{"id":3474,"date":"2016-09-23T11:00:30","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T05:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/?p=3474"},"modified":"2021-12-13T14:29:38","modified_gmt":"2021-12-13T08:59:38","slug":"aspect-ratio-is-not-rocket-science-but-so-many-brands-still-get-it-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/23\/aspect-ratio-is-not-rocket-science-but-so-many-brands-still-get-it-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspect Ratio Is Not Rocket Science But So Many Brands Still Get It Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AD-GRAPHICS-HONDA-05APR2013\"<\/a>A few years ago, images on websites and banner ads used to suck. Poor resolution, bleeding colors – these were the common problems in images used even by leading brands.<\/p>\n

That’s mostly history now. Image quality has improved significantly in recent times.<\/p>\n

I wish I could say the same about image sizes and aspect ratios.<\/p>\n

I wrote “Preserve Aspect Ratios And Protect Corporate Identities!”<\/strong><\/a> six years ago. I didn’t expect to change the world with this one post but, just as image quality has improved with time, I thought awareness of getting aspect ratios right would’ve increased during the same period.<\/p>\n

Alas, that has not happened. I still come across distorted images regularly on websites, digital ads, emails, flyers, signs and many other digital media properties. Given below are a few recent examples.<\/p>\n

#1. CREST<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was a bit disheartened to note that a graphics design company bungled the aspect ratios of images on its own website!<\/p>\n

\"arnrs-fi\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My tweet to the company higlighting the problem went unanswered. I don’t know what was the root cause of the image distortion issue.<\/p>\n

#2. STARTUP MASTER CLASS<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Engineers do it with precision”<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This double-entendre<\/em> was emblazoned on the IIT Bombay T-Shirt during my undergrad days at the institute.<\/p>\n

Thirty years after I was graduated from IIT Bombay, one look at the website of\u00a0Startup Master Class<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>made me wonder if precision is confined only to t-shirts! The Pan-IIT event held in the first week of this month had mauled the mugshots of its keynote speakers, as you can see in the following exhibit.<\/p>\n

\"SMC-01-NRN-new\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is what Chrome’s Inspect command showed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If you look closely, the aspect ratios of the native and website images are reciprocals of each other (0.85 = 1\/1.17). This suggests that the designer \/ programmer of the website had wrongly substituted length for breadth while resizing the images, which is what probably caused the distortion of the images. This reflects a casual attitude.<\/p>\n

A few hours after I sent the above tweet, the event organizer fixed the issue. The pictures of the keynote speakers looked perfect.<\/p>\n

\"SMC-04-NRN-new\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kudos to @iitkaa_smc for taking my feedback in the right spirit – IITians always tend to do that in my experience – and taking prompt corrective action.<\/p>\n

#3. FINEXTRA\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s not just Indian brands. The daily email newsletter of Finextra<\/a>, the leading UK-based newswire and information source for the fintech community, carries a incorrectly sized logo of SAP.<\/p>\n

\n

@Finextra<\/a> Logo of SAP in your daily email is distorted. Attached image describes problem & provides solution. pic.twitter.com\/fbIgz1mabP<\/a><\/p>\n

— Ketharaman Swaminathan (@s_ketharaman) September 2, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n