Studies continue to show that humans can better absorb information visually over just text; an important fact to consider the next time you create your next piece of content be it a Presentation, Infographic or rich graphics.

In order to create a well balanced design, you want to achieve a good relationship between text and images to support it. In this article, we're going to give you 4 easy to follow tips that will help you to more easily combine text and images.

Transparent shapes

It happens fairly often. You spend time searching through hundreds of images and you come across a beautiful background you want to use for your graphic, but there is a problem: The colors are too strong, compromising your text's readability.

Rather than ditching your background for another, there is a fairly easy solution. Add simple shapes with a slight transparency behind your text.

This not only resolved the problem, but it also adds an elegant and focal point to your design. Take a look at the example below where in this case, even though the selected background was dark, the text stands out because of the red circle shape, which has a 70% transparency applied to it.

By the way you can add transparency with ease to any shape or element within Visme.

Mix and Match

Finding several fonts and shapes is not difficult. You'll find more than enough options when working with Visme. But the more challenging part is to match them properly.

There's a simple solution to overcome this: try to use rounded shapes with rounded fonts and sharp shapes with sharp fonts. For the example below, we used a triangle, obviously with sharp corners, and we matched it with a sharp font in upper case to create a balance in our design.

Align Text and Backgrounds

When we refer to shapes, we are not just speaking about geometric figures. The shapes included in your background are also an important part of your design and can serve as a focal point to support your messaging.

A great method to integrate this in to our design is to align our text with them. In this case, our background included a coffee cup with a cute heart in the middle of it aligned to the right part of our canvas.

By adding a relevant quote to the left we were able to make both elements complement each other. Doesn't the background's icon and message flow nicely together?

Clean & Clear Backgrounds

Sometimes, you want your background to not overpower your message and simply serve as a "background" to fill your canvas area.

In such cases resort to somewhat abstract or simple backgrounds. There they are subtle and have a simple tone to them.

You can accomplish this by using a clear background and a strong font color with enough contrast to stand over it.

What we did here was to select a very clear background (cloudy sky) and add a strong font with a dark purple. We managed to keep the design readable while making sure the background is not overpowering the message.

What do you think? Do you have any other tips on combining text and shapes? We'll love to hear them out and share with Visme users.