Bigger Images Means Behind-the-Scenes Overhaul

Last Updated on February 19, 2022

Since the redesign of ‘Patrick’s Place,’ you’ve probably noticed much larger images. Those bigger images have inspired quite a challenging task.

Imagine realizing that every image in your blog’s image libary — however big that library might be — needs to be resized to fit a new blog design. If you’re like me, that’s a nearly-terrifying thought.

And it’s exactly what I’m dealing with behind the scenes as you read this.

My image library comprises more than 1,900 images. And yes, almost every one of them will have to be reformatted to fit the new “hole” the new design leaves for them.

A few years ago, I switched to a theme that practically required an image with every post. If I didn’t include a “featured image” with a blog post, an ugly gray window would display with the post. I liked that idea because it felt like I was disciplining myself to not publish a post without one out of fear that the dreaded gray box would appear.

But then I realized that years of older posts — some of which may have had images within the body of the posts but none assigned as a “featured image,” would also display with that ugly thumbnail.

So I found a theme that would display posts without images fine, but would make those posts that did have images look that much better.

The Stock Image Argument

The majority of my images are stock, and I know some people get snobbish about stock photography, but frankly, my subject matter doesn’t always lend itself to me doing a photo shoot for every blog post.

Every Monday, I do a post related to blogging. If I were to write about some new change in SEO, I can’t exactly hop on a jet and fly to the Silicon Valley to get some nice exterior shots of Google. Nor can I get to the nation’s capital to get beauty shots of Congress every time they manage to leave some new critical decision undone.

If this were a Charleston-only blog, probably 90% of the images you would see here would be images I shot. But I enjoy the wider range of subject matter a niche like “common sense” allows me because I have a wider range of topics to cover.

Behind-the-Scenes Overhaul

We’re visual animals and I figure even a stock image is better than that terrible “wall of text” people love to critique. I don’t generally rely on images to tell a story, but I do think they can give a very quick — pardon the expression — “snapshot” of what the topic is.

So what I’m doing is using larger versions of the original images that better full the large, rectangular spaces rather the small squares I’ve had over the past few years. In some cases, the originals are no longer available, which means I’m forced to replace them with alternates. In other cases, better images are available that didn’t exist or somehow weren’t otherwise available when I first posted them.

I’m also being intentional about finding images that are more colorful, versus older images that were essentially single items or people on white backgrounds; the white backgrounds did help those smaller square images blend better with the background, but adding more color definitely makes the page look better.

Eventually, I’ll have all of the images replaced. Then, the goal will be to go back through 10 years of posts that don’t have featured images and assign those.

Needless to say, this will be an ongoing process.

Your Turn:

What’s the biggest blogging project you’re contemplating? How much of it will be done quietly behind the scenes?