Squarespace automatically optimizes images to fit on whatever size screen they’re being viewed on, so there’s no need to calculate exact dimensions for every image on your site.
Image width can have a tremendous effect on its quality and display. To get maximum visual impact, images should ideally fall between 1500-2500 pixels wide.
Size
Size matters when it comes to your Squarespace background image as it can have an effect on how well your website performs and its load speed. A high-quality image in an ideal size will make your website appear professional while improving visitor satisfaction.
As a general guideline, images should be at least 1400 pixels wide to ensure that they appear sharp on both desktop computers and mobile devices.
Squarespace may scale your image down for smaller screens, however this may reduce its quality.
Squarespace supports multiple image file formats, including jpg, png and gif files. JPEGs tend to work best because they’re compatible with most web browsers; if your image needs to be optimized specifically for screen sizes then another format should be utilized instead.
As a rule of thumb, Squarespace recommends using images with dimensions at least 1500 pixels wide as background images for your website’s background. This size will ensure sharp images on all devices while speeding up load times. Furthermore, an image 2500 pixels wide could make an effective banner image.
If you need to resize images for specific devices and screen sizes, Squarespace 7.1 allows for you to do it using custom code or Squarekicker*. Furthermore, images can be resized into different shapes like circles and arches; you can even change their corner radius for an image so it appears more rounded.
Consideration should also be given to the aspect ratio of your Squarespace background image. Aspect ratio refers to the relationship between its width and height – typically, this would be square but there can also be other ratios available to you.
Ideal aspect ratio for squarespace backgrounds should be 1:1; that is, a rectangle with equal height and width dimensions that allows images to fit seamlessly onto full-width pages without cropping issues.
Aspect Ratio
Full-width images cover the width of your website, creating an eye-catching visual impact. Perfect for backgrounds or image headers on blogs and landing pages, knowing their exact dimensions is essential in ensuring they look their best – this way avoiding pixelation or blurriness when displayed across different screen sizes and devices.
Squarespace will automatically scale and compress images for different screen sizes to maximize image quality, helping reduce file sizes and speed page load times while at the same time improving their look. Unfortunately, however, this may impact their appearance as it may alter quality over time.
Squarespace’s default image format is JPEG, which is a lossy compression format and may not always accurately represent your original image. To ensure accurate representation, save your file as PNG for optimal results.
Though Squarespace does an admirable job of optimizing image files, larger ones will take longer to download and load. You might consider using an online image compressor like Kraken to optimize them before uploading them to your site.
When selecting background images for your Squarespace site, images with consistent aspect ratio are best. A wide image with 3:4 aspect ratio would be preferable over taller images with 2:1 aspect ratio as this will ensure that proportions on different screens and devices remain the same.
If you want your Squarespace banner images to look their best, try selecting images between 1500-2500 pixels wide. This will prevent Squarespace from stretching or cropping the images and making them blurrier or pixelated.
Saving photos in RGB mode rather than print mode (CMYK) will ensure they appear correctly across most devices, while saving with an sRGB profile will make sure they appear correct across desktop and mobile browsers.
File Format
If you want your Squarespace images to remain crisp and clear no matter the screen they are being viewed on, using a file format that scales without losing quality is key for success. This is especially essential if you plan on having slideshows, grids or carousels of images displayed.
Squarespace websites utilize Fluid Engine, an adaptive web system designed to adapt their websites automatically according to whatever device is being used to view them. This means if you upload an image that is too big, Squarespace will shrink it down automatically without losing quality or making the image blurry – potentially frustrating when planning on displaying multiple images in grid, carousel, or stacked layouts.
Avoid this issue by making sure that all of your images have an equal file size, saved as JPG or PNG files – both are capable of scaling without losing quality and can be stored at high resolutions.
Squarespace recommends that any images used on your website should fall between 1500px and 2500px wide to ensure they look sharp and clear across devices. This size should work for most background images.
Banner images (the large hero shots that typically appear at the top of most Squarespace sites) should be at least 2000px wide to ensure correct display; these images often spanned across an entire page width and contain some sort of text overlay or button.
Favicon images (the small icon that appears in browser URL address bars) should be 16px to 300px wide and saved as PNG files to ensure proper display. Saving as JPG can sometimes make the icon look blurry or blocky.
Compression
Squarespace can handle relatively large files, but to avoid your site’s load speed being negatively impacted, try keeping images below 500KB. This will keep pages running faster – great for SEO – while compressing images can help save storage space without losing image quality. There are plenty of tools online which offer this service so it may be worth investing some time exploring this option for your images!
Squarespace will usually reformat background and banner images to 2500 pixels along their longest edge, which works fine; however, for optimal results it’s wise to keep any other images added via gallery blocks, lightboxes, or inline blocks at 1500 pixels wide – this will ensure they look crisp and sharp across devices.
File Format SelectionIs also an important factor. JPG and PNG files should be preferred over PSD or Doc documents because these cannot be uploaded to Squarespace (and won’t display correctly with Internet Explorer). When possible, always use JPG images, since these will be universally recognized and displayed across browsers (adding another point towards SEO).
Consider how you name your images appropriately. Incorporating keywords or descriptions in their names will help improve page ranking for specific terms you’re targeting; additionally, adding an explanation about what the image represents would provide screen reader users with useful insight if something fails to load as intended.
Don’t forget to double-check the ALT text of your images! ALT text describes what’s contained within an image and can be read aloud by those with visual impairment, making your website more accessible – plus, Squarespace makes this step very straightforward! To learn how to do it step-by-step, check out our blog post How to Add Alt Text to Squarespace Images.
