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
February 11, 2008 at 9:18 am |
Good images can be very advantageous to a website, in both adding interest and making points.
Homestead does have an excellent photo library that can provide almost any subject quality photos.
For those who are new to site building many of these photos are very large files. Large image files should be placed into a photo program and reduced down in size as well as weight. This procedure will help keep load times down for the visitor.
If you have some basic skill in using photo editing programs, you can individualize the images by cropping, adding edges or modifying colors. In this way you can create a unique photo just for your site.
Don’t forget to put appropriate alt tags on them for SEO purposes.
Thank you for featuring this great asset for the webmaster.
February 12, 2008 at 4:09 am |
That’s Great stuff! How about more templates! Even if we have to pay for the good ones (a la Template Monster.com). -RG
May 12, 2009 at 6:51 pm |
I dont understand how to use the RSS feeder on the my web page that says about us the should be a blog page at the bottom but I cant get it in can some teach me how in laymans terms.