To Win Big, Think Small

“Alice in Wonderland-like” syndrome is a disorder of the brain. The symptoms are named after Lewis Carroll’s protagonist Alice, who went down a rabbit hole and found herself shrinking or expanding depending on her circumstances. People who are afflicted by it misperceive the size and distance of objects, seeing them as larger or smaller than their natural state. 

In a white paper, comScore has reported that a staggering 80% of social media viewing is done on mobile devices. How do people choose what to consume? They click on thumbnails that jump out at them. So not only are viewers encountering content at a tiny scale, they are choosing what to click from even tinier thumbnail images.

When designing artwork for social media, for Facebook, for YouTube, you have to zoom way out.  When people view your post, your thumbnail may be as small as 3/4 of an inch wide. If your designs have lots of copy, small font sizes or detailed imagery, people are going to get frustrated and scroll right past them. Opportunity lost.

But when people click your thumbnail, you get traffic. When you get traffic, you win. To win big, you have to start by thinking small.