Cool cucumber, weathered wood, crocheted doily—apparently these are the makings of the perfect Pinterest picture, according to a year’s worth of research provided to Wired by data-crunching startup Curalate.
The picture is from the Paula Deen recipe for “Aunt Peggy’s Cucumber, Tomato, and Onion Salad.” It’s been repinned 307,000 times, liked 800 times, and commented on 300 times. So what makes it so perfect?
After studying this and half a million other pics, Curulate has find some criteria that makes for popular Pinterest pics:
No faces
Not much background, but just enough to give context
Lots of color
Especially the color red
Moderate light and color, rather than extreme light or dark
Portrait orientation with an aspect ratio in the ballpark of 2:3 and 4:5
So next time you’re adding a recipe or a project idea to Pinterest, it might be worth it to consider some of these characteristics. Who knows! Your mother’s famous pasta salad might end up Pinterest famous. [Wired]
