Congrats on the triple triumph, Karen! Especially the bush firefighter. I’m imagining that was an epic journey and achievement to go on.
I’m just starting out with Substack and discovered wordmarks in my settings and had jotted it down to look into later. So thank you for the info - and the encouragement not to overthink them, which old me would definitely have done ;)
Karen ... thanks for the informative info about wordmarks. I had heard complaints about wordmarks being too small but decided to make mine (several different versions) ... and it was indeed smaller than I thought effective. Your instructions were great but there seems to be something in the system that renders them too small. I just went through a bunch of stacks and didn't find one wordmark that I thought enhanced the page. What am I missing? Would love to see one that truly enhances the look of the page.
Hi Joyce, I agree: most Wordmarks don't look great. In addition to the Cafe Anne wordmark I used in my post, have a look at https://thesoiree.substack.com/ - their wordmark is beautiful and effective.
found another great one ... Enchanted in America. Someone is figuring out how to do this. I thought I could let it go, but it has risen it's head again.
Hi Pax, you can’t control how big the design elements look, as it’s dependent on the viewer’s screen size and orientation - it will look completely different on a smartphone compared to a laptop for example. All the code is built in to make adjustments and it’s not something us mere creators can fiddle with.
Thanks, Karen. I don't know if you read Joyce White Vance's Civil Discourse here on Substack, but her heading is what I'm going for..it's not square and just has words..no picture.
I’m not familiar with that publication but if the heading is just plain words it means she doesn’t have a wordmark. I don’t have one either. You can remove your wordmark from publication settings.
Hi Karen, I've been following your writing since I started on Substack in January. I enjoy your posts a lot and find them very helpful. Question about wordmarks: How do people with accessibility issues deal with wordmarks? Is there another way for vision-impaired people to know the name of the stack they are reading? I'm a designer and started a second stack for people who need some tech help when it comes to setting up their stacks and also (and more often) want to personalize their stacks with wordmarks, custom logos, and welcome page art. Accessibility is SO important to keep in mind, and while I very much want to help people create beautiful stacks, I don't want to forget that piece. Hard to find answers on Substack's support site. Thanks for any wisdom you can share.
Hi Nan, I'm not sure exactly how vision impaired people know the names of the publications they are reading, I guess it depends on the tech they are using.
Wordmarks might make no difference at all, if the text reader pulls the information from embedded (invisible) webpage data.
I'm also not sure if Substack wordmarks support alt text. If they do then adding alt-text would be a good idea, as it is for all images. Sorry I couldn't be of more help, glad you're liking my work so far.
I've just started a new substack but my Wordmark keeps appearing very, very small. Any ideas on how to fix this? Unfortunately Substack doesn't offer customer support apparently.
Hi Greg, welcome to Substack. This problem is probably due to you having white space or empty space around your image. Open it in microsoft paint or similar to check. If the design does not go right to the edge of the image file you will need to crop it.
Here's a trick for getting rid of the background of an image you design on Canva, but you'll need a Mac computer (for the Apple word processor, Pages). Just download your design to your desktop, then drop it into a Pages document. Make sure your image is selected then go to "Format" then "Image" in the top right corner. From there you'll see a button that says, "Remove background". You might have to mess around a bit to see how it works, but it's fairly simple. Anyway, that's how I remove image backgrounds for free.
Hello there, I was curious if there is a definitive solution to the small watermark issue. I am new to Substack and having the same exact issue. Not finding it very intuitive in design and was wondering if this is just me or a common issue on this site. Thanks!
Thank you! This is EXACTLY what I was looking for! 🥰
Same
Congrats on the triple triumph, Karen! Especially the bush firefighter. I’m imagining that was an epic journey and achievement to go on.
I’m just starting out with Substack and discovered wordmarks in my settings and had jotted it down to look into later. So thank you for the info - and the encouragement not to overthink them, which old me would definitely have done ;)
Thanks for this, your posts are always informative and helpful. Not sure if a word mark would help my Substack or not.
