No Suitable Featured Image?

VISUALS, no doubt, can hook a reader’s interest, be it in the book cover of a little-known author, or the featured image of a story, article, poetry, or editorials whether in print or online.

A book cover conveys just one message - what is the book about. A featured image, on the other hand, is either a visual summary of the text or the most important takeaway in the story or article.

In today’s digital world, featured images are almost always photographs. And why not? Many have access to gadgets that take beautiful photos, and there are several photo applications to choose from to make those pictures more appealing. There is also no dearth in astounding photos available online, and thousands upon thousands of these are free provided the owner of the photograph that was featured is duly credited.

There are instances, however, when photos that are available on hand or from online stock photos are not suitable or applicable to the story. This is a challenge, no doubt, to the writer (or the editor) who has a deadline to meet.

Most readers pay attention to photos, especially featured images, and they will notice when a photo used does not convey the message of the story.

They will only take note of this after reading the piece, but a grumble about the photo-bait might ensue. And readers’ negative feedback on a dissonant featured image could not be a good thing.

Spot illustrations

Which brings us to spot illustrations, that “old-fashioned” artwork which is tailored to highlight the message in the story or article.

Long gone were my days when I could waltz into the art department (from the editorial) and ask a staff to do a spot illustration.

Those days were really cool, but did not miss them until I started a blog and could not find appropriate photos and images to feature.

I became nostalgic (just a little) of the days when I had a “blank check” to ask artists to do spot illustrations.

Photo illustrations

With the lack of suitable featured image to use, resourcefulness and creativity should come into play. Consider the wealth of photographs posted on social media belonging to you, the writer, and your friends. Somewhere among this great resource would be a photo that is suitable for the following:

(a) creating an illustration,

(b) stressing a focal point, or -

(c) accentuating a message within the article or story.

Just make sure to ask the owner of the photo for permission to use, and document this permission.

Spot illustration vs. photo illustration

The big difference between spot illustrations and photo illustrations is that the former is tailored to the writer’s specific description of what the artist will create, while the latter is more dependent on one’s patience and burst of muse and creativity.

By patience, I refer to searching for a suitable photo to feature (could take ages, this) coupled with how exactly to inject relevancy to the chosen featured image on the story.

Below are a few of the practical methods I used to create images to feature:

*Take your own photos, separately if necessary, edit and create*

Photo collage above shows (1) mantle with clock set at 7:05, (2) cropped picture [of my hubby]; (3) framed the cropped picture; (4) framed photo on the mantle. The completed photo illustration was used here.

I used PowerPoint app to assemble the finished photo illustration, then saved the slide as JPEG file.

*Place the teaser on the photo itself*

Again, I used PowerPoint app to insert the teaser, then saved the slide as JPEG file.

*Create a montage of animals with dialogue balloons*

Tips: Using cute photos of furry friends is not only fun, it draws attention and traffic to the site.

For photo editing, MS Word (to remove background), MS Photos (to flip image) and PowerPoint apps were used. Pretty "grizzled" apps, maybe, but they still served me well in creating simple photo illustrations.

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Thank you for reading this article.

The books (The Romance Fantasist and Midnyte Madness) in this article's featured image are obviously mine.

For more wacky photo illustrations featuring some furry friends, you may check my blog.

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