How To Pick The Right Images For Websites, Presentations And Beyond!

05/03/2010

By iStockphoto.com

As design and publishing software has become increasingly sophisticated and accessible, tech-savvy customers have come to expect concise and well executed design. This is true for everything from newsletters to websites. Cluttered and primary-coloured Geocities pages are thankfully things of the past, and bland charts accompanied by rainbow-striped WordArt headings will no longer cut it.

With this higher standard in mind, it’s essential to choose the right images to illustrate your productions — and thanks to the inexorable rise of the microstock image market, great photography, illustrations and videos are now accessible to smaller businesses. The iconic...

...Twitter Bird, which helped define the service as it grew from Silicon Valley start-up to global phenomenon, started out in life as a microstock illustration purchased from iStockphoto.

DIY design may have its pitfalls but by following a few basic principles, many smaller businesses are using the tools at hand to create powerful, eye-catching materials that don’t cost the earth.


Here are a few top tips:

Inspirations abound

Good ideas are everywhere. Look at how companies you admire (including your competitors) are trying to do similar things, and take inspiration from the best elements of each. Create an inspiration file to gather together the best of whatever catches your eye, and keep returning to it as you put together your design.


Choose a look and stick with it

A decent online media library such as iStockphoto.com is built from the contributions of millions of members, so there’s no reason to throw in the most obvious and literal image you come across. Try to keep things looking consistent — you might want to use images from the same contributor, and definitely try to avoid mixing photographs with illustrations.


Picking the pictures — be discerning, not distracting

Be smart in choice of... continued on page two >

 

 

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