How to Draw Easy and Creative Bullet Journal Banners
Bullet journal banners are a fun way to add some extra bling to your bujo page or planner! If you’re a bullet journal or planner enthusiast looking to elevate your spreads with eye-catching designs, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s get started!
This comprehensive guide on creating stunning bullet journal banners covers everything you need to know about crafting beautiful banners in your bullet journal! From beginner-friendly tips to advanced techniques, we’ll explore the creative possibilities that bullet journal banners offer. So, grab your favourite pens and let’s dive into the world of bullet journal banners!
This post is all about bullet journal banners!
When to Use Bullet Journal Banners
Bullet journal banners can be versatile tools for enhancing your journaling experience and organizing your thoughts. Knowing when to use them can help you effectively add visual interest to your pages while keeping them organized. Here are some occasions when incorporating bullet journal banners can be particularly beneficial:
Monthly and Weekly Spreads:
- Use banners to title sections for monthly calendars, habit trackers, or weekly schedules.
- Highlight important dates or events on your bullet journal pages with banner headers to draw attention and add emphasis.
Goal Setting and Planning:
- Create banners to mark sections dedicated to goal setting, brainstorming, or project planning.
- Use banners to divide your goals into categories or milestones, making them easier to track and visualize.
Inspirational Quotes and Affirmations:
- Frame inspirational quotes or affirmations with decorative banners to create visual impact and motivation.
- Experiment with different banner styles to match the tone and theme of the message you want to convey.
Event Planning and Celebrations:
- Use banners to mark special occasions such as birthdays, holidays, or anniversaries in your bullet journal.
- Design banners to serve as headers for party planning, gift lists, or memory pages dedicated to commemorating memorable events.
Tracking and Organization:
- Employ banners to categorize and organize information, such as tracking expenses, meal planning, or fitness routines.
- Create visual hierarchies with banners to prioritize tasks or highlight important deadlines in your bullet journal spreads.
By incorporating banners as bullet journal headers into your journaling practice, you can enhance organization, creativity, and visual appeal while effectively communicating information and expressing yourself. Experiment with different applications and discover how banners can elevate your bullet journaling experience!
Beginner Friendly Banners
Let’s start with the basics! If you can draw straight lines, you can do all of these, even as a complete beginner! There are so many different ways to draw bullet journal headers, and there is definitely no wrong way, but this list will inspire you and get you started.
Here are step-by-step tutorials for the simple banners:
Simple Banner
It doesn’t get much more simple than this, the most basic banner! A simple banner simply starts with two parallel straight lines. You can make them as long or as short as you need, depending on what you’ll want to add inside! Then on both sides (or on one side), create an inverted triangle shape. And just like that, you have a simple bullet journal banner!
There are TONS of ways to make variations of this banner: make the inverted triangle or arrow shape outwards, keep one side flat with a vertical line, the possibilities are endless. Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:
Single Fold Banner
If you can master the single fold banner, you’ll be able to create banners with as many folds as you want! Single fold banners start off with a simple rectangle, once again as long or as short as you want!
Next, choose the side you want the fold on and add a line coming out of that side, as well as a parallel line under the rectangle on your selected side that is a little longer. The space between these two parallel lines should be the same width as the original rectangle. Connect the outer edge of these two parallel lines with an inward triangle shape.
The final step is to draw a diagonal line to connect the two banner shapes and form the fold.
Finally to create a fold for the banner, draw a diagonal line from the lower-left corner of the lower banner section to the lowest corner of the bigger banner.
Multiple Fold Banner
Building off of the single fold banner, a multiple fold banner follows the same steps, just adding additional folds!
The main thing you’ll want to keep in mind when adding more folds is that you’ll be connecting the parallel lines with a vertical line until you get to where you want the banner to end. Only the end part will have the inward triangle shape.
Ribbon Banner
Ribbon banners are a fun yet creative way to split up letters when you have a short header word or phrase. For example, these are great to use as a ‘day of the week’ header.
Alright, first things first. Draw a horizontal line from one dot to the next, then skip a dot or two depending on how wide you want each section of your banner to be. Then, draw another line from dot to dot. Keep doing this until you’ve got as many blank spaces between the lines as there are letters in your header.
