63: Why Your Content Design Affects Trust (And How to Fix It for Solopreneurs)

Spending forever on Canva just to create a post that gets… crickets? Here's the truth: your design isn't just about looking pretty—it's actually affecting whether people trust you, stop scrolling, and take action. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm breaking down exactly how your colors, fonts, and design choices impact buyer behavior (yes, really). You'll learn how to make your content easier to consume, what the "star of the show" should be in every post, and why clarity beats complexity every single time. If you've been overthinking your visuals or wondering why your content isn't landing the way you want it to, this episode is for you.

*Check out the full show notes for this episode HERE.

Things I cover inside this episode:

• How to identify the "star of the show" in your design—and why your headline should always be leading (not your cute decorative elements)
• The font mistakes that are making your content harder to read (and how to fix them without becoming a designer)
• Why showing your face builds more trust than perfect brand photos—and how to start doing it without waiting for everything to be "ready"
• The real reason color matters (hint: it's not about finding the "perfect" psychology palette)
• How to use Canva's grid view to instantly see if your design is working—before you hit post

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Transcript

Emily Connors 0:00

visuals matter, and when your design helps people understand the message. Quickly, trust it faster and connect with the human being behind it. That's when your content's gonna get a whole lot harder to scroll past and, hi, that's the goal. Hello, welcome back to the TCB Pod. I just wanna start by saying I find it really hard to talk about visuals on my podcast because, hi, they're visual, and this is not, this is talking. but it's one of my favorite topics and something I teach and preach and love and something I find really important when it comes to getting results. so I'm also rotating through my four content pillars each week now on the podcast and in my content on Instagram, and my pillar number three. Is to design, scroll, stopping visuals with ease, and that is the pillar that is up my friends. So today I'm talking about how your colors, fonts, and just overall design choices affect trust with buyer behavior, which I know might sound a little dramatic. You're like, okay, um, like it's a Canva graphic, calm yourself. But I really don't think design is just design. I think people are making snap decisions the second they land on your content. not these huge conscious decisions, but the tiny ones. Does this feel clear? Does this feel easy to read? Does this feel trustworthy? Do I want to keep going or dive further into their content or do I wanna move on? And that's what's happening. Often before they've even read that much or read your headline or read the first line of your captions. So when I say your design affects buyer behavior, I don't mean you need to become like a, a designer, right? I don't mean everything needs to be prettier or more polished. I just mean that your visuals, need to say something. And they're gonna say something whether you want them to or not. They're telling people where to look. They're telling people what matters In this post. They're telling people whether this feels easy to take in or like, your brain has to do too much work to figure this out. And I don't know about you, but if my brain needs to do too much work, I'm out. I'm scrolling. I got other things to do, you know, so. If a design is confusing, people usually don't sit there and analyze, why isn't this working for me? Right? They just keep scrolling and that's the part I want you to understand. So I wanna talk through a few things I see all the time with Instagram content design and what I think these choices are communicating. So the first thing is when you look at your design, ask yourself. What is the star of the show here? And this is something I ask my students to do all the time, like when they submit work to me. So whether it's in the visual edit and I'm looking at their posts, and, you know, working through their templates with them, or whether it's in the coven and we're on a call, right? And somebody wants me to look at a post they think should have done better and why didn't it? I look at it and I ask myself, and I ask them What is the star of the show? Where does your eye go first? And I guess that's actually two of them questions because the star of the show for me is what I'm supposed to notice first. and most of the time, especially if it's educational content, the answer should be the headline. The headline should be the star. Okay? Not your handle name at the bottom. Not some decorative, cute element, not the photo, right? So many people are using photos in the background that completely overtake the headline. I can't even look at the headline. All I see is you, right? Or, or the picture. or not something just cute that you happen to add to your template because. I don't know. So you, you thought that was the right choice? The headline should be the lead. It should be the star of the show. And if your design is pulling my attention away from the headline, I think that's a problem. One of the fastest ways I teach my students to figure that out is to go to the grid view in Canva. So when you're working on a design, there's a little button at the bottom right of your design that says grid view. I think it's four little squares. You click that and it gives you this bird's eye view, this, you know, 500 foot view of. The design, and that's kind of the size that it's gonna be when people are scrolling Instagram. So is your eye going to the star of the show? Is is the star of the show? The headline clear, right? and if your design's pulling my attention away. From the headline, then that's a problem. And I see a lot of carousel covers in, in, in my line of work, and the idea is good. And the, so, you know, the, the topic is super solid, but the design is doing so much that I don't even know where to look first. My eye is being pulled everywhere. Everything is competing, right? There's too many things competing for my attention. That the actual headline, the message, the star of the show, gets buried. And that matters because on Instagram, no one is working that hard to figure out your post. My friend. They're just not, they are scrolling. They're passing it by because it's too much. So if it's not obvious what the post is about, you are losing people. And honestly, I think that affects trust more than people realize. And it affects results and sales more than people realize. And it affects your overall, reach and follower growth. I think it affects everything because clarity feels. Competent when I can land on your account, your content, your feed, and instantly tell what it's about, that feels really good. It feels clean, it feels like you know what you're doing, and it makes me wanna stick around and keep reading. When I land on something and everything is competing, uh, it just feels harder. And when something feels harder than it needs to, I'm very likely moving on. Okay? So that's the first thing. Your design should support the message, not compete