A picture paints a thousand words…
This has never been more true! Nearly every person on the planet has a camera in their pocket. Choosing imagery for your website and social media can be tricky and it’s a service a lot of our clients are very grateful that we offer. It can make or break a brand and it says a lot about you so getting it wrong can have a huge impact. Here are some tips to help make sure you’re delivering the right message via your visuals.
Consistency
Have an idea of the approach you want to take and make sure you have a consistent visual style across your website and social media. Think about whether you’d like photography, animation or drawing or a combination of styles. Think about what represents your brand - do images with people as the focus make sense, is your style more about symbols or icons or is there a particular colour palette that fits? We recommend you write up a list of guidelines that will help you when choosing visuals to avoid a mish-mash of styles. Think about the strongest brands you know - cohesion is key - you want to be recognisable as your business in everything you do! Here are some more tips from Mailchimp.
Copyright Matters
The Internet may seem like your best friend when it comes to visuals but you need to make sure if you want to use any images you find that you are legally entitled to do so. To avoid ending up in trouble, it’s safest to assume that unless otherwise statement, most images are protected by copyright. Copyright is an automatic protection and it prevents others from copying, distributing or making money from assets you create. On the plus side it applies to anything you create too!
Producing Fantastic Photography
You may need photography particularly if you business sells product. Strong images can make a huge difference and if you don’t feel confident you can get it right make sure you seek professional services - it’ll be worth the investment. If you decide to go it alone make sure you think about your background and lighting as well as the focus and composition of images.
Stock Imagery
There’s plenty of stock photography sites where you can find pictures of almost anything! Some sites give you the option to buy the rights to images and others come copyright free although you can usually opt to donate to the contributor. Make sure you double check what you can and can’t use images for. Two of our favourite sites are Unsplash and Pexels which offer freely usable images. Remember to pick your pictures carefully though, keep the style similar and ensure that you keep your brand as distinctive as possible.
Create an Image Bank
At Juniper when we work with clients to select imagery, we usually leave them with an image bank. This is an incredibly useful resource as it means you don’t have to keep scrabbling around for pictures every time you want to post something or update your site. It’s worth collecting images as you go and keeping them safe - whether that’s snapping away when inspiration takes you or saving more photos than you need when looking through stock photography.
Text on Images
This can look great but can be tricky to get right. If you like the look think about the tone, colour and style of your image and text. You might want to consider adding a transparent overlay on to your image to provide a more solid base for your text - this can also be useful in creating a consistent tone across your images! We also suggest you use bolder font styles so that they stand out and use a contrasting colour to the image. Don’t forget to test what the composition looks like on mobile and well as different sized screen as text can sometime move across different parts of images.
Consider a Vid?
When it comes to visuals videos can also be a great way of grabbing attention and creating an impact. This is especially true when it comes to your social posts. In fact according to a survey conducted by Wyzowl in December 2019, 85% of businesses said they use video as a marketing tool, 89% of video marketers say video, in general, gives them a good return on their investment and 84% of people say that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video. There are some golden rules though - keep them short (we’re talking <60 secs), make them relevant and ensure they look professional (no one wants to watch a poorly lit, shaky home video!). At Juniper our videos are often animated images that capture attention and encourage viewers to click through to our posts or site.
What’s clear is that visuals matter and can make a big difference. If you’d like any more help or advice on getting your imagery in shape don’t hesitate to get in touch!