A well-designed website is incomplete without beautiful, properly incorporated images that can convey your brand’s essence. To engage users, you don’t only need a user-friendly web layout and neat design, but your choice of images plays a crucial role in creating that perfect website.
Attractive and engaging images used in your web design has the capacity to convey your brand message clearly to the users. Since images are ideal for story-telling, they can boost your website’s user engagement considerably.
In this article, we discuss how to properly incorporate images into your web design.
- Choose Images That Trigger Emotion
A website that’s text-heavy, however well-designed it may be, will not be as popular as one with lots of images. Most users prefer visual information over text since it’s convenient, engaging, and can instantly trigger memories and emotions. When choosing images to incorporate in your web design, ensure that you select photos that can tell your brand story, can convey the essence of your product, and can engage your users by triggering certain emotions that help them connect with your brand. Check this cheat sheet for photography for some great tips and tricks.
Since images can convey an emotion or essence without any language barriers, it’s an ideal tool for a successful website – especially if you’re focusing on a global target audience.
- Place the Images Correctly
While selecting engaging images may be the first step towards incorporating images properly on your website, how they’re placed on the webpage can make all the difference. Ideally, images may be placed at the top of the web page since that’s the spot that’s viewed by your viewers right away. Having an image at this spot can work well to instantly engage your users.
However, to ensure that the images convey your brand essence, make sure that the image has clarity, detail, and character. Ideally, it should be self-explanatory so that you don’t use too much text to explain it.
- Use Background Images to Create a Visually Appealing Web Design
Background images are ideal for creating an atmosphere that can capture your users’ attention immediately. Since a background image can be visually impactful, you need to be sure of the impact you want to create for your user is clear. When you use an image, make sure it supports the content and the message you want to convey.
For an impressive web page with little text, you may opt for using large background images. This way you can incorporate impactful images in your web design, making your website visually appealing and engaging.
- Use the “Rule of Thirds” for Cropping Images
When you’re incorporating images in your web design, make sure that the images have been cropped properly. In order to ensure that you use images correctly, use the rule of thirds for cropping out the extra background from images. This time-tested rule suggests that the focal point on the image should be at around two-thirds of the picture on the upper end. This rule ensures that the image is cropped in a way that doesn’t disrupt its original essence.
- Use Images of Real People
Using images of real people is an impactful way of engaging your users. Having images of humans that convey emotions, expressions, and vibe creates an impression of actually interacting with people. When choosing images with people for your web design, make sure to incorporate images that blend well with your website, and convey your brand message. This is more impactful than using stock images that are designed for general use. Since a powerful image has the potential to draw the user’s attention, you can also use it for links. However, make sure to label these links so that your user knows what it’s linked to.
- Make Sure the Images Load Smoothly Without Compromising on Image Quality
One of the toughest challenges in web design is to reduce the file size of images so that they load easily yet the quality of the image isn’t compromised. Luckily, you can reduce the resolution of the image without compromising on its quality. Since most computer monitors cannot display more than 72 dpi on the screen, so having a resolution higher than this will only increase the file size without having much effect on the visual aspects of the image.
Thus, you can simply go to photoshop and save the image as “use for web”. This will convert a high-resolution image to 72 dpi without reducing the picture quality. The files can then be saved in jpeg, png, or gif format.
Conclusion
Images play a crucial role in web design. Properly incorporated images that convey the essence of your brand have the capacity to engage your customers instantly. Not only do well-incorporated images help you connect with your users, but also convey the emotion, character, and expression that you’re trying to convey through your brand.
Using well-photographed images can make your website look impressive, user-friendly, and attractive, helping you connect with your consumers on a more personal level.
