Building a Visual Identity

February 18th, 2026

What looks like an ordinary checkerboard image with a tree can actually be so much more. My header image for my website The Fitness Room was designed in a way that I could show both strength and balance. I utilized a transparent technique on the dumbells to emphasize the tree icon. While it is easy to see the correlation between dumbbells and fitness, it is not as easy with a tree. This is a technique that can be employed when making a header image. Hodges elaborates on this more by explaining how a multi-layer image "creates a more specific site identity for your project than simply using a single image."(Hodges 1). Using a straightforward image that is larger, with a smaller or multiple smaller images that have a deeper meaning, is the key to showing a unique site and making a good first impression for users. The dumbbells are supposed to represent the stereotypical fitness ideal, whereas the tree is supposed to represent an individual growth that occurs within a person in their fitness journey. By combining strength imagery with a softer symbol of growth, the header communicates that this site provides approachable, sustainable fitness guidance.

I found my source images through sites that provide Creative Commons licensed content. The tree illustration was uploaded by an anonymous user with the alias dzbiro, and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license, and the dumbbell photograph was taken by Garen Meguerian and shared via Flickr under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license. Both licenses explicitly allow for reuse and modification for non-commercial educational purposes as long as credit is provided through attribution. The purpose of this website is to provide free information to those based on my personal experiences, therefore satisfying the Noncommercial restriction.

For my production process I utilized the software Pixlr, to create a multi-layer image. Manovich's description of layers, where he says "From the point of view of media theory, however, the Layers feature is much more than that . It redefines both how images are created and what an “image” actually means. What used to be an indivisible whole becomes a composite of separate parts."(Manovich 10).  I used these words in consideration when editing my images. Specifically, when I wanted to put more emphasis on the tree icon. Although it was supposed to a smaller image with a deeper meaning, I still wanted it to stand out in some way. Ironically, the way I did this was by editing the larger "dumbbells" picture, and making it more transparent via the opacity scale, in turn emphasizing the tree.

According to Davison  "A bitmap is a two-dimensional presentation of the bits in a computer’s memory. These bits could either be ‘on’ or ‘off’ and when these states were "(Davison 5). In turn, this varies significantly from the chosen multi-layer image I used for my header. A bitmap is a fixed grid of pixels that have permanent changes that alter the image data, whereas the multi-layer approach allows for nondestructive editing. At the end of the day, however, both images still convert into a single pixelated image that can be viewed on a screen. The key difference between the two lies in production workflow.

Header Image Sources: 

"Tree” by dzbiro from PNGimg (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International). The image is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0, which permits reuse and modification for non-commercial educational purposes. 

“Dumbells” by Garen Meguerian from Flickr (Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic). The image is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic, which permits reuse and modification for non-commercial educational purposes, provided that proper credit is given to the creator.