3 Ways to Work with a Too Narrow Photo

When designing your disc face, a full color photo adds a lot of impact. But what do you do when the perfect photo is just too narrow? I have a few solutions for you.

Let's look at the example in this first trio of images. The left image shows the photo and it is clearly not filling the disc face. The center hole is covering an important pieces of the image. What if we just stretch the image wider? You can see in the middle photo that the faces are now distorted and the center circle is still in the way. What if instead of stretching, we just enlarge the whole image? If we do that, you can see the top and bottom of the photo are getting cropped out. Don't get frustrated, let's move onto the solution.

In the next trio of images, I'm showing you a few solutions. To start, move your photo to a position where the important pieces of the image are not cropped. In this case, moving it to the left solves that issue. To fill the empty space, we can do one of the following.

We can do some bold color blocking. The left image shows a bold stripe dividing the two halves and some bright color under the text. This can be a very striking and fun option.

In the center, we go the other direction and blend a soft color over the white space and into the photo. This is a more subtle effect and because of the colors in this particular image, has an ethereal feel.

On the right, we see a technique I use a lot. Instead of stretching the entire image, I just select a sliver of the photo edge and stretch it. That way the background colors can continue across the disc without distorting any of the people's face.

I think all three solutions would make a really sharp, commercial looking disc face. Don't be afraid to combine some ideas. There are certainly more than 3 solutions to this common problem. This is just a starting point to help you find the right design choices for your project. Stay tuned as I explore more solutions for your design dilemmas.