Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Choosing the Right Images for your Website


Images say a lot about a website and we want to make sure you use the right kind of images to get the mission and vision of AYSO out to your Regions.

Images can be difficult to come across, especially when you have to worry about permissions and copyrights. We discourage using images from google, since you can’t show any sort of ownership or rights for that image. Here are some places to find appropriate images and guidelines to use when choosing photos:

Use Your Own Images

If you’re using your own images, make sure they are lit properly and well composed (meaning that people aren’t cut off in the images, and they aren’t oddly lopsided) and don't have any names or contain anything offensive (ex: no alcohol, tobacco, weapons, etc.). Please try to follow our Safe Haven guidelines to make sure the photos are appropriate for AYSO. If faces appear in the images, make sure that you have a release from each person in the images so you don’t get in trouble for posting their picture on the website. To make this part easier, you could have every parent sign a release form for themselves and their child when they register or before they play their first game. It will assure you that every person in the photos have a release signed.



AYSO.org – Region Toolkit

We have a selection of images available in our Region toolkit for our Regions to use. These images already have releases acquired for the people in the images, so they’re okay to use on the web and in print. We also have some “stock” selections available, such as balls, goals, flags and fields. If you don’t see something you need on the website, please email us and we should be able to find something to fit your needs.

Stock Photography – FREE

Believe it or not, there are free “stock” photo sites out there. One that I use on a regular basis is the Stock Exchange. Anyone can sign up for this site and you can use the photos free of charge. Some photos are better than others, so you just need to filter through the photos and find what works for you.

Stock Photography – Paid

Paid stock photography often looks the best, and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Deposit Photos is a relatively cheap stock photography site, with web quality images starting at $1 each. Big Stock Photo is another site that has low cost stock photography. Here are some other stock photo sites that have a variety of images, but may be more expensive:
iStock Photo
Shutterstock
Dreamstime
Getty Images
Corbis Images

If you have any questions about what you can use on your website, or with releases, please leave them in the comments!

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