This Is How to Use the Placeit Avatar Maker

If you need an avatar, you can make a Placeit Avatar quickly and easily. Avatars are used by gamers to portray their personas. People use avatars on social networking sites to identify who they are without using actual photos of themselves. Businesses use avatars to give customers a graphic image of their product or service.

Placeit has a library of avatar templates that you can use as they are, make a few minor changes, or modify the templates extensively to make them uniquely yours. Pick your avatar template, make as many changes as you want until you are completely satisfied with the look. Whatever your purpose, Placeit can give you the look you want.

How to Use the Placeit Avatar Maker

Placeit has made creating your avatar an easy task. They have done most of the work for you but have also given you a variety of options to make the avatar just what you want. You will need to create an account at Placeit.net.

You can start with a free account, but at some point, you will need to purchase the avatar you create or subscribe to Placeit for an unlimited supply of avatars and more.

Pro Tip: Placeit also offers an additional 15% off any plan with this coupon.

Placeit has made their landing page easy to use, so you do not have to worry about figuring out a complicated user interface. However, it is still helpful to follow a guide since the avatar maker is not directly on the home screen.

When you log in to placeit.net, Placeit gives you five main dropdown options. None of these options take you directly to the avatar creator. You will need to move your cursor over “logos” and select “avatars.”

  • Create an account at Placeit.net
  • Find and select “logos”
  • Choose “avatars”

Begin Customizing Your Avatar

At the “Customize Your Own Avatar” page, type in your avatar name. This avatar name can be your name or a different name. You can change it later if you want to. You will not have to start over to change your name.

One of Placeit’s strengths is the ability to make almost any change to any component on the avatar. Placeit uses the term “industry” to identify the business type the logo will be used for.

When you select “avatar” from the long list of types of logos available on Placeit, the industry avatars will be preselected for you. Type in whatever you want your player name to be, and Placeit will populate your name into every avatar template. This makes it easier for you so that you do not have to retype the player name each time.

Pick your Avatar Template

You have 150+ Avatar templates available to you on Placeit. If that is not enough to choose from, you have a lot more options. For instance, if you want an avatar that is more gaming-oriented, try going to the “gaming” dropdown at the top of the page and select “logos.” This will give you an unbelievable 4,000+ templates to choose from.

With over 4,000 templates, there is surely something for you. Many of these are logos more suitable for business branding. They work better for a company brochure than for an avatar. But some of them would work just fine for an avatar. They even have choices for your pets!

Some careers with Placeit avatar templates include:

  • Doctor
  • Baker
  • Contractor
  • Mechanic

Do not worry about the wording on the template or the colors on the image. That can all be changed. What you are looking for at this point is the image. When you find the image that you like, you can modify it to make it really you.

A template is just a jumping-off point, so you will be able to change all kinds of things about the avatar to make them suit your specific needs for your personal avatar or your brand’s avatar.

What If You Do Not See an Avatar Template for You?

What happens if, out of the thousands of choices, you still cannot find the avatar that is the true you? That is okay with Placeit. You can ask for more, and you shall receive. When you click the “request” button that is found at the bottom of every page of logos, you will find a current list of requests for either content or features.

If your idea of a new avatar is not already listed, you can submit your own request to Placeit! This is great for people who may work in niche fields. With so many people able to submit requests for their careers to be featured as Placeit avatar templates, the already astounding number of choices is sure to grow even more inclusive.

Basics for Modifying the Avatar

The templates are similar in structure, but there is no such thing as a standard, run-of-the-mill template. Various templates have different components, but they can all be modified in a similar way.

When you pick your template, Placeit takes you to the work page. There will be three columns no matter which template you choose.

Center Column

The avatar itself will be in the center of the page. Placeit calls this the “logo.”

  • Static avatars
  • Movable avatars

On some templates, the avatar is static. You cannot highlight anything on the avatar, and you can only use the options in the work areas in the other columns to modify the text or the avatar itself.

On other templates, you can move your cursor over the avatar to see the various components that make up the entire image. Click on a component to see if you can move, rotate, or resize it.

Left Column

The left and right columns of the work page are your work areas. They contain the information that modifies the components of your avatar. The left column contains the text of your avatar and perhaps an additional component or two, depending on how many text boxes there are in your avatar.

Right Column

The right column contains the non-text components. Some templates have so many options, they fill more than the screen, so you have to check below the screen. Others have no options for specific components, so the right column will be empty.

Each component of the avatar will have a separate section in the right or left column of the work area. These components are the keys to making your avatar just what you want.

Some templates have a reset button at the top right of the template screen. Click reset if you want or need to delete all of your changes and go back to the original template.

If you are interrupted while working on your avatar, you can save it as a favorite or as a draft (in the upper right-hand corner of the page) and come back to it as often as you want.

Modify the Text in Your Avatar Template

Almost every template has text. While the text is the easiest part of the template to modify, it also has the greatest variety of options. The text is always the first component in Placeit’s workspace columns. The content of the text boxes will always be at the top of the left side of the page.

  • Play around with the text.
  • It is easy to change.
  • It can be changed even after you are done with the rest of your editing.

