I’ve written before on the importance of professional photography and what a difference a photo shoot can make for elevating your brand. I stand by my assertions but I also understand that sometimes you’re working within budget constraints.
So what do do? You’ve got maybe a halfway decent head shot, but no other pictures and also no idea what kind of pictures should go on your website.
Good news. We’re in a golden age of stock photography.
Well, I guess that’s partial good news. Really decent – and free – stock photography is so widely available now that sometimes you see the same popular stock images repeatedly on different websites and blogs.
No matter.
As a web designer, I can apply filters and stylings like color overlays that can make stock photography look a little more unique and personalised to you.
Even if we don’t go the route of personalising the images for your site, the thoughtful use of stock photography can still go a long way to up level your web presence. Especially if the alternative is not-great photos you may have snapped on your own.
Here are a few of my favourite places to find images:
https://stocksy.com (slightly less generic than typical stock photography)
https://shutterstock.com (affordable, large, well categorized selection)
https://pexels.com (free)
https://unsplash.com (free)
https://kaboompics.com (free)
If you use Canva (and I recommend you do!) they have stock photography built right into the service. Some of the nicer stuff isn’t free, but still quite reasonable for most website project budgets.
The main thing is to consider your visual brand, or the one you’re trying to create.
What ‘vibe’ are you trying to convey to your website visitors and ideal customers? If you book a Launch In A Day website, two of the pre-work exercises is to describe your brand attributes and to define your visual style.
One way to do that is to browse through website designs on sites like Pinterest, but also to look through the stock image websites I listed above and create collections.
What images grab you? Why do you like them? The composition? The colors?
Just browsing photos can be a quick and easy way to figure out the kind of visual feeling you want your website to have. This is a pretty intuitive process. It’s not so much about thought, but rather feeling.
Want to talk more about prepping for your website project?
