Rule 4: Learn the methods of overlaying text on images

There are only a few ways of reliably and beautifully overlaying text on images. Here are four.

If you want to be a good UI designer, you’ll have to learn how to put text over images in an appealing way. This is something that every good UI designer does well and something every bad UI designer does piss-poorly— or just doesn’t do, in which case you’ll have a huge leg up after reading this section!

Method 0: Apply text directly to image

I hesitate to even include this, but it is technically possible to put text directly on an image and have it look OK.

Otter Surfboards. Hip and Instagrammy, but a bit difficult to read.

There are all sorts of problems and caveats with this method:

The image should be dark, and not have a lot of contrast-y edges The text has to be white— I dare you to find a counter-example that’s clean and simple. Seriously. Just one. Test it at every screen/window size to make sure it’s legible

Got all those? Great. Now never change the text or the image, and you should be good to go.

Method 1: Overlay the whole image

Perhaps the easiest method to put text on an image is to overlay the image. If the original image isn’t dark enough, you can overlay the whole thing with translucent black.

Here’s a trendy splash image with a dark overlay.

Upstart website has a 35% opacity black filter.

If you hop into dev tools and remove the overlay, you’ll see that the original image was too bright and had too much contrast for the text to be legible. But with a dark overlay, no problem!

This method also works great for thumbnails or small images.

Thumbnails from charity:water site

Method 2: Text-in-a-box

This is dead simple and very reliable. Whip up a mildly-transparent black rectangle and lather on some white text. If the overlay is opaque enough, you can have just about any image underneath and the text will still be totally legible.

Modern Honolulu iPhone Concept by Miguel Oliva Márquez

You can also throw in some color — but, as always, be judicious.

Now in pink. By Mark Conlan

Method 3: Blur the image

A surprisingly good way for making overlaid text legible is to blur part of the underlying image.

Copious blur overlays in Snapguide. Note the blurred areas are also darkened.

Blurring the background removes hard edges, meaning the edge-finding algorithms in our brain can latch onto the text.

You can also use the out-of-focus area of a photo as the blur. But beware— this method is not as dynamic. If your image ever changes, make sure the text is always over the blurry bits.

I mean, just try to read the subheader below.