Staff profile pages increase the professional reputation of our academics. They are extremely popular pages on school sites.
A good profile image draws readers into the content and a consistent display provides a professional presentation for a school.
Background and light
- Use natural, diffused lighting with softer shadows, this helps gives a smoother skin tone.
- Keep a sharp focus on the face, especially the eyes.
- Avoid distracting backgrounds - a clean, simple background works best. A neutral and slightly out-of-focus background can help put the focus on the face.
Posture and expression
- A friendly, but professional expression works best. A natural smile creates an inviting atmosphere.
- Accentuate the jawline by keeping a good posture and a tall neck.
- Experiment with facing the camera at slight angle, this can help define your jawline.
- Dress the part.
- Try squinching!
Cropping
Your profile image will automatically be presented in a circular format on the staff profile page.
To prepare it, you will need to crop it to a square.
- Site Editor will automatically crop the image you upload to a square format, but if the original isn't square, the crop may not align with a face. Follow the points below to prepare your own crop.
- Use photo editing software to crop your profile image to a minimum of 500 x 500 pixels or larger. This can also be achieved using our cropping tool and selecting Square.
- Crop from just below the shoulders to just above the head. Keep the face centred in the crop.
- Allow a little bit of space above the head to help with cropping.
- Save as a medium JPG.
Avoid
Examples which must be avoided.
- Poor, unnatural lighting
- Poor quality, pixelation
- Distortion
- Out of focus shot, especially on the eyes
- Cropping over the face
- An overly neutral or bored look - this may result in a mugshot/passport look
- Artistic treatment - e.g. black and white, filters, snapchat
- Poor and unnatural lighting creates a yellow tint
- Out of focus
- Poor quality
- Mugshot feel
- Softer shadows would help brighten eyes
- Smartening up clothing would look less scruffy
- Background would be better without wood at top of his head
- Avoid I’d-rather-be-somewhere-else look
- Avoid artistic filters
- Stick to a consistent format to provide an overall professional look to your school’s profile images
Self-portrait by Hernán Piñera.
CC BY-SA 2.0..
Cropped from original
- Avoid black and white images
- Stick to a consistent format to provide an overall professional look to your school’s profile images
- Image is not cropped to a square
the necklace that started my business by Becky Haner.
CC BY-SA 2.0.
Cropped and stretched
- Poor lighting
- Out of focus
- Poor quality with pixelation
- Strong shadow over face
- Distorted image
- Distracting background
- Mugshot look
Lynda Gerty by Elijah van der Giessen.
CC BY 2.0.
Cropped from original
- Face chopped off, not centred
Use a professional
Where possible, a professional photographer will give you the best results.
Please contact us be put in contact with our suggested photographers.