6 Ways to Use Black and White Photography in Your Designs

Color is a critical aspect of any design or work of art. In both design and photography, one option is to work in black and white.

As a designer, the photos that you use within your designs will have a significant impact on the end result, regardless of whether you’re designing a website, email, poster, or making graphics for social media. The same design can look drastically different depending on your choice of photos.

There are several specific ways that you can use black and white photos within your designs, and we’ll discuss six of them in this article.

Throughout the article, you’ll see examples of beautiful black and white photos. All of these photos are available here at Vecteezy. If you see a photo that you like, click on the image and you’ll be led to the page where you can get access or view more details. The Vecteezy team has curated a collection of outstanding black and white photos if you’re interested in seeing even more.

1. Achieve or Maintain a Minimalist Look

If your goal is to create a simple or minimal design, you may want to consider using black and white photos. Of course, it’s possible to create a beautiful minimalist design with color, but monochrome photos may help you keep a consistently minimal theme. Sometimes using photos with a lot of colors can work against the theme of minimalism within a design.

Grayscale interior staircase by pppsdavid749737

2. Design for Elegance

Black and white photos can be an excellent choice when you are designing for elegance or sophistication. For both design and photography, the use of a black and white color scheme can help to create a classic and timeless feel.

If you are using a black and white color scheme with your design in order to achieve elegance, it makes sense that you would use black and white photos instead of color photos. But even if you’re incorporating some color into the design, going with black and white photos can still help with that elegant look.

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Portrait of fashion model closeup black and white by federicomarsicano

3. Add Contrast

One of the reasons why black and white work so well together is because of the contrast. The high degree of contrast tends to result in very interesting photos, and incorporating more black and white into the design can help to increase or improve the contrast within the design.

Black and White Rose by shotbychris

4. Complement Your Existing Design

The photos that are used within your designs should complement the design, not overpower it. Photos with strong colors can at times take over and dominate the design rather than adding to it. If you want to use photos in a way that subtly adds to the design, you may want to consider the use of black and white photos.

There may be times when you pick a color photo to use with one of your designs but the photo and the color scheme of your design simply don’t work well together. Black and white photos can be used regardless of the color scheme of your design.

Black and White Wheat Field by kswinicki

The flyer design below is a good example of a black and white photo being used in a way that complements the design. It looks great with the orange, white, and black color scheme.

Brochure, poster, flyer, pamphlet, magazine, cover design with space for photo by
sagar.vora.29

5. Make the Photo Stand Out

When they’re surrounded by a design that involves color, it’s possible that black and white photos can actually stand out more than color photos. It’s harder for the photo to stand out when there is too much color, so sometimes going black and white can help in this way.

Black & white image of Cruz de Tejeda, Canary Islands, Spain by emregologlu

The brochure below includes black and white photos that stand out next to the colors of the design.

Brochure Template Vector Design by bayusantberth.eezy

6. Draw Attention to Certain Elements Within Your Design

Black and white photos can work very well in designs that only use a splash or a pop of color. If the design is mostly monochromatic aside from one accent color, whatever element is in the accent color will really stand out.

This can be very effective in web design and user interface design, allowing you to have a great deal of control over the elements in the design that stand out.

Black and white portrait by dragonimages

In the image below, the yellow text really stands out on top of the black and white photo.

Created using Grayscale photo of wet leaf by kedelina5117941

While most of the photos that you use within your designs will probably be in color, there are some situations where black and white photos can be extremely effective. Be sure to check out our curated collection of beautiful black and white photos and you’ll find plenty of options for use in your own projects. You can also see a small selection of those photos below.