In today’s very visual world, having a website that takes advantage of your audience’s need for quality images is a great plan for your website. Because images can often get a point across much quicker than text, there are some people or businesses that may feel that their website would be much more effective using more images and less text. However, this can get a little tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing both with the technical side and with the design side. To help with this, here are three tips for designing an image-driven website.
When to Use this Strategy
Knowing the appropriate time to use this strategy is going to be half the battle with image-driven websites. According to Cameron Chapman, a contributor to WebDesignerDepot.com, you should only have an image-driven website if it actually makes sense for your website’s purpose. This could include people who focus on images for photography, design or illustration. And while text is needed in some places on your website, a large image should be used if you’re wanting to either present an added measure of intrigue to keep people on your page for longer or to further explore what your website has to offer. As long as nothing is getting lost in translation with a large image and limited text, this design strategy could work for you.
Know Your Priorities
When you’ve decided to use an image-driven design for your website, you’ve got to then understand that your priorities are going to be a little different than with a text-driven website. Kalpesh Singh, a contributor to SitePoint.com, shares that your priorities with your images should be all about image quality. This means making sure your images are the right size, making sure they load quickly, and making sure they’re in the right format. It’s also important to ensure that you have the right license to use these images, so double check this for legal purposes before you go live with your image-driven website.
Avoid Big Images’ Major Pitfall
While using a big image as the main content for your website can make your site very visually appealing, you’re walking a very thin line here in most cases. In fact, Gisele Muller, a contributor to WebDesignLedger.com, shares that many websites that try being image-driven end up looking too busy with their design because they forget to compensate with the text and other stylistic elements. This is why one of the major pitfalls of having an image-heavy design is having a cluttered-looking site. To avoid this, make sure all other aspects of your design are very simple to complement the larger images rather than compete with them.
With the right topic and design aesthetic, you can have a very beautiful image-driven website. Use the tips mentioned above to help you get just that.