The animated square post, the story from Magic resize, and the carousel. One title field across all of them.
SOCIAL
MEDIA!
One class, ten sizes, five networks and a reel. Make the post once, resize it, change the words in one place, and export everything before the kiln cools down.
The animated event post template in Design, opened at its square size, for an Intro to wheel pottery class. With the post selected, ⋯ › Magic resize… makes a copy at Instagram story size beside it. The square's title is selected; in the Design panel its brand field, title, is changed to Glaze your own mug and Enter is pressed: the title changes in the square and in the story at once.
POST!
THE BRIEF
Twelve wheels, one Saturday, zero followers yet
Our example studio is Hollis Makers, the pottery workshop in the Event post (animated) template: twelve wheels on Hollis Street and a Saturday class called Intro to wheel pottery. Clay, glazing and firing included. Twelve seats. Somebody has to fill them, and that somebody is the person who also teaches the class, sweeps the floor and answers the email.
Here is the honest list of what “post it on social” means in practice: a square post and a story for Instagram, a portrait carousel, a cover for the reel, a thumbnail for the time-lapse on YouTube, a pin, and banners for the three profiles nobody has updated since the studio opened. Each network wants its own size. Each one gets a slightly different headline because you changed your mind on Wednesday. This page is the version where that is one file and one afternoon.
101
still social templates
7
animated social posts, plus reels
1
title field, every size reads it
0
posts PopCraft publishes for you
THE SIZE SHEET
Everything the class needed, to scale
Every rectangle below is drawn at the same scale, so you can see why one design never fits them all. A YouTube banner is sixteen Facebook covers. A LinkedIn banner is a letterbox. Under each, the template or tool it came from.
1080×1080
Event post (animated)
1080×1350
Carousel to video
1080×1920
Magic resize
1080×1920
Reel / TikTok cover
1280×720
YouTube thumbnail
1000×1500
Pinterest pin
820×312
Profile banner
1500×500
Profile banner
1584×396
Profile banner
2560×1440
YouTube channel banner
STEP 1
One post, then Magic resize
Start with the square: open Event post (animated) and it is already Hollis Makers, with the date badge, the When / Where / Seats rows and a booking button. Now select the post and choose ⋯ › Magic resize…. Pick Instagram story / reel and click Create copy: a second frame at 1080×1920 lands beside the first.
Then the trick. The title is a brand field. Select it, type Glaze your own mug in the Design panel, press Enter, and both sizes change at once. Change your mind on Wednesday? Do it again. One field, every copy.
The animated event post template in Design, opened at its square size, for an Intro to wheel pottery class. With the post selected, ⋯ › Magic resize… makes a copy at Instagram story size beside it. The square's title is selected; in the Design panel its brand field, title, is changed to Glaze your own mug and Enter is pressed: the title changes in the square and in the story at once.
STEP 2
Put the studio’s brand on it
The templates arrive in their own colours. ⋯ › Brand kit… holds yours: five colours, a heading and body font, the studio's name, tagline and website. Apply to document and the whole file wears it. In the clip, the Café & bakery example kit stands in for Hollis Makers on the Facebook cover: brown, gold, Fraunces, and a tagline about slow bread that we would definitely change.
Make the kit once and every template you open afterwards is a click from on-brand: the X header, the LinkedIn banner, the YouTube channel art. The teams page shows one kit across a whole client.
The profile banner template: one lockup at Facebook, X and LinkedIn banner sizes. From ⋯, Brand kit… opens and the Café & bakery example kit is applied: all three banners take its colours, fonts and name at once.
STEP 3
A carousel that is also a reel
Carousels get saved; reels get seen. Why choose? Carousel to video is six 4:5 cards that post as a swipe carousel and also play, card after card with swipe-style pushes, as one eleven-second video. The sample is five ways to cut a winter energy bill. Ours became five things you will learn in your first class.
Export the cards as PNGs for the carousel and the whole thing as an MP4 for the reel. The plain Carousel template, a cover and four numbered slides, is there for when you only need the swipe.
The Carousel to video template in Animate: six 4:5 carousel cards about cutting a winter energy bill. Space plays it: each card animates in turn and swipe-style pushes carry one card into the next.
STEP 4
Covers, thumbnails and the pin
The small rectangles do the most work. The Reel / TikTok cover keeps its hook clear of the app's buttons. The YouTube thumbnail is three elements and type big enough to read at 200 pixels wide, which is how most people will see it. The YouTube channel banner lays the name out inside the middle safe area, the bit that survives being cropped on a phone, a laptop and a TV. The Pinterest pin is a colour block over a title that still reads in a crowded grid.
Need a photo of a lopsided first mug? Drop in your own, search the stock photos, or, signed in, generate one. The AI generation page has how.
The launch post template in Design. ⋯ › Brand kit… and the Software product example is added; Apply to document recolours the post in that brand and sets its fonts.
A launch post with its frame selected. Its fill opens; Image, then Photos searches “cake”, and a photo picked from the results becomes the frame’s image fill.
A launch post with its frame selected. At the bottom of the Design panel, Add export adds an export setting; its scale is set to 2x, with PNG as the format, and Export Page 1 writes the file.
