Tiles

You're welcome

David,

How about this idea:

If I do not want to display professionally photographed images from Unsplash in my grids ... see https://understand-culture.com/germany/ ... because they make for a disjointed look (not out of a single mold), but instead display the headings simply as terms: i.e. Germany, USA, Communication, Agreements, Decision Making, etc. ... there must be a way for me to create those images and upload them.

I just experimented with creating a Pages-file (I have a Mac), typed in Germany, saved as pdf, then converted to jpeg, uploaded the jpeg to page/grid on my site.

That works just fine. However, the key will be designing those term-jpegs so that they look fine, sophisticated, pleasant for the eyes: font, background color, etc.

Does this make sense the way I am describing it? Is it a plausible, doable approach?

It has its advantages: no searcing for free images, no paying for images, a consistent look, in synch with my minimalistic style, alterable every six months.

If this approach makes sense and is doable, please give me any and all advice about how to proceed. Thanks !

John

Sounds like a plan.
If you're going to update the images regularly then you will need to manually update the Image Blocks on the site.
And you may want to look at getting a dedicated photo/drawing app. Plenty of good free ones on the market like GIMP ( Photo and Vector ) or Inkscape ( Vector ).

I used to be a big Adobe fan in the past but I now use Affinity Photo and Designer which are the best value for money products.

Whichever App you use then saving a template to create each image from will help with the process. And it will ensure the images are the same aspect ratio and sizes.

Very, very helpful, David. Thank you.

However, I have no knowledge or experience anything remotely having to do with photography or design or images or the like. What I'd like to try is the super simple, and rather primitive, idea I described above, where I dress up as best I can words: i.e. Germany ... USA ... Communication ... Decision Making ... etc.

Wait, I have a MacBook Pro. I suspect there are easy to learn and use programs/apps on my Mac. Let me hunt around for them.

John

Hi John,

If by dressing up words, you mean simple things such as font-family, font-size and color, maybe using a GB Headline Block instead of a caption would work.

See this for reference: https://docs.generateblocks.com/article/headline-overview/

Also see: https://share.getcloudapp.com/qGu7AjGN

Also see: https://share.getcloudapp.com/z8uLpE2l

Also see: https://share.getcloudapp.com/2Nuz1YND

You may also choose a font family from Google Fonts: https://fonts.google.com/

See: https://docs.generateblocks.com/article/typography-overview/

Also see: https://youtu.be/V6TzewpRxQ0?t=397

Hope these help! :)

Very helpful, Fernando. Thank you.
I was not aware of Headlines.

However, my challenge is not so much customizing captions below images.
But not displaying images at all. And instead displaying carefully crafted terms:
i.e. Germany ... United States ... Communication ... Agreements.

Please see http://www.understand-culture.com

Why not display images?

-- It's not always easy to find the right free images.
-- I would have to change them up every 4 to 6 months.
-- They will never have a unified look, never from one mold.

Therefore my thought was, don't disply the guy on the stage giving a presentation:
https://understand-culture.com/germany/persuasion/

Instead display the word "Persuasion", but give it a unique and attractive look.
And if I can find a tool that allows me to do that, then I can always make micro-changes to that look.

Does that make sense the way I describe the challenge, Fernando?

John

Instead display the word “Persuasion”, but give it a unique and attractive look.

Would this involve using a different font family for each of the different words ?

Holy Moses, David, you're quite the earlybird if you're located in North American, which I suspect?

Most definitely not. The design of the terms ... Germany, United States, Communication, Agreements, etc. ... would have the exact same design, meaning everything from the same mold. Perhaps with slight differences between Countries (Germany, United States) and Topics (Communication, Agreements, Decision Making, etc.)

However, over the weekend I recognized a problem with this approach. If we take the word-approach to the tiles in the grid, the individual topic pages (literally pages in WP) would have that same word in the header and in the image, i.e. Communication. Rather awkward.

See https://understand-culture.com/germany/persuasion/

Is there a way to not display the header of respective pages?

John

We have really good global coverage - i am based in the UK :)

Do you have an example image ?

UK. Look at how fast and furiously you folks
are moving to support Ukraine !

"Example image" meaning the kinds I have been
pulling from Unsplash? If yes, see all the images
currently on http://www.understand-culture.com

If you mean an image of term such as Germany or
Communication, I do not.

John

This:

If you mean an image of term such as Germany or
Communication, I do not.

OK so its possible to hide the Title from the page by using a Layout Element:

https://docs.generatepress.com/article/layout-element-overview/

There you can select the Disable Element tab >>> Content Title and set the Display Rules > Locations to where you want that to happen.

However, this would mean those pages are without a H1 Title tag, and any image you use you should make sure when uploaded you need to give the image a description for accessibility and in case the image didn't load.

Might be worth rethinking .....

"Might be worth rethinking"

I agree. Too risky, unstable, iffy.
And it goes against one of my principles:
stay within WP, stay within GP, keep it simple.

Thanks, David !

You're welcome