Make sure the contrast is acceptable ( test foreground and background color values here: contrastchecker.com ). If you have control over both the text and hero image it's a matter of composition.

• If you don't know what hero image or text is going to be shown ( for instance when they're user defined ), you can improve contrast by adding a dark or bright overlay.

• You can add the overlay on top of the entire image, or add a background color to the text element.

• For FilePond I've opted for a gradient overlay, to make this look better than the default gradient overlay it's best to use an easing method. I'm using <canvas> so have to do the blending with JavaScript.
  twitter.com/rikschennink/stat…

• If you're using CSS you can use finely tuned linear gradients ( do note that these might impact performance ).
  larsenwork.com/easing-gradien…

For more info, read this article on CSS-tricks: css-tricks.com/design-conside…

Great, thank you!

I think you should look into Tachyons and have fun. There are very elegant solutions to your problem in the gallery: tachyons.io/gallery/