STEP 5
Make it move, without a motion degree
Stills are fine. Movement stops thumbs. The seven animated posts (announcement, event, podcast, quote, sale, stat and testimonial) already move, in square, 4:5 and 9:16 cuts, so changing the words keeps the motion. Want your own? In Animate, put a preset on a layer, a stagger on a row, and press Space. The motion studio page has the whole toolkit, and the GIF cards are there when a loop should go in a DM.
The Kinetic headline template in Animate, zoomed on its frame. Space plays it: the headline’s words punch in one after another and the highlight pill slides under the key word, all from ordinary keys and curves on the timeline below.
A tips post in Animate. With the first tip row selected, the other rows are added with Shift-click. From + in the timeline, Rise is applied to all of them; the Stagger field sets how much later each row starts. Space plays the rows rising one after another.
STEP 6
Export, then post like a human
Stills export as PNG or JPG, at 2× when a network likes them crisp. Motion exports from the transport bar as MP4 for reels and stories, WebM for the web, or a GIF. Then you post them yourself: from your phone, from the network's site, or from the scheduler you already pay for. PopCraft is the studio, not the megaphone.
A logo reveal in Animate. The download button in the transport bar opens Export animation. MP4 shows frame rate, range, resolution and quality with a summary of the size; GIF switches to palette, dither and loop settings; Lottie lists what the file can carry. The frame rate is set to 120 fps for MP4.
On Home, New then File opens the new file gallery. Social is picked in the rail, the Announcement template is chosen with Use Announcement, and it opens in the editor. The headline is double-clicked, selected with Command-A and retyped as Doors open Friday.
WHAT SHIPPED
Hollis Makers, everywhere
REELS & TIKTOK
SCROLL!The carousel as an MP4, with a reel cover whose hook stays clear of the buttons.
YOUTUBE
SUBSCRIBE!A thumbnail readable at 200 px and a channel banner laid out inside the safe area.
A 1000×1500 pin, because somebody always searches “beginner pottery class”.
PROFILES
FRESH!Facebook, X and LinkedIn banners, finally in the same brand as everything else.
SEATS
SOLD OUT!Twelve of them. Okay, that part is fiction. The rest is in the templates today.
WHAT YOU SKIP
The social toolbox, before and after
| THE USUAL WAY | IN POPCRAFT |
|---|---|
| Rebuilding each post at each network’s size | Magic resize makes the copy beside the original |
| Fixing a typo in eleven files | A brand field: change it once, every copy reads it |
| A separate video app for reels | Animate, presets and MP4 export in the same file |
| A carousel and a reel made twice | Carousel to video: one set of cards, both outputs |
| Guessing the safe area of a banner | Templates laid out inside it |
FROM ZERO
A week of posts in six moves
- 1
Start from a post
New file › Social. 101 still templates and the animated posts, each at the size its network wants. - 2
Put your brand on it
⋯ › Brand kit…, Apply to document: colours, fonts and your name in one click. - 3
Fill in the blanks
Select a headline. Its brand field is in the Design panel. Type once. - 4
Resize it
⋯ › Magic resize… makes a copy at another network’s size, beside the first. - 5
Make it move
Open Animate, or start from an animated post: presets, staggers, a loop. - 6
Export and post
PNG for stills, MP4 or GIF for motion. Then post it from your phone like always.
BEING HONEST
We make the posts. You press Share.
PopCraft does not connect to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or LinkedIn, schedule posts or read your analytics. Magic resize is a head start, not a redesign: a square in a tall frame needs a nudge. And a template with several sizes opens at one; add the rest with Magic resize. The frames and pages docs list every social size.
ASKED & ANSWERED
Questions, answered
Does PopCraft post to Instagram, TikTok or LinkedIn for me?
No. PopCraft makes the posts and exports them as PNG, JPG, MP4, WebM or GIF. You post them with the networks’ own apps, or with whatever scheduler you already use.
What does Magic resize actually do?
It makes a copy of the selected frame at another preset or custom size, beside the original. Layers with constraints and auto layout reflow; everything else scales to fit and centres, and backgrounds stretch. It is a fast start on the new size, and usually worth a nudge afterwards.
If I change the headline, do all the sizes change?
When the words are a brand field, yes. Templates keep their headlines in fields like {{brand.title}}; edit the field in the Design panel and every text that reads it, in every copy in the file, follows. Typing straight into one text on the canvas changes only that one.
The templates come in several sizes. Do I get all of them?
A template with several sizes opens at one of them. To get another, use Magic resize in the same file, or open the template again at the other size.
Can I make carousels?
Yes. The Carousel template is a cover and four numbered slides at post size, and Carousel to video is six 4:5 cards that also play as one video, so the same work is a swipe post and a reel.
Do I need to know animation?
No. The animated posts already move; change the words and they still do. When you want your own, presets and staggers do the keyframes for you.
THE MANUAL, FOR THE DETAILS
POST! YOUR TURN.
One post, resized for every network, still or moving. Free to start, in your browser or on your Mac.