Posting pics: to the left or the right of the article?
October 15, 2012 10:31 AM   Subscribe

I need to know about a design and layout notion.

I have a blog.I post a number of articles I find free on the net. In so doing, I notice that many of them have photos. Often the pics are either on the top of the article; on the right side of the article; or on the left side of the piece.

My question: which is the "better" side to place the photo (if not on top)?
Does it much matter? Is it an issue of right or left handedness?

Of late, the right side strikes me as better but this is merely a guess.
Any professionals in design who know about such things?
posted by Postroad to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)
 
It depends how the rest of your blog is laid out. Pick a side that interferes least with your own blog features and you're good.
posted by zadcat at 11:10 AM on October 15, 2012


The design principle I was taught is that, if anything in the photo has a face (such as a person), it should be directed toward the text, not away from it.
posted by AugieAugustus at 11:25 AM on October 15, 2012 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: comments very sensible
posted by Postroad at 12:38 PM on October 15, 2012


Just pick whatever you want, even switching per-article.

You're not going to find an ultimate rule, but a consideration:
Floating images left will give you a (mostly) clean line between the image and text. Floating right will result in ragging, as the lines of text wrap at different points. You might find you prefer one.

I've also heard the face rule AugieAugustus brings up, for whatever it's worth. If you choose to adopt that, it doesn't really conflict with just allowing yourself choice anyway.
posted by Su at 1:20 PM on October 15, 2012


AugieAugustus's advice about portraits is dead on, but really there's no magic formula that works all the time.

Most blogs have a narrower column of ... stuff. Links, other posts, recent comments, tweets, ads, whatever. This can be on the left or right (or both) depending on your design. In general you'll want to put the image on the opposite side of this column. This will tend to place the text closer to the center of the page where it's more comfortable to read. Text that's crammed to the edge of the page is awkward.

But if the image is more important than the text, is more gripping than the text, or needs to be in-line to illustrate an essential point of the text then center it with no text on the same line.
posted by Ookseer at 5:46 PM on October 15, 2012


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