with it. The second thing is fonts. Fonts my friend. And I'm sorry, fonts matter so much. They just do. And I know some people wanna treat fonts like. They're only an aesthetic choice, but they affect whether your content feels easy to read or annoying to read, and that changes everything. If your font is too small, too fancy, too close together, whether the letters are too close together or the actual lines are too close together, too scripty, or there's just too much text on the screen, it creates friction and friction's usually enough. To make someone keep scrolling. That's really it. if I have to squint or tilt my phone or focus too hard or decode what your headline even says, dude, like. You've lost me. Okay? And I think this happens'cause a lot of people are trying to fit too much in. So instead of simplifying the message, they just shrink the font and they cram it all in there and they hope for the best, right? But then your content starts to feel, hmm, I don't know, dense and like overwhelming. And the other piece of this is hierarchy, right? When I look at a slide, do I know what to read first? Do I know what matters the most? Is there anything helping my eye move? Through it. Do you bold the important parts? Do you break up sentences if there's a lot of body font, or is it just one big wall of sameness? Same. Same, same. Right? Because when everything looks equal, then nothing stands out. And this is absolutely affecting how people respond to your content, not'cause they're sitting there thinking, wow, the typography choices here are really impacting my trust levels. But because people are always responding to how content feels, does it feel easy, clear, grounded, or is it cluttered? And kind of exhausting and that matters. So I'd rather you ask, is this easy to read than, is this pretty Every time you create a piece of content for Instagram, that's the better question. Is this easy to consume? Is there a clear star of the show? and then the third thing is just showing your face. Because, yeah, you better believe, I absolutely think that affects trust too. And I know some people are still telling themselves, oh, I need to book a brand shoot first. Right? Or I, but I can't afford it. Or I need better photos. Or My photos, you know, my brand photos are too old. or they need to wait until everything looks perfect, right? Until they start putting themselves out in their content. But no. You don't need brand photos to build trust. Trust me on this. In fact, I'd actually argue that that whole like selfie or face to camera reel does way more for trust than polished brand photos right now.'cause it feels current and real and it feels like you and it feels human and it feels imperfect. And that's what's really connecting and working on Instagram right now. So, You know, that doesn't mean that every post has to have your face in it. I'm not saying that, but if your content is all graphics, all templates, all text all the time with no actual human connection point, I do think that's gonna change how the brand feels because part of the trust process is presence and people wanna feel like there's a reason. To be here and there's a person here and there's a real voice and a perspective and not just, you know, graphics floating around on the internet. And I think that sometimes people hide behind design'cause it feels safer than maybe being seen. But safer is not always what is gonna get the best results. Okay. Sometimes the thing your content's missing is not another template, it's literally just more of you. And when it comes to color, I kind of have a different opinion here. Okay. No, there's not one magical color palette that's gonna build trust. I don't think beige automatically elevates your brand or black or white. I don't think bright colors automatically mean, you know, unprofessional. Obviously I have bright colors and I am professional. I think people oversimplify that whole conversation a lot. Um, but I do think color affects the feeling of your content and I think color can either help with clarity or completely really kind of mess with it. So if there's not enough contrast. If text is hard to read, if your colors look nice in theory, you know, in little circles on a page, but they don't actually work inside templates or work on a phone screen, that's gonna be an issue. So for me, color is less about finding the perfect buyer psychology palette, and more about asking, is this helping the content land? Right. Is the vibe I wanna portray and the person I want to attract and how I want to make them feel conveyed through my colors, right? Can people read it? Can they tell what the star of the show is? Does this make the message stronger? Do my colors and my fonts and the design make it stronger or weaker? So that's the better question, really. That's the point of this whole episode. Your design is either helping your message land or it's getting in the way. That's really it. I think a lot of people assume better branding means making everything look more impressive, but most of the time it's really about making things clear. Can I tell what the post is about? Is it easy to read? Do I know where to look first? Um, does it feel like there's an actual person behind this brand? And that's gonna matter a lot more than making the design more complicated, right? So if you've been feeling like your content looks off, it's not getting the response you want. I wouldn't start by asking how to make it prettier. I would start asking what might be making it harder to stop at, harder to read, harder to connect with. does the headline need to be bigger? Are there too many words? Is the font doing too much? Are the colors not really pulling people in? Do you need more breathing room in the design? Um, and all that's really, really fixable. So if you're listening, you're thinking, yeah, like, I know this, but I also know that I absolutely open Canva, overthink every decision, spend 75 hours on a design, change the font 16 times. I've made something for that. And it is inside the content coven. We actually now have a monthly call called Make It With Me, and I'm so excited about it. We've done it once and it was such a hit. It's such a quick win for everyone. So each month I choose two Canva templates. I bring the links I show you exactly how I would approach customizing it, and then we all do it together. And, we talk about everything, headlines, spacing, hierarchy, all of it. And then we co-work for 30 minutes while you make it your own. And then when we're done, you share it. With me, with everyone. If you want feedback, it's a little optional. Show and tell. If you don't wanna share, absolutely you do not have to, but it's meant to help you stop staring at the template and actually make the darn post and you get my feedback on it. So if this episode's making you look at your visuals a little differently, come join us inside the coven. I think you'd really love that call. alright my friend. I hope this gave you a fresh lens for thinking about your content.'cause visuals matter, and when your design helps people understand the message. Quickly, trust it faster and connect with the human being behind it. That's when your content's gonna get a whole lot harder to scroll past and, hi, that's the goal. All right, I will see you on the next episode.