Imagery

This page governs identity imagery – images that say something about who Aleris is. Images that exist to show someone how to do something are not covered by this document. See Instructional imagery at the end.

Why the images look the way they do

A patient opening a brochure from Aleris should recognise us before reading a single word. The images do that work. They communicate the Present Expert – calm, competence, human warmth – in an instant.

Aleris imagery rests on three choices:

Real environments. We show real clinics, real employees, real situations. Not studio-produced ideal images, not stock photos with generic smiles. What is shown should be credible enough that a patient who visits us recognises it.

Natural light and soft depth of field. The light is warm and directed – never flat flash, never harsh top light. Shallow depth of field directs the gaze to the person, not to the environment. Together they create a sense of presence rather than documentation.

The person at the centre. Images of equipment, premises, or processes serve as support – never as the main subject. The person the image is about should be the first thing the eye lands on.

Three image categories

Aleris images tell three different stories. The category determines what the image should communicate, not how it is produced.

The Aleris Group Image Guidelines sort images into five categories by how they are produced and governed: branding, operational, portraits, AI-generated, and operational glimpses (everyday photos for social media). This page sorts them into three by the story they tell. These are the same images described two ways. The Group guidelines are the governing source for production, rights, and consent. This page governs identity.

Life – why we do what we do

Images that show what care is aimed at: an active life, community, everyday moments that work. A person walking by the sea. A family playing. Someone cycling, climbing stairs, enjoying nature.

Life images show the result of care – not the care itself. They are warm, bright, and optimistic without becoming sentimental. They are about life, not about Aleris.

Use: Landing pages, campaigns, employer branding, annual reports, brand-building material. Situations where we tell the story of why we exist.

Care – what we do and how we do it

Images from our operations that show the Present Expert at work. A surgeon in the operating theatre. A physiotherapist guiding a patient. An ophthalmologist examining. A nurse meeting a patient at the door.

Care images are documentary in feel but careful in execution. They show competence and human contact in the same image. The environment is visible, but the person dominates.

Use: Specialty-area pages on the web, patient information, printed material describing what we offer, recruitment material.

Hygiene rule: Care images must follow the National Board of Health and Welfare's basic hygiene routines – even in staged images. Hands and forearms free of watches, jewellery, and the like. Short nails with no artificial material. Long hair tied up. The same applies to beards. An image that breaks hygiene rules undermines the very trust it is meant to build.

Portrait – who we are

Images of our employees – warm, natural, professional. The person is ideally depicted against a calm, neutral background in the work environment. Soft light and shallow depth of field create focus on the person.

Portraits show who the patient or partner meets. They should feel like the person looks in reality – not like an advertising version of themselves.

Use: Web profiles, patient information, recruitment, presentations, business cards.

Never AI-generated. Portraits of employees are always photographed. It's a question of credibility – someone seeking care should be able to trust that the person in the image is the one they meet.

Image choice and emotional mode

The same character applies in all images. But which image category leads depends on the recipient's emotional mode.

	Uncertainty – the patient before an assessment or procedure	Curiosity – the patient who actively chooses
Lead with	Care images: competence, human contact, the process visible	Life images: outcome, quality of life, "this is what it gives you"
Support with	Portrait: show who the patient meets – a real person	Care images: show that there is expertise behind the promise
Avoid	Life images as the main subject – they don't answer the uncertainty	Clinical images as the main subject – they create a worry that isn't there

This concerns structure (not style) and is relevant to how we choose to meet patients in different situations. A Life image as the hero on a page about a cardiac assessment risks communicating that we don't understand the patient's situation. A Care image as the hero on a page about a health check-up could signal that something is wrong.

See Reader State as a Design Entry Point for the full framework.

The table works from two of the three patient modes, uncertainty and curiosity, and applies to surfaces where an image leads. The third mode, balanced, describes someone partway through using a service – usually a surface they are working on – and the first question in the quick test below settles those before a category is chosen.

When the surface is someone's work

Some surfaces are where a person does their job. A clinician's dashboard, a scheduling view, an admin tool. The person is there because the task is their work, and the screen is judged by how well it lets them finish it.

On those surfaces the image steps back. Function leads, there is often no hero image at all, and decorative lifestyle images do not belong. Dressing a dashboard or an admin tool in lifestyle photography makes it neither more credible nor more like Aleris.

Whose time it is decides this. A reader's profession does not. A recruitment page is read by professionals and is not their work – it is ours, asking for their attention – so an image leads there as it would on any other page we write to be read. Material for referring physicians, for insurance partners, for industry peers: same. These are professional readers on surfaces meant to communicate, and they follow the ordinary rules at whatever register suits the reader.

A patient-facing surface can be a working surface. Most of a treatment app is one, measured by time spent. Someone logging a weekly weight is working through her own plan, and the screen has to let her finish. She is not a professional and it is not her employment, but the time is hers and it is spent on a task.

Such a surface is not held to restraint. It may carry images inside components that have their own job to do. It is held to the rule that follows.

