Lets talk about Animals
Written on 7 February, 2008 by David Churchill
Yep, you hear me right – lets talk about little fluffy kittens, cats, dogs, frogs, horses and oh the list goes on and on.
Now if you have a website that focuses on a particular animal related trade, say professional pet grooming secrets, then it would be safe to say you could, if you wished, use a picture of a cat or dog in your little 125×125 advert.
But if you had a site about computers or dare I say it, how to make money online, then a picture of a cat, dog, frog or even a horse is probably the last thing you would want to use?
Unfortunately there are hundreds if not thousands of such errors in judgement out there, and I really think it is about time we all grew out of the little fluffy kitten thing – it’s not professional and definitely not clever… in fact it has never ever been clever. I repeat, never!
Fonts! OK, if you really, really, what to use a picture of an animal, you will probably want to add a slogan or web address. Now bare in mind that the font you use needs to lend itself to the picture. Default Helvetica/Arial might work, but only if it was solid black or white, bold and perfectly aligned, possible with a little bit of horizontal tracking to make it really easy to read. But don’t just slap it on the image – think about composition and colour, and try a few different fonts and positions before deciding.
So to recap. If you want to use a picture of an animal, make sure you have a site that focuses on that animal, or even animals – but don’t talk about little fluffy kittens – please! Try a few different fonts, and stop and think about how it will look before slapping it together.
Download sample Cat and Dog Adverts (layered Photoshop file – 132kb).
Search for Free Fonts – there are hundreds, possible thousands out there.