How to legally create your own header

So you want to try designing your own blog?

Great!

Let’s start with the biggest part of blog design:

The Header.

I’m going to assume you know that a header is just an image you create. You can use all sorts of fun fonts, colors & graphics to give your header a unique and unforgettable look.

Ready to get started?

Today we are going to talk about being legal & fair use images and all of that boring but necessary stuff! Next time I’ll delve into how to create the header without spending money on a graphics program!

First look at your blog:

• do you sell anything?
• Do you have advertisers?
• Google Ads?
• Do you receive free products to review?
• Are there any links that go to another site that makes you money?

If you answered yes to any of those questions than any graphics/photos you are going to use (and in some cases fonts) need to be for commercial use. This makes it more expensive and harder to find the right images but it is far better to be on the up & up legally than do something illegal that could at best get your site taken down and at worst get you in legal hot water. (This article is referring to you making your own header. If you are making one for someone else & charging them-a blog designer-then you have very different/more complicated legalities for graphics & fonts that I won’t get into here)

The largest and most well known site to purchase commercial use graphics is iStockphotos. In most cases you can purchase the smallest size of a graphic because it will still be bigger than your finished header. You need a graphic to always be bigger than you need because if you try to make something larger than it originally is it will lose quality and become fuzzy-not a great look.

If you are looking for something a little cheaper (and can find it) try My Grafico- this site requires you to look at the specific designers TOU (Terms of Use) to comply legally. Some of these (and on other sites) TOU say that you can not (even if you don’t make money off your blog) use it on a web site/blog/online. Please make sure you read them carefully-you may have to credit the author with a link on your blog somewhere or anywhere the graphic is displayed (think business cards also).

The great thing about My Grafico is that if you don’t make money on your blog & the TOU say you can use it online sometimes the graphics are only $5! Sometimes even if you have to purchase the commercial use option it’s still only $15!

Ok so you found a graphic you loved, purchased the right license and are now thinking about fonts.

free fonts (search by title at dafont)

DaFont.com is a great place to start for free fonts. Make sure you check the TOU I could list more and more font websites but really almost all the free fonts I’ve found other places end up there anyway! DaFont is great but you need to make sure that the font files you are downloading are in the public domain or are for commercial use. Some require you to donate to the creator in order to use them in a design. You must purchase/donate for each site you plan to use them on.

There! Now you know how to find the {legal} elements to create your new snazzy header! Go gather the ones you like & come back next time and we’ll put it all together!