Create a Visual Style for Your Substack Posts

A practical guide to signatures, section labels, dividers, and animated subscribe buttons

Hey, fellow Stackers 👋

Have you ever thought about adding distinctive visual elements to your Substack posts?

In this article, I’ll share four types of image-based visual elements: personal signatures for building recognition, section labels for organizing your posts, personalized dividers for creating atmosphere, and animated subscribe buttons to gently guide readers toward subscribing. I’ll also show you how to save these elements as templates so you can reuse them in future posts.

Let’s take a look :)

Personal Signatures and Section Labels

Before we start, let’s look at a few examples 😊

Personal signatures:

Section labels:

How to Make Them

Next, I’ll show you how to make them. Canva requires a paid plan to export images with transparent backgrounds, so I’ll use Figma for this demonstration.

1. Open Figma. Click Drafts on the left, then click Design in the upper-right corner to create a new project.

   

2. Select Frame from the bottom toolbar, then click the gray area in the middle of the page to create a frame. Adjust the frame to 2,000 pixels wide and 400 pixels high.

   

3. Select Text from the bottom toolbar. Click inside Frame 1 to create a text box, then enter your pen name or section title. Double-click the text box to select all of the text; the text must be selected before you can change its style. In the right-hand toolbar, choose your preferred font, size, and color. Here, I’m using the Caveat font at 200 pt in black.

   

4. Click the gray area to deselect the text, then click and drag the text box into position. If you’re making a signature, you can place it on the left side of the frame. If you’re making a section label, you can center it.

5. To export the image, click File in the left-hand toolbar and select Frame 1. In the right-hand toolbar, set the frame’s opacity to 0 under Fill. Then set the export size to 512h and choose PNG as the format. If you’d like to preview the result, click Preview before exporting. Otherwise, you can export the image directly. You now have a text image with a transparent background.

   

Handwritten Signatures

If you want to use a handwritten font, write the text on a piece of paper and take a photo. Then use a background-removal tool such as Background Remover to remove the background. Click the small arrow next to the third icon from the left in Figma’s bottom toolbar, select Image, and import the processed image.

The imported image may not be positioned correctly. You can adjust it by rotating and scaling it. Finally, set the frame’s opacity to 0 and export the image to create your handwritten signature.

Dividers

A divider creates a brief pause in an article and signals that the topic or mood is about to shift. Ordinary dividers mainly help separate sections, while personalized dividers can also add atmosphere and make your visual style more recognizable.

I used ChatGPT Image 2.5 to create these dividers. Since the model currently supports a maximum aspect ratio of 3:1, I wrote a prompt that lets me generate the image at 3:1 and crop it to 6:1 afterward.

Generate a divider image with [the effect you want].

First, generate an image with a 3:1 aspect ratio. Keep the main subject concentrated in the middle of the image, leave some empty space above and below, and use a transparent background.

After generating the image, crop it to a 6:1 aspect ratio. Do not stretch the subject; only crop the extra empty space above and below it.

Here are several dividers in different styles. Some of them still need refinement to better match our publication’s visual style:

Next, let’s look at animated subscribe buttons.

Animated Subscribe Buttons

An animated subscribe button can make your subscription link stand out and catch readers’ attention.

Substack supports GIFs and lets you add hyperlinks to images. By combining these two features, you can create an animated subscribe button.

Animated subscribe button GIF used below.

First, you need to find your subscription link. Click Here to visit your publication homepage, copy the URL inside the green box, and add /subscribe to the end. That’s your publication’s subscription link.

For example, mine is https://thestacker.substack.com/subscribe.

Insert the image into the post editor. Select it, click the link button at the top, enter your subscription link, and click Link. Your animated subscribe button is now ready.

Here’s my clickable subscribe button:

One thing to keep in mind: if you later change your publication’s subdomain, you’ll need to update the subscription link. Otherwise, the button may stop working.

Saving These Elements as Templates

Substack’s template feature lets you save these visual elements for easy reuse.

In the post editor, click Templates, then select + New template.

Name the template and add the corresponding image assets. For personal signatures and section labels, consider adding alt text to improve accessibility and support SEO. For animated buttons, remember to add the corresponding link as well.

Once you save it, the template is ready to use.

Thanks for reading. If you have any questions while creating these elements, feel free to reach out.

I’d also love to see what you create, share your finished designs with me. I’m sure they’ll be fun to see.

Have a wonderful weekend :)