Where the boring requirements stop being optional

For an individual portrait, the conventions are advice. The moment there is more than one person, they become a specification.

Why

A mixed page reads as an organisation that does not coordinate. Nobody chose to send that message, which is exactly why it stings when someone points it out.

What a coherent set requires

Same crop, same background, same colour temperature across faces that differ in hair colour, height and colouring. Chosen once, at the value that works across the widest range.

And here is the counter-intuitive part: optimising each headshot individually produces a worse page. The individually best background for each person, applied forty times, is what creates the patchwork.

The three lines that prevent it

Background colour, crop ratio, whether people look at the camera. Written down once.

Most companies never write them, and that omission — not budget, not vendor choice — is why the page drifts back into four styles within two years.