Basic design is a skill that comes in extremely handy even for streamers and webcam broadcasters. Naturally, you may be wondering what design has to do with playing a game or entertaining your audience in one way or another while broadcasting.
Well, you see, while the content of any streaming broadcast is usually the most important, the delivery of that content is almost just as important. You can have the best quality content broadcasting consistently and not have enough people tune in to watch simply because your delivery is off.
Now there are lots of factors that contribute to a great “delivery”, but most of them usually have something to do with design and appearances. That is why design is a skill that will always come in handy for streamers.
Luckily, design for streamers doesn’t necessarily mean complicated web designs and programming languages, but just simple packaging of your content in an attractive exterior.
Learning From Your Mistakes
When it comes to effective designs, knowing what not to do is usually just as important as knowing what to do. In fact many would argue that knowing what not to do when designing is the best way to naturally figure out what to do.
To that end, we have listed below some of the most common mistakes most streamers make in designing their channels and how to avoid them. We have also grouped these mistakes into three broad categories – streaming mistakes, profile design mistakes, and social media mistakes – to make them easier to follow.
Streaming Mistakes
Failure to Customize
The first mistake streamers make when it comes to design, is not designing in the first place. Most streamers fail to customize their streaming experience mainly because they’re either not aware that certain customizations are possible, or they simply can’t be bothered because they feel it is some ridiculously difficult task.
The truth is, customizing your streaming experience for your viewers is both absolutely crucial and quite easy to pull off. Most streaming platforms offer extensive customization options because they know how important it is.
On most streaming sites you can customize everything from your display screen type, color, frames, overlays and so much more. And you should take advantage of this as much as possible.
What’s more, there are numerous sites out there that makes designing and customization easy by providing ready-made elements and templates that can be exported in just one click.
Lack of Consistency
Second design mistake streamers make is failure to cultivate consistency in their designs. Yes, customization is done to make your channel appear unique and attractive, but most importantly, it is done to help you maintain a strong brand that your audience can always easily identify and relate with.
Failure to be consistent with your designs just ends up absolutely defeating the very purpose of designing in the first place. At best you end up being flashy but unable to keep your viewers’ Interests. At worst, they get turned off by the inconsistency and are not even compelled enough to give you an initial trial.
This is why it is always imperative to remember that while customization is important, consistency should always be the ultimate objective.
Compatibility
Lastly, when it comes to streaming design mistakes, our last point is something that should almost go without saying. When choosing the perfect design elements for your streaming screens, make sure they don’t end up interfering with your actual broadcasts.
Sure, customization is important, but ultimately they are meant to act as tools to draw attention to your main broadcast, not take attention away from it by calling too much to themselves.
A good screen design for streamers is one that is beautiful and unique enough to be appealing to visuals and arve out an identity for you, while being subtle enough to never demand attention for itself.
It is a hard line to thread, but is one that you must pay attention to nonetheless.
Profile Mistakes
Balance
Just like with the screens and actual streaming process, streamers are also allowed to customize their profiles for uniqueness and attractiveness. And the first mistake people make in this regard is failure to understand the need for balance between aesthetics and information.
You see, the purpose of a good profile design is not just to appear colorful and exciting, but also to pass across important information to your audience and prospective viewers.
By focusing on one over the other, you’re grossly under utilizing this key feature. Luckily, this isn’t a line that is too difficult to thread.
All you have to do is have it in mind that while creating the most attractive profile designs, you must include compelling information about you, your channel, and what makes it special.
Sections & Compartments
Secondly, while designing your profile graphics, it is usually advisable to group your designs into sections and compartments. Apart from the fact that this looks more elegant and attractive in most cases, leaving enough space between elements, it is also a lot more readable that way.
It is an established fact that humans tend to consume information better when it is divided into simple bits and sections. Information crammed into one long unending block just drives people away, no matter how beautiful the exterior is.
Luckily, in case all of these appear too daunting, don’t forget it is easy to find websites out there with ready-made templates that can be easily exported to your profile.
A platform like Designurbate, for example, has design graphics that are already compartmentalized and divided into sections for easy editing and embedding for use on the adult streaming platform, Chaturbate.
Social Media
Lastly, a popular mistake in streaming profile design is failure to include social elements. Linking to your social media accounts on your streaming platform goes a long way in helping you build a cogent social identity, improving your search engine results, and consolidating your follower security by removing dependency on just one platform.
Building a successful streaming channel on any platform is not an extremely easy task, but we hope that with the design tips above, you’re at least a step closer to achieving your goals.