Drawing shapes on the picture in Video by Zaweba

Shapes do a surprising amount of work in a video. An arrow points at the button you're talking about. A rounded box sits behind a caption so it reads over a busy shot. A circle rings the one face in a crowd that matters. Video by Zaweba has a set of shapes for jobs like these, and a couple of tools that let you draw them straight onto the picture.

The shapes on offer

There are eight to choose from: rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, polygon, star, heart, arrow and line. Each can have a gradient fill and an outline, so a shape can be a solid block, a soft graded panel, or just an outline with nothing inside it.

That last option is the one people forget. An outlined ellipse with no fill makes a clean highlight ring around something in the picture without hiding it. An outlined rectangle frames a part of a screen recording. A thick line or an arrow with no fuss at all is often the clearest way to direct the eye.

Drawing on the picture

The rectangle and ellipse tools draw straight onto the preview. Pick the tool, drag across the picture where you want the shape, and it appears there, sized to your drag. It's much quicker than adding a shape and then nudging its position and size numbers until it lines up.

The type tool works in the same spirit. Click on the picture and a title goes in where you clicked, ready to type. Between these tools you can rough out a simple graphic on the frame itself, then refine it.

Jobs shapes are good for

Tutorials and screen recordings are where shapes earn their keep. A box around a menu, an arrow towards a setting, a line under a word. Keep them on screen only while you're talking about the thing they point at, then take them away.

Text panels are another. A rounded rectangle with a gentle gradient behind a title lifts it off the footage. If you want the box to grow and shrink with the words, build it in a graphic with layers, where a shape can be pinned round a text layer.

Fun and decoration have their place too. Hearts and stars suit a wedding slideshow or a birthday video, used with a light hand.

Animating and placing them

Shapes are clips on the timeline, so they take the same position, scale and opacity controls as anything else, and those can be keyframed. An arrow that slides in from the side, or a ring that fades up and then away, takes a couple of keyframes. A blend mode can make a shape tint the picture underneath rather than cover it.

Getting them to look tidy

A few habits make shapes look professional rather than slapped on. Use the same outline thickness and the same colours throughout a video, ideally colours that match your titles. Keep arrows pointing to the exact spot, and check them at full screen, since a few pixels off is obvious once the video is playing big.

Avoid stacking too many shapes at once. One arrow is a clear instruction, three arrows are a puzzle. And watch the safe margins: shapes that run to the very edge can be cut off on some screens.

If the same shape design comes back in every video you make, save it as a graphics template so it's always a click away. Video by Zaweba keeps your own templates alongside the built-in ones, which makes a consistent look across a series much easier to keep.