Best Practices for Images

Images can be powerful visual assets to a webpage. Using images is a great way to add color and help tell a story on your site. It’s important for images to be high quality and be relevant to what is being spoken about on the page. Read more to learn how to choose images, edit them and place them within Cascade.

Choosing Images

Images can be a great asset to your website. Search over 88,000 images on FIU's Flickr or images in this FIU Stock collection, which are free to use without permission.

While searching for images keep in mind these ideas in mind:

Portraits - with simple backgrounds
Dynamic - engaging and in the moment
Friendly and student oriented
Thriving - campus shots that show a sense of community

Sample Images

Well-composed horizontal headshot

Well-composed, Everglades research photo

Well-composed vertical portrait

Well-composed photo of FIU students and alumni at the Port of Miami

Image Use

Banner images

Size: All homepage banner images must be 1600x550-pixel resolution and all subpages should be 1600x450-pixel resolution.

Example of 1600x550 image

Example of 1600x450 image

Example of a 1600x450 banner image

Subject & Composition: Use the rule of thirds to ensure the intended subject of your photo is also the focus of your photo. Position the subject in the middle band to ensure they don’t get cut off when you place the image on the page in Cascade.

Standard images on pages

Size: For horizontal orientation, images on pages should be 800x600; high resolution 1600x1200. For vertical orientation, images on pages should be 500x500; high resolution 1000x1000

Example of 800x600 image

Example of an 800x600 image

Example of 500x500 image

Example of an 500x500 image

Purpose: Images on pages can have text if it’s relevant to what’s on the page. If so, you must add alternative text (or alt text) to the Image Description. This is to maintain accessibility standards.

Preferred image sizes by module

All images should be <999 KB. This ensures that your photo is high quality and doesn’t take a while to load on the page.

Image sizes by module
Module	High resolution sizes
Author image	400x400
Banner	Homepages: 3200x1100 Subpages: 3200x900
Calls to action	1600x1200
Carousel	1600x1200
Content grid	1600x1200
Full width content + media	1600x1200
Gallery	1600x1200
Large cards	2400x1600
Multimedia background	Tall: 3200x1400 Short: 3200x1280
Overlapping content + media	Horizontal: 1600x1200 Vertical: 1000x1000
Profile images	1000x1000
Quote with an image	600x600
Thumbnail grid	Horizontal: 1600x1200 Vertical: 1000x1000

Uploading Images to Cascade

To learn how to upload images to Cascade, read the Cascade guide.

For more information, visit the Cascade training page.

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