Each line of text is usually separate from the rest of the text, so you can change each line independently. On some templates, you can click the text in the template in the center column to highlight the text boxes. This will show you whether the lines of text are in one or more text boxes.

  • You cannot have two different text fonts or colors in one box
  • All the text in a single text box has to be the same
  • Text lines are short, usually with a limit of 20 characters
  • Dramatic, eye-catching text is what you want
  • Your name should be just one or two words
  • Description text should be two or perhaps three words
  • In those templates that are static, you can still see whether the text boxes are independent
  • In the work area in the left column, each text box will be a separate work area component

You can add and delete text boxes on many of the templates. Placeit also allows you to temporarily remove a text box without actually deleting it. This is helpful for seeing what your avatar would look like without a particular text box or two. Click the eye icon in the workspace. Click the eye again, and the text is back in place.

Choosing Fonts and Colors When Modifying Text

You can pick your font if Placeit’s choice is not quite right for you. There are hundreds to choose from. The experts tell us that there should be no more than two or possibly three font styles in a logo of any kind. An avatar has so little text that you should stick with just one or possibly two fonts.

But, hey, it’s your avatar! While using only one or two fonts is the best way to keep your text boxes looking neat and tidy, you are in control of your own avatar. Use as many as you are comfortable with.

You can pick more than just your font; you can also choose your font’s color. There are about 180 to choose from. This is sounding similar: hundreds to choose from, thousands to choose from. But Placeit gives you so many options that you can take a standard template and make it completely your own.

Modify your Face

Most of the avatar templates have faces. There are so many templates that it is impossible to explain all the options in one article. You can peruse those on the Placeit website. But there are some common features.

Some templates give you the option to modify the face by changing the skin color and hair color. Others let you change your hairstyle. Still, others allow you to add components to the face – helmets, goggles, mustache, and more.

Some templates even let you change your facial features to invoke an emotion. They allow you to change the eyes and mouth so you can be happy, sad, or angry. The work area will identify what areas of the image you have control over.

Modify the Colors

The rest of your template is as easy to modify as the text and face. Each template has a background color option. Choose from the 180 available colors to change the background for your avatar. Black and dark blue are the most common, but you can use whatever color you like.

Some templates have a main color or an accent color. These will change different areas of the avatar in different templates. There is no way in most of these templates to figure out what is considered main or what is the accent, so you have to actually change the color to see what happens.

Different templates have different components. Placeit apparently does not have standardized definitions for the terms they use for some of these components. Some terms make good sense, and others are pretty generic.

Personalize your Avatar

On some templates, you will have a number of graphics as part of the template that you can choose to add to your avatar. These fit the theme of the template. You are able to customize the graphics in the following ways:

  • Resize them
  • Rotate them
  • Crop them to fit

On other avatars, however, you have an opportunity to pick a logo. Since they use the term “logo” for the image or the avatar itself, adding another logo is a little confusing. This logo is a photo or image of any kind. When you select the logo, it will be placed on the avatar screen. You can then move, rotate, and crop this logo.

This is useful if you want to make an avatar that actually looks like you! Use a photo, or better, cartoonify a photo of yourself. And, like everything else in Placeit, you can come back later to resize, replace, or even remove it. This will only work on a handful of templates because this image is always on top of the rest of the template, not behind.

Animate your Avatar

You can create an animated avatar in Placeit. Under the logos dropdown, go to the “animated logos” page. This page can also be found under the “gaming” dropdown on the Placeit home page. These are actually gaming logos, but you could use one as your avatar on most web pages.

There are currently 665 animated templates to choose from. You have the same options to change the text and colors and sometimes to add additional graphics as in the other templates.

In addition to animating your avatar, you can add a song to some of the animated avatars. There are several hundred to choose from in several dozen music styles. There is a musical component in the work area of the template. Open the directory, pick a style from the list on the left, choose one of the songs, and play it to hear the selection.

Download your Avatar

When you finish your avatar, you have several choices:

  • Buy your avatar.
  • Subscribe to Placeit
  • Save your avatar as a draft
  • Save your avatar as a favorite
  • Share your avatar

Paid Options

The “download” button on the upper right of the work page allows you to purchase and download your avatar for a one-time price of $39.95. If you are looking for just one avatar, this is the best option.

You can subscribe to Placeit for $14.95 a month or $89.69 per year. This gives you the ability to create and download unlimited avatars. More than that, you can create mockups, designs, and videos. Placeit is far more than just an avatar creation program. It offers a wide variety of advertising or branding types of documents. 

Pro Tip: Placeit also offers an additional 15% off any plan with this coupon.

Free Options

You can save your avatar as a draft. You will do this if you are working on your template but are not yet finished. This will not cost you anything. You are saving your avatar on the Placeit website for later revision or purchase. You can identify your avatar as a favorite. If you create numerous avatars, you can find your favorites more quickly.

You can also share your avatar. When you click the share button, you can copy the URL of your avatar. Placeit then gives you links to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Linkedin Share. The “Share your Avatar” option gives others a link to your avatar’s URL, so they can see your avatar. But that is all they can do. They cannot copy it or download it.

Please understand that those with whom you are sharing your avatar are going to the Placeit website. You still do not have ownership of your avatar, even though others can see it. To use your avatar for any reason, at some point, you are going to have to purchase it.