Choosing the right images
Choosing the right images for your website is a very important step. The images you choose should be in line with your department's key messages, and should reinforce the way that you want to be perceived by the outside world.
We can help you to find the right images for your website.
Style
Always use high quality, full colour images.
Use a consistent style of images throughout your web pages so that they look as if they belong together.
Photographs should always be of a professional quality. The Communications Office has an extensive digital image library, and also undertakes regular photoshoots.
We've put together some guides to help you when it comes to choosing which images to use:
- People
- Learning and teaching
- Science and technology
- Building interiors
- Building exteriors
- The campus
Size
Always start with a high resolution image and resize as required. Never enlarge a smaller image as it will deteriorate in quality.
Images should fill the width of the column they are in, or have adequate space for text to flow around - avoid having random amounts of white space down the side of an image. See resizing and cropping for details of the sizes you should use.
Shape
Images should have straight, clean edges.
Irregularly shaped images (for example logos) should not have borders added to them.
Position
If an imaginary grid was placed over your page, the images should line up with the lines of the grid, rather than being placed randomly.
Things to avoid:
- Clip art or clip art style images
- Word Art or diagrams drawn in Powerpoint/Paint
- Pictures taken with a phone camera
- Excessive Photoshop effects - minor tweaks such as sharpening, colour correction, etc are fine, but stay away from the 'Artistic' menu
- Sepia (unless it's an old photograph)
- Montages of images blended together - it's always better to have one strong image rather than several weaker ones
- Fancy borders
- Video stills
- Animated images (unless the animation is key to understanding a process, eg in a diagram)
- Your head of department's signature
- Scans of old photos as illustrative images
- The staff Christmas dinner
- Excessive amounts of ducks
Other tips
Caption your images, don't assume that people will know what they are of. Captions should appear below images rather than as alt text (the purpose of alt text is to convey the same information as the image, and shouldn't be required to understand the content of the image).
If text is placed over the image, make sure it contrasts enough with the background, and is placed over an area of solid colour (eg sky).
