Woman working from home

I’ve already written about the learning curve I’m on, developing this site, and how we’ve discovered it’s not so simple after all to take photos that look good within the overall design.  I also wrote in the introduction to the book how much I dislike those stock homeworking photos you see in the media of models sitting on white sofas tapping on laptops.

So I didn’t expect to find myself, not only not getting rid of the stock photos on the Home page and 6 Secrets page, as I thought I would when I took over the site, but actually buying more for the new pages I’m planning!  Like the one on this post.

An important part of the brief I gave to the web designer was that the site should be clean and clear, with easy navigation.  Do I think he’s achieved that?  I certainly do, and the feedback I’m getting shows other people think so too.

What I hadn’t appreciated was how much the stock photos are part of the overall design, until we tried replacing them with photos of me doing homeworker-type things.  My intention was to make the site more personal, but in fact it just looked messy and amateurish.

So I have decided to go with the photos Tony chose, and use more of the same people on other pages.  They are clean and clear, just like the rest of the site, and continue the colour theme.  I also hope they aren’t too ‘model-ish’.  Some photographers seem to think that if you plonk an impossibly good-looking model at a table with a laptop and a mug, the photo shouts ‘working from home’.  Nope, it shouts ‘irritating model with stupid grin pretending to work from home, how dim do you think I am?’

There will be photos of me on various pages, and of course photos of your workspaces, but that is a different kind of page entirely.  I hope my posts and your comments will make the site the friendly, down-to-earth and practical resource for homeworkers that I intended the book to be.