Homestead Blog

Here’s our creative guru Ron again with the second part of his series on tips for choosing good imagery for your site – Rochelle.

A few posts ago I gave you some tips for picking good photos from the Homestead Image Library. Those tips also work well for other online sources of photographs and illustrations. But beware: unlike the free images you can find in the Homestead library, most other images available on the net are protected by copyright, so your use of them on your site will be legally restricted.

If you’re willing to pay a little, you can search for images on the many stock photo sites available. Make sure that you are searching for royalty-free images, and pay attention to the usage license that you are accepting. Some sites have web resolution imagery they’ll let you use for as little as a few bucks!

These sites have pretty sophisticated search engines and you can really narrow your search to find just what you want. Here’s a trick I use a lot: if I find a photo that I like, I’ll search for other images by the same photographer to see if there are other good ones I can use!

Other fruitful sources of good imagery are sites that bring you a selection of free images with creative commons licenses. These can usually be used if you give credit to the photographer on your site.

I’ll close off this post by emphasizing one very important thing: the key to using images you find on other online galleries is to make certain it is OK to put them on your site, and to follow all guidelines associated with using the pictures. That’s a simple matter, really, so go on and have fun searching!

Coming up in part 3: Taking your own photos

Our support specialists spend their days answering a lot of questions about website functionality and design, so they have unique insight into things you can do with SiteBuilder that aren’t widely known. Here’s Ben to tell you about one of his favorites - Rochelle

I think one of the most underutilized elements in SiteBuilder is the “Image Effect” element. I get a lot of calls from members who want their site to look more dynamic and have more visual pizzazz. Most people assume that paying for Flash animation or animated GIFs is the only way to accomplish this, but that’s only because they haven’t tried SiteBuilder’s Image Effects.

Image effects allow you to have your existing images fade onto the screen, flicker on or do other neat effects when a visitor first opens your web page. Having an image effect near the top of a page can give your site a dynamic, visually arresting look similar to what “big business” sites pay Flash designers $$$ for. At the same time, since the effects are very easy to add, you don’t have to mess around with anything complicated, like HTML code. As an added bonus, since an effect only appears once - when the page first loads - your visitors’ eyes won’t be distracted from the content of your site.

You can find the Image Effect element by clicking on the Add Images and Files element button, then Add an Image Effect.

So if you’re looking to add more visual “pow” to your site, you might try Image Effects; they grab attention, they’re easy to use and they already come with SiteBuilder. Have fun, but please remember that this is one of those design elements where a little use of it can go a long way. One or two animations can make your site pop, but it can look too busy very quickly if you use too many. Visitors quickly tire of a cluttered site, so it’s best to use these effects sparingly.

Lindsay, one of our product designers, minored in film in college. See if her parents’ money was well-spent by checking out her short film on managing your domain – Rochelle.

Many of our customers already own a domain name (e.g. www.fische.com) before they create a website with us. There are a couple of options for connecting a domain purchased through a different company with a Homestead website, but these options can be pretty difficult to understand. Because of this, we’ve created a short video to explain - in our own way - a couple of these options to you – domain pointing and domain forwarding - and hopefully make you laugh a little, too.

“Pointing” your domain to your Homestead site is now as easy as transferring it. Whichever option you prefer, both are easy to do through the Domain Manager once you’ve logged into your Homestead account. You can find the Domain Manager - including detailed explanations and pros and cons of each option - by clicking on Domains & Email, then Domains on the left of the page.

Thanks for watching!

Ron heads our creative department at Homestead. As a graphic artist and longtime photographer, he has a unique and experienced viewpoint on the use of visual elements in website design. Here is the first in his series on tips for dressing up your site with good imagery – Rochelle

“A picture is worth a thousand words” is especially true when considering website design. The right image not only conveys the purpose of your website, but also the values, sensibilities and legitimacy of your business.

We are inundated with images everyday. How do you pick the right ones? An easy place to start is to look around you and see what kind of images advertisers, editors and designers have used to communicate concepts in your industry. You can adopt their concepts and use that as a jumping off place for your own ideas.

I spend a LOT of time looking for images for our site and products, so believe me I know how challenging it can be to find just the right one. But it’s fun, too! In general I use three different sources for images: the Homestead Image Library, other online image repositories, and my own work. In this post I’ll talk about picking the perfect image in the Homestead Image Library.

The Homestead Image Library gives you access to thousands of good, free images. The key to finding the right one is knowing how to search. If searching by the terms that seem obvious to you doesn’t produce anything you like, try searching by the main colors of your site. By freeing you from thinking too narrowly about theme, it might broaden your perspective and reveal to you a great image that you may never have thought of otherwise.

Be open-minded and keep notes while you search. If you get ideas for other search terms while looking through the results, write them down; they can take you in new, creative directions.

Use your intuition when selecting images. What image captures your attention? Why? Ideally, the subjects in a photo should correspond to the theme of your site, but make sure that the subtle story the picture is telling is likewise in alignment with the intention of your site. Keep in mind who your visitors are, and what sensibilities they will bring when viewing the image.

I have found that choosing photographs is a very subjective business, and you’ll have as many opinions about a particular picture as there are people that you ask. My advice to you is to trust your instincts and have fun!

Coming up in part 2: Finding images in other online galleries