Images should be selected with the audience in mind — showing students, activities, and locations that resonate with the specific audience. Images should appear authentic and candid rather than staged or formal. Do not use generic clipart, photo collages, distorting filters, or images unrelated to Marshall University.
Image Text and Accessibility
Do not use an image of text when plain text can communicate the same information.
Images of text (screenshots of announcements, flyers saved as JPEGs, infographics where the content is primarily words) create real problems for your audience and for the university.
- Accessibility. Screen readers used by visitors with visual disabilities cannot read text embedded in an image. This means the content is completely hidden from those users. Under ADA Title II, Marshall University is required to meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards. Images of text that convey informational content fail Success Criterion 1.4.5 (Images of Text) and can expose the university to compliance risk.
- Brand consistency. When text is baked into an image, it bypasses the typography and layout standards established for Marshall’s web presence. Font choices, sizing, spacing, and color contrast are no longer controlled by the design system — they’re frozen into a graphic that may look inconsistent, off-brand, or simply wrong on certain screen sizes.
- Search and discoverability. Search engines cannot index text inside images. Content published this way is effectively invisible to Google, meaning prospective students, faculty, and other audiences will not find it through search.
- Responsiveness. Text legible on a desktop can become unreadably small when an image scales down on mobile. Plain text reflows naturally; image text does not.
For photos to use on your site, visit muphotos.marshall.edu.
Featured Image (Hero/Billboard)
You can add a hero or billboard image to any page by setting a Featured Image in the WordPress editor. Images should be at least 2,000 pixels wide for best quality across all screen sizes.
Focal Point
When an image is displayed in a hero, billboard, card, or any cropped context, the theme uses the image’s focal point to control which part of the image stays visible as the container resizes across different screen sizes.
Without a focal point, images default to centering — which can cut off the subject on mobile or in tightly cropped layouts. Setting a focal point pins the most important part of the image so it stays in frame at every size.
Setting a Focal Point
- Go to Media Library and open the image you want to edit.
- Click Edit Image.
- In the Focal Point picker, click on the part of the image you want to keep in view — the face of a person, the center of a building, etc.
- Save. The theme will apply this automatically wherever the image is used.
You do not need to update any shortcodes or page content after setting a focal point — the theme reads it automatically.