Step two is to draw another line in those blank spaces, but make sure it’s a bit above the original lines. Step three, at both ends of those new lines, draw vertical lines down about 2-3 rows of dots. Step four, from both ends of those vertical lines, draw a diagonal line to meet in the middle, making the inverted triangle shape as we did in previous banners. Finally, add a small triangle shape from the top left corner of each banner down to the horizontal line next to it, and fill it in to create dimension.
Oh, and don’t forget to mix it up with some variations! You can make them skinnier, flip the inverted triangle shape, or even change up the shape altogether. It’s pretty cool how just tweaking those basic shapes can totally change the vibe of your bullet journal spreads.
Flag Banner
Next, let’s talk about flag banners—they’re like the cheerleaders of your journal! They can fill up space or jazz up your daily headers in a snap!
First things first, draw a lightning bolt-shaped line. Yep, just like you’re summoning some journaling magic! Then, draw another line parallel to the longer part of the lightning. Connect those two lines with a straight horizontal line, and then another vertical line coming out the top of the horizontal line. Now, connect the left corner of the lightning bolt to the rest of the shape with a short horizontal line.
Finally, pop those triangle shapes on the end of your banner and you’ve got another stunning banner! Just like the previous bullet journal headers we’ve looked at, flag banners can also be spiced up with some variations!
Wrapped Banner
Alrighty, buckle up for a fun banner! This one’s perfect for jazzing up your favourite quotes on your planner page—it’s like giving them a fancy outfit to wear! And hey, I know it might seem a tad trickier than the ones we’ve tackled before, but no sweat— we’re going to everything in this step-by-step tutorial!
We’re going to start with two rectangles, on top of one another. To really pull it together, I like to make the top one a smidge longer than the bottom one. It’s all about that stylish asymmetry, you know?
Now, let’s add some folds! Just like we’ve done before, put one on the left side of the bigger rectangle and another on the right side of the smaller one.
Next up, let’s connect them (tip: I recommend using a pencil first). Connect the big rectangle’s top right corner with the small one’s top left corner. Then, draw a line between the bottom right corner of the big guy and the bottom left of the little one.
Now, here’s the magic trick: only those lines between the banners should show up. So grab your trusty pen, trace over those lines, and erase away that pencil—voilà, pure perfection!
Rounded Banner
All the banners we’ve covered up to this point look a bit, well, square-ish? But guess what? They don’t have to stay that way! Let’s make different banners by rounding ’em up and make ’em cute as a button!
To make a rounded banner, we’re starting with a curved line and adding some flops on the sides. That’s your banner’s top all sorted!
Now, let’s round off the bottom with another curved line, but this time, skip the flops. Connect this line to the top with some cute vertical lines. Oh, and don’t forget those shadowed parts—just connect the curves with the main line for that extra pop!
And for the cherry on top, add a tiny horizontal line poking out from the main rectangle, and pop on some inward triangle shapes to the ends of your flops. Ta-da, you’ve got yourself a super cute, rounded banner!
A really cute variation of this is a rounded banner that swirls inwards. For the top of the banner, create a curved line with some extra swirls on the sides (instead of the flops). Then, add a parallel curved line below that, with no swirls. Finally, add vertical lines down to connect the two lines and create the scroll-looking curves.
Creative Banners
Creative banners take the simple banners up a notch by adding a little bit of spice! Here are some tips and tricks if you want some more fancy headers:
Adding Decorative Elements:
Incorporating floral motifs, borders, or geometric patterns is a fantastic way to embellish your banners. By experimenting with different styles of flourishes and scrolls, you can add elegance and charm to your bujo spreads. Some other bullet journal banner ideas that include decorative elements are: seasonal banners, doodle banners, and quote pages.
Playing with Fonts and Lettering Styles:
Exploring various fonts and lettering styles is a great way create visual interest in your banners. Try combining different fonts and lettering techniques to create dynamic compositions.
Using Colour Effectively:
Another creative way to change up your banners is to experiment with color palettes to evoke different moods and themes in your banners. Think bright colors for summer or pastels for your Easter spreads! Try using different colors to emphasize certain elements of your design or to create contrast and depth. You could also try mixing in some of your favorite supplies like washi tape or watercolor to make an even more creative header.
