Starting from templates: good screens without a designer

Pick a template that's close to what you need, swap in your own words and photos, set your fonts and colours, then save the finished screen as your own template so the next one starts from there. That gets most venues tidy, consistent screens without paying a designer. A designer earns their fee on the parts a template can't give you, like a proper logo file and a settled set of brand colours.

What a template is in Casty

A template is a layout design you start from. Casty has a template library to begin with, and any layout you've finished can be saved as a template of your own. When you use one, the new layout is a copy, so you can change it as much as you like and the template stays exactly as it was.

You'll find them in the layout editor. Click Search for Layout Templates, the last icon in the toolbox, and narrow the list by name, folder or orientation. Drag a template onto the canvas and it replaces whatever's already on the layout, so start with a fresh one. The help page on starting from a template has the steps with screenshots.

Pick by job and shape first

Choose a template for what the screen does and the shape it is, and worry about colour later. A portrait screen by the door needs a portrait template, and a menu needs a design built for a list of items with prices. Fonts and colours are quick to change. Rearranging every box to turn a wide poster into a tall menu is slow, and by the time you've done it you might as well have started from blank.

Look for space as well. A template with plenty of room around the text will take your words much better than one already crammed to the edges, because your words won't be the same length as the placeholder ones.

Make it look like your place

Your logo is the first thing to sort. A PNG with a transparent background sits cleanly on any colour, while a JPG of the logo comes with a white box round it that looks fine on white and odd on everything else. If all you've got is a blurry logo lifted from an old menu, that's a job for a designer.

Colours next. Most brands have one or two main colours and a neutral. Use your main colour for panels and headings, and keep the text in strong contrast with whatever is behind it. If you've never written your colours down, take them from the sign over the door or the menus you already print.

Casty lets you upload your own fonts, so your brand font can go on screen. Use it for headings if it's readable at a distance, with a plain font for prices and times.

Then photos, which make more difference than anything else. Real pictures of your own food, your bar and your team look better than any stock image, and a modern phone takes perfectly good ones. Shoot in daylight near a window, clear the clutter out of the background and take far more than you need. To swap a picture in a layout, click it on the canvas, open Library image search and drag your photo onto the Replace Image box in the properties panel.

Keep the words short

Templates come with placeholder text, and it's tempting to fill the same space with the same number of words. Don't. A screen gets a glance, so say less and make it bigger. Writing words for screens has before and after examples.

Save your own templates

Once a screen looks right, save it as a template. In the editor, open Options, choose Save Template, give it a name and tick Include Widgets? so it keeps your text, pictures and widgets. Next time it's there in the template search.

Most venues get on best with a handful of their own templates, such as a menu and an offer poster, each made in the right shape for the screens they have. In the Casty demo, Harbour Cafe saves its Saturday brunch screen as a template, then makes a Sunday brunch screen from it by changing the heading and swapping the photo. Once the template exists, a new screen like that takes a few minutes.

Your own templates are also how you keep things consistent when several people make screens. Staff start from yours, so the logo sits in the same place and the fonts match, even on their first go. If you run more than one venue, keeping your brand consistent across sites takes this further.

Changing a template later

To change a template, go to Design, Templates, open its menu and choose Alter Template. Templates are published like layouts, so check it out, make your changes and publish it again. Layouts you've already made from it are copies and won't change. If you want a new look everywhere, update the template first, then rebuild your main layouts from it.

When a designer is worth paying for

Templates get you a long way. A designer is worth it if you don't have a usable logo file, or if your menus and signs use a jumble of colours and fonts that needs sorting into one look. They're also worth it for a one-off piece that has to stand out, like the window screen for an opening. A sensible split is to have a designer make one or two master layouts and a small brand kit (logo files, colours, fonts), then do the everyday screens yourself from those.

Already got finished artwork from a designer or another app? You don't have to rebuild it. Upload it as an image or video at the screen's size and schedule it as it is. Image and video sizes for HD and 4K screens has the sizes to ask for.