Stencil
Create beautiful social media graphics on the fly.
Easy-to-use graphic design tool for bloggers, business owners, and social media marketers.
Stencilling produces an image or pattern by applying pigment to a surface under an intermediate object with designed gaps in it which create the pattern or image by only allowing the pigment to reach some parts of the surface. The stencil is both the resulting image or pattern and the intermediate object; the context in which stencil is used makes clear which meaning is intended. In practice, the (object) stencil is usually a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, wood or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material.
The key advantage of a stencil is that it can be reused to repeatedly and rapidly produce the same letters or design. Although aerosol or painting stencils can be made for one-time use, typically they are made with the intention of being reused. To be reusable, they must remain intact after a design is produced and the stencil is removed from the work surface. With some designs, this is done by connecting stencil islands (sections of material that are inside cut-out “holes” in the stencil) to other parts of the stencil with bridges (narrow sections of material that are not cut out).
Stencil technique in visual art is also referred to as pochoir. A related technique (which has found applicability in some surrealist compositions) is aerography, in which spray-painting is done around a three-dimensional object to create a negative of the object instead of a positive of a stencil design. This technique was used in cave paintings dating to 10,000 BC, where human hands were used in painting handprint outlines among paintings of animals and other objects. The artist sprayed pigment around his hand by using a hollow bone, blown by mouth to direct a stream of pigment.
Screen printing also uses a stencil process, as does mimeography. The masters from which mimeographed pages are printed are often called “stencils”. Stencils can be made with one or many colour layers using different techniques, with most stencils designed to be applied as solid colours. During screen printing and mimeography, the images for stenciling are broken down into color layers. Multiple layers of stencils are used on the same surface to produce multi-colored images.
Features
Create visual content faster & easier than you ever imagined.
The only graphic design tool you need to create beautiful images.
Designed for speed
Create images faster & easier than you’ve ever experienced.
Simple to use
Easy to work with and ridiculously simple to use.
Always improving
We’re always making Stencil better & better.
Premium Support
Our goal is to help our customers succeed.
STOCK PHOTOS
Choose from over 5,000,000 stunning royalty-free photos.
Over 5,000,000 incredible public domain stock photos ready to use, at your fingertips.
Super high resolution
Photos are super high resolution and ready to be used for anything you’ve got in mind
Save all your favorites
Keep the photos you love all in one place so you don’t have to look for them again
Royalty Free
Photos can be used for anything, personal or commercial with no attribution required.
Powered by our partners
All photos are provided & checked by the teams at Unsplash, Pixabay & Pexels, safe to use right from Stencil.
INSTANT RESIZING
Perfect sizes for whatever image you’re creating.
Magically change sizes. We won’t get in your way.
140+ Common presets
We’ve done all the homework. Optimal sizes for social posts, ads, blog images and more are preloaded.
Your own custom sizes
Have a specific size in mind? No problem. Create as many custom sizes as you’d like!
LIVE PREVIEWS
Preview & share your images faster than ever before.
Never worry again how your image will look after you’ve shared. Create, preview and share in seconds.
AUTOMATE
Schedule any image you create.
We’re integrated with Buffer so you can plan your posts in advance.
Create images & schedule with Buffer in seconds.
Scheduling images will help you save even more time. If you have a Buffer account, you’re all set to schedule images right from Stencil.
ICONOGRAPHY
3,100,000+ icons to choose from
We’ve partnered with the best icon providers to bring you exclusive access to premium icons from world class designers. They’re all royalty-free & completely safe for personal or commercial use.