Thanks for writing this! It was exactly what I was looking for 😊
Karen ... thanks for the informative info about wordmarks. I had heard complaints about wordmarks being too small but decided to make mine (several different versions) ... and it was indeed smaller than I thought effective. Your instructions were great but there seems to be something in the system that renders them too small. I just went through a bunch of stacks and didn't find one wordmark that I thought enhanced the page. What am I missing? Would love to see one that truly enhances the look of the page.
Hi Joyce, I agree: most Wordmarks don't look great. In addition to the Cafe Anne wordmark I used in my post, have a look at https://thesoiree.substack.com/ - their wordmark is beautiful and effective.
You're right. That one works well. Thanks for sharing. Gives me an idea for trying one more time. ;-)
found another great one ... Enchanted in America. Someone is figuring out how to do this. I thought I could let it go, but it has risen it's head again.
I just want my Substack's heading or whatever it's called not to be so huge when I share a post! Any help?
Hi Pax, you can’t control how big the design elements look, as it’s dependent on the viewer’s screen size and orientation - it will look completely different on a smartphone compared to a laptop for example. All the code is built in to make adjustments and it’s not something us mere creators can fiddle with.
Thanks, Karen. I don't know if you read Joyce White Vance's Civil Discourse here on Substack, but her heading is what I'm going for..it's not square and just has words..no picture.
I’m not familiar with that publication but if the heading is just plain words it means she doesn’t have a wordmark. I don’t have one either. You can remove your wordmark from publication settings.
I'm confused. Wordmark vs. watermark. Did you explain what a watermark is and I just didn't follow?
Hi Carolynn, it's just WordMark, there is no Substack watermark.... I think autocorrect is switching people's comments to watermark instead.
Thank you!
thank you for sharing this!
Hi! I for some reason can no longer find the word mark option in SS. Any idea where it is located now?
Yep it's in the Branding part of the publication settings (look for 'Publication wordmark'). Thanks for the heads up, I will update the post.
This was so helpful. Learning all the different types of logos and their uses is daunting as hell in these early stages.
Hi Karen, I've been following your writing since I started on Substack in January. I enjoy your posts a lot and find them very helpful. Question about wordmarks: How do people with accessibility issues deal with wordmarks? Is there another way for vision-impaired people to know the name of the stack they are reading? I'm a designer and started a second stack for people who need some tech help when it comes to setting up their stacks and also (and more often) want to personalize their stacks with wordmarks, custom logos, and welcome page art. Accessibility is SO important to keep in mind, and while I very much want to help people create beautiful stacks, I don't want to forget that piece. Hard to find answers on Substack's support site. Thanks for any wisdom you can share.
Hi Nan, I'm not sure exactly how vision impaired people know the names of the publications they are reading, I guess it depends on the tech they are using.
Wordmarks might make no difference at all, if the text reader pulls the information from embedded (invisible) webpage data.
I'm also not sure if Substack wordmarks support alt text. If they do then adding alt-text would be a good idea, as it is for all images. Sorry I couldn't be of more help, glad you're liking my work so far.
Thanks, Karen. I have to dig a little deeper on this one. Accessibility is so important. I’ll happily share if I learn more. Have a great day!
I've just started a new substack but my Wordmark keeps appearing very, very small. Any ideas on how to fix this? Unfortunately Substack doesn't offer customer support apparently.
Hi Greg, welcome to Substack. This problem is probably due to you having white space or empty space around your image. Open it in microsoft paint or similar to check. If the design does not go right to the edge of the image file you will need to crop it.
Here's a trick for getting rid of the background of an image you design on Canva, but you'll need a Mac computer (for the Apple word processor, Pages). Just download your design to your desktop, then drop it into a Pages document. Make sure your image is selected then go to "Format" then "Image" in the top right corner. From there you'll see a button that says, "Remove background". You might have to mess around a bit to see how it works, but it's fairly simple. Anyway, that's how I remove image backgrounds for free.
Thanks for the explanation about how to get a good watermark uploads, but what is their actual purpose?
Thanks for this info, Karen. Really helpful!
I saw this option in the setup and wasn’t even sure how to research it, but you answered every question I had. :)
Hello there, I was curious if there is a definitive solution to the small watermark issue. I am new to Substack and having the same exact issue. Not finding it very intuitive in design and was wondering if this is just me or a common issue on this site. Thanks!