.: Web Design & Graphics
Category:Home / Internet / Web Design
Graphics are an important part of web design but require serious thought and planning.
Many websites I see suffer from the same problem. The graphics make the page look unattractive and cause the site to be ineffective because the all important message is difficult to focus on.
This article is aimed squarely at those adventurous souls that are about to design and produce their own website for the first time.
Before you start to design you site, ask yourself “What graphics do I really need”. Filling every spare inch of space with animations or flashing buttons is definitely not a good idea; your pages should look nice and clean.
When it comes to web design less is definitely more. Too many unnecessary graphics may slow down your load speeds. They will cause your page to be cluttered and confusing making it difficult to focus on your message. Isn’t your message the only reason you have a web site?
Now might be a good time to spend a few moments discussing how you get to see a web site when you visit one.
After you type the URL you are taken to the site you intended to visit. The first thing that will happen is that your computer will cache the page you have arrived at. It will cache every file on the page including the graphics files. The more files it has to cache and the larger they are the longer it will take to view the page. There are few things that can do a better job of turning an internet visitor off than slow loading pages. People may be patient in life but there is no such thing as a patient web surfer. Make them wait and they will vote with their feet. Always remember that not every one has a high speed internet connection so design for slower surfers.
There are a few basic things that you can do to help speed your page load times and also make your site more attractive and user friendly.
Think of a theme. If you intend to use a tiled graphic as a background with a blue side border and your logo, use it throughout your site. It will help make your visitors more comfortable as whichever page they visit will be visually similar enough that they will always know that they are still in your site. It’s surprisingly easy to click a button and end up in a strange site without realizing it. By using the same graphics over as much as possible it will speed your load times because once a graphic has been cached, it can be reused as needed without caching it again.
Optimize your photographs. When you take a photo with your digital camera the chances are that your picture file is between 100Kb and over 1Mb. There is usually no advantage to using even a 100Kb graphic on your page. If you want to show a large photo, place a small picture on your page with a link to the larger one that way your visitor will be able to choose whether they are interested enough to wait for a larger file to load. I usually try to reduce my graphic file sizes to about 10Kb maximum; it’s not as hard as it sounds. Just cropping your photo can have a drastic effect on your file size.
Remember:
• empty space is not always bad
• small files are fast files
• if you don’t need it, don’t use it
Article keywords: web, design, web design, graphics, graphic
Article Source: http://www.articles32.com
Steven Fraser is the founder and owner of www.stf-webdesigns.com - Affordable Web Design Solutions for small & medium sized businesses
.: New Web Design Articles
1). HTML Might Become Obsolete
Web designers are beginning to dump HTML in favor of more versatile web programming languages
2). Macromedia Dreamweaver: An Introduction
Getting started with your first web page can seem very daunting indeed. Macromedia Dreamweaver is the industry leader in web editors, but knowing where to start and what you need to know can be a little confusing at first.
3). Finding A Good Web Designer
Avoid the mistakes I made when I hired someone over the internet to design my web site
4). Top Tips for Getting Free Websites
There are millions of opportunities of earning money online, but for that you frequently need to have a web site and there are many people interested in how to build a web site online for free. So whether you want to build a free business web site or to build a Yahoo-like web site, you can be sure there are plenty of online guides, such as this, to take you step by step through the process.
5). Is Your Web Site Driving Away Visitors?
Much has been written about optimizing your web site for search engines, but less emphasis is placed on usability. Optimizing for usability and for search engines is not a contradiction.
6). Choosing a Web Designer
freelance web designers are rip-off artists
7). HTML Sitemaps Are Still Important
An html sitemap is one that humans and search engines both can read. Google sitemaps are important too, but they are specific to google and are read only by a search engine.
.: Top Web Design Articles
1). Advanced Joomla Templating (pt1) Using Module Class Suffix
an article from User Written Resources
1. duplicate the styles already used for the particular module, adding a suffix to each style name. this will definitely include some of the following;
1. .module {} 2. div.moduletable {} 3. div.moduletable h3 {} 4. table.moduletable {}/li> 5. table.moduletable th 6. table.moduletable td
and can include other styles used on the content in that section, such as;
1.
2). How To Make a MySpace Layout That Stand Out
If you are a MySpace user, you have learned what an easy to read and fun profile looks like. The only problem is, you may not know how to create or find out. Most of the time when you see an awful MySpace layout, it's because its sloppy, hard to read, or has annoying links you didn’t even see. That is because since MySpace has been growing so much, so have the layout sites.
3). Professional XOOPS theme design - What to look for
In general, prices for theme design work will range depending on a number of factors. If you don't mind the designer releasing the theme on their site for others to purchase, then you can expect anywhere from $20US to $50US for your theme. If the theme must be a one of a kind theme that only you use, you could expect to multipy the fee by at least 10x.
4). Adsense: The Smart Investment
Over the last 2 years, We have been building a Virtual Adsense Empire of over 500 websites and making some good money. We've also been building content sites for clients using the same system. The system we use is not something that produces 1000's of sites with a click of a button, our system does not build spam websites, nor does it produce the same sites you see over and over and over again.
5). Irish Graphic Design Industry
Graphic design is the use of color, light, balance, contrast, emphasis, proportion, proximity, repetition, texture and a plethora of other elements to create a work of digital art that is pleasing to the eye. Graphic design is about seamlessly molding image and text to convey a theme, message, or often advertise a product or service. Graphic design dates back to prehistoric times.
6). How to Create a Splash Page for Your Website?
These splash designs prove to be quite popular, especially among the designers as they allow the designer to show their skills in flash and any other technology on a single page. The splash page design involved in the splash page will be one that is very attractive to the eye of the viewer. Its main intention lies in captivating the viewer the moment he looks at it.
7). Does Your Web Design Include Background Music?
When you design your website, you may wonder whether or not you should include background music in your web design. The answer to this requires you to ask two additional questions: