# Team lead portrait

> One person opens the section: a tall 2:3 portrait beside their name one rung under the section heading and two lines about them, with three colleagues held in a hairline strip beneath. The weight is deliberate, so the page is about a founder rather than about a row. Example portraits are included, generated and nobody real; replace them with photographs of your own people. States no colour and no font of its own.

Canonical: https://patternpaste.com/pattern/team-lead-portrait.html
Section: Team
Access: Included in Pattern Paste access.
Needs: Requires a block theme on WordPress 6.7 to 7.0. Classic themes and page builders are outside our supported setup. Adaptive patterns use the block theme’s colour, spacing and typography presets; styled variations declare their own colours or type.
Blocks: column, columns, group, heading, image, paragraph
Keywords: team, people, portraits, founder, staff, about

Promise: Identical markup in every theme.

---

## The signature moment: the section is allowed to rank somebody

Most team sections are egalitarian by construction: one grid, one frame size,
one type size, everybody the same. That is a decision, and it is often the
wrong one. A practice with a name over the door reads as evasive when the
person whose name it is arrives fourth in a row of six.

So this one puts the weight where the page actually puts it. The lead's frame
is one tall picture next to a column of type; the name is set one rung under
the section heading, which is the largest any person's name gets in this
catalogue; and two sentences say something that could only be said about them.
Everything below is the ordinary strip: three equal frames, three names, three
tracked roles, held between one hairline above and one below.

The rank is carried by proportion, not by decoration. Take the colour away,
take the typeface away, and the composition still says who the studio is built
around, because the only thing doing the saying is how much room each person
gets. The rules are `currentColor`, so they follow the theme's text colour
wherever it lands, including a dark style variation, and cannot resolve to
nothing.

## What it inherits from your theme

- **Typeface.** The pattern states no font family. The lead's name, the three
  names, the tracked roles and the lede all arrive in your serif or your sans.
- **Palette.** The ground is your `base` and every piece of text is your
  `contrast`, both as fallback chains ending on a colour WordPress itself
  guarantees. There is no third colour in the section.
- **Spacing scale.** Section padding, the gap between the lead and the strip,
  the gutters between people and the air inside the band are core spacing
  presets, so the density moves with your theme's rhythm.
- **The rules.** Both hairlines are `currentColor`, never a colour we chose.

## What it decides for itself

- **The 38/62 split, and that it collapses in that order.** The portrait column
  is 38% and the copy column 62%. Below 782px core stacks them, so the picture
  arrives first and the name follows it, which is the reading order the section
  was built for.
- **The lead's name is a ladder heading, not display type.** It takes the
  `x-large` rung as a chain with a tuned `clamp()` behind it, one step under the
  section's `xx-large` h2. A name set as display type would outrank the section
  it sits in, and a team section is not a hero.
- **The crop, and it is the same crop for everybody.** Every frame is
  `aspectRatio: 2/3` with `scale: cover`, the lead's included, so the one large
  picture and the three small ones are the same photograph shape at two sizes
  rather than two different ideas.
- **The frames include example portraits, generated and nobody real.** Their
  public image URLs travel with the copied pattern. Choose Replace to select
  photographs of your own people, keeping the crop and layout already set.
- **Type never sits on a photograph.** Names, roles and the two lines of copy
  are beside or below the frames, on the section's own ground. A portrait's
  luminance is as unknowable as an accent's, because the buyer chooses the
  image.
- **Three across in the strip, guaranteed rather than reasoned about.** The
  strip is a `core/columns` of three, not a wrapping flex row. Core gives a
  column `flex-grow:1; flex-basis:0; min-width:0`, so three never wrap above
  782px and core stacks them one per line below it.
- **Scale collision at the bottom of each small frame.** The name is at reading
  size with slightly tight tracking; the role directly under it is small, bold,
  uppercase and tracked wide. The two lines are deliberately unlike each other,
  which is where a colourless design gets its designed feeling.
- **No links.** Nothing in the section is tappable. An inline link's height
  comes from the font's em box, which a pattern stating no font cannot raise to
  a 44px target, so that is the buyer's decision to make with their own type.

## What you change first

1. **Who opens it.** The lead is whoever the page is about, which is not
   automatically the most senior person. A head of practice opening a services
   page is a better section than a founder opening it out of habit.
2. **The two lines.** They are the only place in the team section where anybody
   gets a voice. Say something specific enough that it could not be said about
   the other three.
3. **The three below.** The strip is a `core/columns` of three. Copy a column
   for a fourth, delete one for a pair, and step the name size down a notch if
   you go to four, because four columns at 820px leave roughly 175px each.
4. **The pictures.** Point every frame at your media library. They do not have
   to be shot to 2:3; the crop is applied for you. They do have to be shot in
   roughly the same light, because the strip puts three of them side by side
   with nothing between them to excuse a mismatch.

## Included images

The copied markup includes example portraits, generated and nobody real. The
public image URLs keep the examples visible after pasting. Select an image or
cover and choose **Replace** to use photographs of your own people. See
[image credits](/image-credits/) for the sources. Pasting an image URL does not
import a Media Library attachment.