The image never holds the hero position on a working surface. The top of the screen belongs to the task. An image may support, illustrate, or sit inside a component that needs one. It may not be the first thing the eye lands on when the person came to do something.

Constant and contextual

Constant – what always applies

Natural light, soft depth of field, the person at the centre. This is the visual signature. Remove it, and the images no longer look like Aleris.
Real environments and real people in patient and employee material. No stock photos with generic smiles, no AI-generated faces in external material.
Hygiene rules in clinical images. Always.
Three categories with clear roles. Life tells why. Care tells how. Portrait tells who.
Warmth without sentimentality. The image should inspire trust and calm, not emotion or drama.

AI-generated images follow the Group guidelines. The Aleris Group Image Guidelines already govern AI: images may be used symbolically and illustratively, but must never replace real people or environments in patient-facing content. When used externally they are labelled "illustration" or "AI-generated", and if an image could be mistaken for real, this must be clear from the caption or alt text. Portraits of employees are never AI-generated. For imagery the question is character. AI is allowed where the image makes no claim to show a real Aleris environment, a real patient, or a real outcome. When the image implies reality, it breaks the trust the whole page rests on.

Real images are the standard; the shared image bank is still an ambition. The standard holds: imagery is built on real environments and real people. What is still missing is the infrastructure that guarantees it. In Sweden, Mediaflow is the shared source. Norway and Denmark handle photos in their own ways. A shared set of images and more uniform guidelines is a future possibility. Until then the standard applies as a requirement on the images we use, and the shared image bank as a direction.

Contextual – what is adapted

Channel and format govern composition and image choice. A website has room for a hero image and supporting images in the flow. A poster has a single image that does the whole job. A patient brochure can mix Care and Life. An SMS has no image at all – and that's right.

Recipient governs register. Patient material leads with reassurance and human contact. Partner material can show more of the operations and the competence. Employer branding shows the work environment and culture – the employee at the centre.

Emotional mode governs which category leads. See the table above.

Country can mean differences in which environments and faces feel authentic. The images should reflect the reality the patient meets – a Norwegian clinic doesn't look exactly like a Swedish one, and it's right that the images differ.

Market variation. The Aleris Group Image Guidelines are the governing frame for image use across markets and fall under the VP of Communications. Within that frame, this page is concrete for Sweden. For Norway and Denmark we point toward a future state with a possible shared image set and clearer local guidelines. Some differences already exist: in Denmark, for example, written consent is required for all social media use.

What Aleris images are not

Not stock photos. Generic images with obviously arranged situations, white backgrounds, or smiles with no cause. They break the credibility promise.

Not clinically documentary. Images of equipment with no person, sterile corridors, data screens with graphs. They communicate institution, not the Present Expert.

Not sentimental. Close-ups of hands holding each other, tears in the eyes, dramatic sunsets behind the hospital building. Aleris shows care through competence and presence – not through maximising emotion.

Not lifestyle advertising. Life images should feel like everyday life, not like an ad campaign for the outdoors. The difference is subtle but important: we show an ordinary life that works, not an idealised version of life.

Instructional imagery

Some images exist to show a person how to do something: how to hold an injection pen, how to prepare for an examination, where a device sits against the skin. They are not telling anyone why we do what we do, how we do it, or who we are, so none of the three categories describes them, and the rules for identity do not cover them.

They also need the opposite of two of our three visual choices. An instruction needs even light, so nothing important sits in shadow, and enough depth of field that the hand and the object are both sharp. This runs against the visual signature described at the top of this page.

So this page does not govern them. Instructional images require a conversation with marketing and are judged on a case by case basis.

One thing the conversation is worth settling early: an instructional image is still seen by a patient, so it should not accidentally do identity work it was never designed for.

Quick test

Before you choose an image, in this order:

Is this surface someone's work? If it is, the image steps back and never leads. If it is not, keep going.
Which story does the surface need to tell – why, how, or who? That is the category: Life, Care, or Portrait.
What state is the reader in? That is which category leads, and what the others support. See Reader State as a Design Entry Point.

A fourth question is worth asking about any image, whatever the answers above: would a patient who visits us recognise what is shown? If not, the image is not credible enough, and no amount of correct category placement will fix that.

Three layers: identity, governance, implementation. This page is the identity: what the images mean, which three categories we have, and which one leads in which mode. The Aleris Group Image Guidelines are the governance: sources, rights, consent, storage (Mediaflow), and metadata. The technical implementation – formats, ratios, cropping, sizes, compression – lives in Baseline baseline/reference/aleris-baseline-images.md. One thing is still missing: a standalone asset specification – a commissioning checklist with criteria for what makes an image right at the moment it is shot. Where it lives is a later call; producing it is a piece of work still ahead.

Imagery communicates before a single letter is written. Natural light, real environments, and the person at the centre – in the right category, in the right context – are Aleris. Swapping them out for stock photos, sentimental gestures, or clinical documentation doesn't make the material more professional. It makes it less recognisable.