|
Photography was first
to emerge among the "modern arts," those which
wouldn't be possible without the technical
achievements of the last two centuries. Now it
provides unrivalled creative opportunities when
combined with the most recent of all arts, the
art of web design.
with the rapid improvements in display devices,
full-color photographs are no more
"approximated" on computer screens as they once
were, but can now be rendered with better
quality than even on paper. This allows
photography to take its due position in web
design, similar to the position it has occupied
in this century in mainstream graphic design
So why does
photography attract the eye in such a
particular way? How to best utilize its
effect in web design? This article attempts
to answer these questions, as usual, by
looking at some well designed sites and by
pondering upon the general principles they
illustrate. The three parts of the article
discuss
what photos to
use,
where to find
them, and
how to integrate
them into the page.
What images to use
The idea that comes to mind immediately is
to use a photo to picture the same object
that your page describes with words. I bet
you have already thought about it if your
site markets some tangible product, such as
cars or computers. (Even a piece of
software, although not very tangible by
itself, may prove photogenic thanks to its
packaging box.) In these simple cases,
design considerations are secondary: You
need photos simply because your visitors
would like to see the thing before ordering
it.
The same reasoning applies to portraits of
site maintainers or company staff, shots of
corporate office and buildings, etc.
How to integrate
Although computers can
handle photos very well, they, as of yet,
cannot produce them. Photos with their
unfalsifiably life-like
texture remain
external, alien artifacts in the world of
computer graphics. This is why any photo
image on a web page design needs
integration---you cannot just put it
there and forget it. The key idea here is
to avoid the Ugly rectangle syndrome
as described in my previous article.
In general, using
blurring at the edges of a photo (making
"soft edges") is a fairly common practice,
justified by the texture characteristics of
photos similar
to those of blurs and soft gradients. This
makes an image much more receptive and
neighborly towards the rest of design
elements, and its rectangular nature becomes
less of an obstacle. This technique can be
applied even to standalone images surrounded
by body text.
Where to find photos
The last question to discuss here is, where
can one find photo imagery for spicing up
web pages? There are lots of convenient
sources, and overall the process of getting
a photo for your page is likely to prove
easier than you might think.
|
