Complementary Therapy Website Design - Photographs and Images
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This is the Griffen Mill Design Guide to designing websites for complementary therapists. This section focusses on the use of photographs as well as images such as diagrams or illustrations. Other parts of the guide focus on colour, shape and aesthetic designs and making appropriate content and copywriting decisions. Click to return to the main guide.
Images and Photographs for Complementary Therapists
In most cases, a complementary therapist will wish to convey a warm and inviting impression with their website. They will also be looking to emphasise a human touch and give a reassurance that they can bring the client a sense of well being. Depending on the client, some complementary therapists will wish to convey a more therapeutic image, using photographs of clean and professional looking treatment rooms, while others will take a more wellbeing/beauty line and opt for images of flowers or nutritional images such as fruit and vegetables, depending on the complementary therapies offered.
Sourcing Images for a Complementary Therapy Website
You can take them yourself, but these days online image libraries are a fantastic resource of high quality, low cost and immense choice. In fact there are so many images online, that it is useful to experiment with keywords to find just what you are looking for.
The obvious starting point for an image for a complementary therapy website is to input the type of therapy that is offered into the search bar, e.g. nutrition, Bowen technique or hypnotherapy. However depending on how the photographer has tagged their image, it may not find everything that you may be looking for. Try searching for fruit or massage perhaps. The other approach you can take is to type in mood keywords such as relaxing, as the emotional content of the website is all important. Once you have found an image that is close to what you are looking for, there may also be an option to 'see more like this', which will show you similar images that might just hit the mark.
A short list of words you might try for a complementary therapist may include: complementary, nutrition, treatment, health, massage, healing, calm, holistic, balance, well-being, relaxing, mind and therapy.
We often use Shutterstock for images for complementary therapist websites, as we find they have a good range of high quality photographs.
Example Images for Complementary Therapists
Finally, we have included below a number of typical images we might use with a complementary therapy website. These images are not intended for you to copy and reuse, in fact there are likely to be copyright problems with you doing that. However we have included commentary on how we feel these images suit a complementary therapy website, so that you can take inspiration from them and find your own individual images.
Outreaching man
This image provides a feel for the human side of a complementary therapists work. With a use of gentle tones and sense of energy from within the image and posture of the subject, it can be used to illustrate the sense of well-being that the practitioners work aims to achieve.
Bright and healthy apples
An image such as these bright and healthy apples can give a clean and natural feel to a complementary therapists website design. Depending on the therapies offered, fruit and vegetables can be very relevant, say to a nutritionist, yet they can also work to provide a message of health and well-being when used to illustrate a different complementary therapy. These apples bring in bright and natural tones that can complement highlighted features of the website design.
Purple flowers
The use of flowers or herbs, that are relevant to a complementary therapists work, and with matching colours to the website palette can be really effective. Lavendar is a good choice, being gentle and associated with wellbeing.
This beautiful homeopath website uses a bespoke design created by one of our Gold designers. The homeopath is based in the Brighton area and this draws on a coastal theme with a thoughtful choice of warm colours. Nature based, positive imagery adds to the message of health and optimism which is a good fit for homeopathy. www.homeopathyinhove.com
Aga Kucharska's Holistic and Deep Tissue Massage website uses bold colours and dramatic images to great effect. Her background palette of dark blue and navy is combined with dark mauve headings and quoteboxes to create a sense of luxury and of trust. A feature image which depicts the rough bark of a tree in close detail in the foreground, set against an almost ethereal backdrop of a whole tree covered in blossom is very striking. It is also very clever as this evocative image reinforces the message that Aga, as an holistic therapist, looks at the whole picture as well as individual details and problems. These observations were made on May 26th, 2016 – the website may have been updated since then. www.mindful-bodywork.com
Claire Skeete's Massage Therapy website uses an attractive modern design with a 'responsive' mobile friendly layout that adapts to fit small or large screens. Her colour scheme is a subtle mix of blue and burnt umber against a cool grey backdrop which allows her chosen images to stand out in relief and have greater impact. The website opens on a feature image showing a closeup of a client receiving massage treatment. Claire also includes a friendly photograph of herself in the sidebar, to add a personal touch to the website. Throughout the rest of the website very effective use is made of a series of pen and ink sketches showing different massage treatments such as 'back massage', 'full body massage' and other holistic body work. These observations were made on May 31st, 2016 – the website may have been updated since then. www.touchforwellbeing.com