Good afternoon! While at my internship today, I was required to make a banner to use on the team’s website. I’ve made banners a few times, and oddly enough, it took me a while to figure out the best way to make one. Now, everyone is going to have their own personal preference when it comes to making banners, but I’m going to explain I like to make them.

The first thing that you are going to want to do is open Photoshop. Then, select ‘File’ and then ‘New’. Now, it is time to choose the dimensions that you want to use. Typically for banners, I use 700 pixels by 100 pixels. However, depending on what you will use it for, you might need to make some adjustments.

Once you have decided on the dimensions, it’s time to start designing. The banner that I made today was extremely simple. The dimensions that I used were 500 pixels by 100 pixels (this was so it would line up with everything else on the webpage). Now, it’s time to decide what you want the background to be. For this example, I just put a blue rectangle over the background, just in case I wanted to do a gradient effect later one.

After deciding on a background you will use the text tool to make the banner say what you need it to say. I used a free font that I found online called Impact, but use whatever will be best for your needs. Once you have the text done, it is time to format it and make it look a little bit nicer. You can add an arch, or any other text designs that you want by going to the layer section in the bottom right corner. Once there, click on where it says ‘fx’ and decide what you want to do.

If there are any graphics that you would like to use, simply add them once you are finished with the text. For my banner, I used the Tomahawks logo to make it look a little more complete. I duplicated that layer in order to have it go completely along the bottom. Sometimes, when making a banner less is more. Because of this, I just used a white font on mine without any fancy edits.

When you have finally designed your banner the way you like it, it is time to save! I always save my work as a JPEG and then save the Photoshop file as well. That way if I want to go back and change it, I have that option.

Here is my final product for reference!