Back in the early times of website design, when the idea of having images was still new, I remember using the technique of a dramatic image as the background. It drew people’s eye and helped differentiate the website. Eventually, designers decided it was a bit busy, and design turned more to using header photography with basic patterns and gradients as the background to subtly break up a large plain color field. It seems the dramatic background photo is back! I have been noticing many websites adding a splash of vivid color, or using a muted mysterious photo behind their text areas. It is more sophisticated than in the 1990s—with fake page curls, drop shadows, and elegant shapes, but is it really to a website’s advantage?

To help determine whether or not to consider using the revived photo technique consider these questions:

Is there an important or beautiful location associated with the website?
A real estate site selling a Victorian home, a Zen retreat centre, a restaurant on the river—those are the sorts of websites that can really benefit from the technique. If the location isn’t important to the business, or does not have a spectacular visual appeal—car repair shop, ice cream vender, locksmith—using the photo background could detract from the business by highlighting the lack of excitement about the location.

Is your product or service a strong visual?
In the website example above, the archaeologists realized that a dig site has potential for dramatic images. The locksmith with the tiny shop can instead feature beautiful wood table strewn with all sorts of keys, the ice cream vender could avoid showing the cart and instead feature mouth-watering pictures of ice cream that seem to almost melt off the page. Other products do not have the same grab visually. Think honestly about your product—it could be incredibly helpful and still not be a power-house in the photography department. There is nothing wrong with that, it just means using the photo-based website isn’t such a good idea. If the service offered is something like insurance, there probably aren’t many images you want to use. Burning houses and people dying will frighten people, not help the business. On the other hand, services like house painting have potential for some especially fun background images.

Sometimes images can be used in the background that are not directly associated, but can still be helpful and interesting visually. A company that makes robot parts for undersea submarines can use beautiful photographs of underwater scenes, for example, even if the product itself isn’t much to look at. Be careful about what to use, though, if it gets too far off people will be confused. A site selling gardening tools that keeps using photos of flowers can look like they are a seed company instead.

Not every website is a good choice for the revival of the strong background photo, but some are. Think about whether it could help on your site—even just on the homepage to give a visual punch when people first arrive.