then you gotta do more than just add your logo and change the default text. Your contest should reflect your brand. To do this, you’ll need images, fonts and a color scheme that complement your style guidelines.Of course, ShortStack is the perfect platform for building your contest, but what about designing? Well, if your design team doesn’t have time to help you set up your campaign or you *gasp* don’t have a team of designers, I have gathered a short list of tools that will help you get the job done.

Images

Unless you have an in-house photographer who takes pictures of every possible marketing situation, stock images are essential to creating online marketing campaigns. However, just grabbing images from Google Image Search is a big no-no. Instead, our team recommends checking out the following photo libraries.

Pixabay

With millions of free stock images to choose from, Pixabay is our top recommendation for people looking to use images on their campaigns. In fact, we like it so much that we have a built-in Pixabay integration. When you’re in the Image Selector, just click “pixabay” to use it.

iStock

iStock has a wealth of photos, illustrations and videos for customers to use royalty-free. While it’s not free, the price is pretty affordable, even for people who only need images every once in a while.

Shutterstock

Shutterstock’s library is FULL of high-quality images for every marketing need. However, it can be a bit pricy.

Fonts

Unless you have an in-house photographer who takes pictures of every possible marketing situation, stock images are essential to creating online marketing campaigns. However, just grabbing images from Google Image Search is a big no-no. Instead, our team recommends checking out the following photo libraries.

The font you choose can say a lot about your brand. If your style guide calls for a specific font or the websafe fonts ShortStack provides just don’t “speak” to you, then a custom font might be needed. Below are the best places to grab ShortStack-approved fonts.

Adobe Fonts (formerly TypeKit)

If you have access to a paid Adobe account, then Adobe Fonts is great. They have a MASSIVE list of high-quality fonts to choose from -- you’ll feel like a kid in a candy store.

Google Fonts

Unlike Adobe Fonts, Google Fonts is 100% free. Their fonts are easy to implement in your online projects, and their platform makes it easy to see what the fonts actually look like.

Our Tips & Recipes help doc shows you how to add a custom font to your ShortStack campaign.

Colors

Unless you have an in-house photographer who takes pictures of every possible marketing situation, stock images are essential to creating online marketing campaigns. However, just grabbing images from Google Image Search is a big no-no. Instead, our team recommends checking out the following photo libraries.

Sure, you might know which colors complement each other, but creating an entire color scheme for your campaign can be a bit of a challenge. ShortStack does have some built-in themes to choose from, but folks who what to create their own color palette may find the following resources useful.

COLOURlovers

For color palette inspiration, we “love” COLOURlovers! Designers post palettes for people to check out. If you find one you like, the HEX and RGB values are right there.

Adobe Color

A free tool from Adobe, Adobe Color helps you to create color combinations that make your landing pages look polished. You can see the HEX and RGB values for each color in your palette, which makes applying them to your ShortStack Style Panel swatches a breeze.

Design and Editing

Unless you have an in-house photographer who takes pictures of every possible marketing situation, stock images are essential to creating online marketing campaigns. However, just grabbing images from Google Image Search is a big no-no. Instead, our team recommends checking out the following photo libraries.

Some of us (“us” is me) aren’t the best at Photoshop. The following platforms allow design amateurs like me to design graphics that create simple graphics that can be used on landing pages or social media posts.

PicMonkey

PicMonkey specializes in helping marketers create social media images, but their tools can also be used for other design purposes. Their design tools come with a ton of templates, built-in vector graphics, lots of font options and more. While it isn’t free, their pricing is certainly affordable.

Canva

Canva claims they “have a template for absolutely anything,” and it’s true. If you can imagine the project, you can definitely find a template that will help you out. The platform also offers a lot of tools for collaboration, which allows you to work with your team on design projects. They offer both free and paid versions.

Photopea

Have Photoshop skills, but not the budget? Photopea is for you. It’s pretty much a free version of Photoshop that runs in your browser window.

Our Image Size Recommendations guide provides you with a good idea of how to size images for your ShortStack landing pages.

Feeling inspired but want more information on how to best create content for your landing page? Check out our Design Tips page for in-depth information on how to choose a color palette, select a font and use images on your ShortStack campaigns.

About the author

By Jane Vance ・3 min read
Follow

Jane has over a decade of martech experience, with an emphasis in content marketing, UX, and customer success. Her combined skillset and years of hands-on experience make her a valuable player in the industry. In her free time, Jane loves quiet family dinners at home and a good book.


Get marketing tips straight to your inbox

Thank you!
Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
We’ll email you 1-3 times per week—and never share your info.