Freelance Frank

The optimal way to set images in a post

The Baby Diaries are an annual feature at Vivid Magazine, a glossy pub for ex-pats in the country that I designed the web site for. The conceit, babies talking as if they were adults, is not my favorite but I was able to contribute something to the site by ensuring the baby images were lined up with the text so that the little creature’s eyelines went towards the text, where possible. If a baby is looking to the left, then the image is right aligned, and vice versa. This is something I have been doing intuitively since I created the site. An image can be put to good use leading the eye of the reader into the text of an article – especially if it is otherwise of low quality ,as in the example here. The human gaze is best for this – or else a face looking to the left or right. Failing that, the composition of the image should be your guide. Wherever the composition leads the eye, then the image should be aligned accordingly.

While I am writing about Vivid, I ought to briefly mention the nifty jQuery vertical scroller that I have installed on the right hand side column for the front page of the site. The editor has long wanted to show off the covers of all past issues, and I thought this was the most economical and user-friendly way to do it. I also linked each cover to the subscriptions page on the site, because it’s always worth getting the best economical advantage out of any addition.