Images

Photography is a powerful tool for establishing a sense of connection to the web audiences we serve. The images you select reinforce our identity as a diverse, global community of independent thinkers.

Image Selection

Choose images that:

Align with and reinforce the written content around it.
Contain extra room around the composition. A composition that works well for print may change and crop unexpectedly in a responsive web theme.
Establish connection with the viewer and show authentic social interactions. The image should create a sense of welcoming into our community and allow the viewer to imagine themselves at Clark.
Shows diversity including: people from historically underrepresented groups, different body sizes, modes of gender expression, learning styles, ranges of ability, and social styles.

Image editing and size

The size of images that you upload will depend on what you’re using them for. Always upload the smallest possible file in respect to both pixel dimensions and file size. Smaller is always better. Except in rare cases, never upload an image larger than 500kb or 2,500px wide.

For portraits or headshots, we recommend that you crop the images square and save them as 720px x 720px. The file size should end up below 80kb. Ideally, the face should be as wide as one-third of the square, and eye level should be one-third from the top of the image.
For hero images that are going to be full-width, 2,400px width is an appropriate size. You can likely get away with higher compression (50%) and the file size should be end up between 200-400kb.
For images that will be roughly half of the width of the page’s main column, reduce images to 1,000px wide. The file size should end up around 60-150kb.
Small images, like those will be only a third-column, 720px wide is a good choice, and the file size should be under 100kb.

What about image height? There are no requirements, and you can use whatever height works best for the project. We typically recommend cropping with a 3:2 proportion. At 3:2, a 2500px wide image will be 1,667px high; a 1,000px wide image will be 667px high, and a 720px wide image will be 480px high.

Tip: If you always use the same ratio, then your images become easily interchangeable.

Alternative Text for Images

It is important that you enter “alt” text for each image. It’s an accessibility requirement that gives visitors using assistive technology an equivalent browsing experience. Alternative text should be a concise description explaining the content and purpose of an image. For example, “bad” alt text would simply say students, whereas “good” alt text would say something like Group of students walking through Red Square at Clark University.

Copyright/Attribution

You must secure rights to copyrighted images before using them on web pages, unless they are images that the University owns, has purchased, or has obtained permission to use on the web.

Images that are in the public domain may be used if specified conditions are met for posting that material (for example, the author photographer must be cited).