Having a website in today's time is one of the most basic things that can help elevate your business to the next level. Your business can and will benefit from having an online home - one where you can lay down your products or services for potential customers. One where your target audience can easily see what your business is all about. In short, a website helps you communicate and connect with your target audience. With this fact, it should come as no surprise that website graphics are, therefore, one of the most critical steps in creating your website. Web graphics are the key to making your website beautiful and effective. In this article, we will be talking all about that. And how you can have the best graphics for your website.
Graphic Design for Website
As we mentioned above, website graphics bring beauty to your website. It also helps improve the effectiveness of your website in communicating the message your business wants to convey. Your web graphics help brings the spark to your text. It allows your target audience to understand what you are trying to say more easily. Thus, effective website graphics not only comes in the aesthetics of the graphic design for websites. It is also about the appropriateness and relevance of these web graphics. When creating your web graphics for your website, you do not just put excellent and beautiful pictures on random. You still have to properly discern if these web graphics truly help you say what you need to say. After all, the graphics for your website are not only meant to be the design of your website. It also acts as a visual cue. And as you may already know, visual cues are essential in whatever endeavor you have planned or done. People respond best when they like and understand what they see. Hence, the need for compelling website graphics.
Things to Consider in Designing Effective Website Graphics
In this article, we want to focus your attention more on the things that you need to consider when creating web graphics carefully. Understanding these things will help you establish your style and technique without sacrificing the effectiveness of your website graphics.
1. Right File Format
Image taken from Strikingly Product
When discussing graphics for your website, you will always stumble upon the ".jpg vs .png" argument. And while their difference is something you truly have to understand, it is also important to remember that many other file formats are available for your website graphics. But remember that these two, plus the .gif format, are the best used on websites. You have to think about the right file formats you will use for web graphics because it will ensure that not only do they appear on your published site, but they are of the same quality you intended. Strikingly is a website builder that allows you to upload images in various file formats easily.
2. Purpose
While it may be common sense, we must mention that creating website graphics requires you to understand first the purpose of each of these web graphics. That is, in the process of creating effective website graphics, you have to ask yourself how exactly they would help your website and your business. The decisions in the graphic design of a website should depend on your goals. The web graphics you create should answer to and help the achievement of the goals you set. It should serve a specific purpose. This will not only help your website in the end, but it will also help you brainstorm and think of ideas for your website graphics.
3. Position
Image taken from Strikingly Product.
Your website graphics, no matter how beautiful or aesthetically pleasing to the eyes, won't be effective if you do not place them in their appropriate position. You should not just place your web graphics in random order; part of having effective website graphics is designing them in a way that best suits your website and your other elements. Not only should they be positioned based on the overall visual design of your website, but the flow of the web graphics should also be considered. Strikingly is a website builder that allows you to display your web graphics in different styles and layouts.
4. Resolution and Size
When talking about resolution, we are talking about the quality of the form of website graphics. Usually, the size of your web graphics truly affects its resolution. That is, when the resolution of the web graphics you created or acquired is not that high, it might become blurry when placed on your website or positioned somewhere that forces it to be big and occupy a big space. Thus, you need to understand their relationship for you to create and design effective website graphics. You wouldn't want good web graphics and images to go to waste just because you failed to consider these things.
5. Text Partners
Image taken from Strikingly Product
Part of the positioning you would do for your website graphics is knowing where to put it following the text sentences and paragraphs on your website. While there may be some website graphics that don't require texts or captions or that can and should stand on their own, a majority of the website graphics that you are creating have the purpose of being good counterparts to the texts you have written. They should help in making sure that what you are saying can be more easily grasped and understood by your target audience. It is vital for your website's text and graphics to go hand-in-hand, not only in its message but also in its positioning. Strikingly helps you by providing layouts and options for positioning your web graphics with your text.
6. Quality and Focus
In creating your website graphics, you must remember that photography principles and photo editing techniques must be used and considered. That is, you have to know and understand that certain factors and elements are vital in graphics for your website and in general. There are principles and tricks in photography that help you come up with more effective website graphics because it amplifies the subject and elements of your web graphics. Knowing a few tricks and techniques about photo editing software also helps enhance the quality and focus of your website graphics. The quality and focus we are mentioning here speak not only regarding the physical or technical aspects of your website graphics but also the overall subject matter.
7. SEO-worthy
Image taken from Strikingly Product
No matter how beautiful, high-quality, and/or appropriate your website graphics are, it will not be truly effective website graphics if you do not optimize it for search engines. Now, if this is the first time you hear about optimizing your web graphics for search engines, fear not because this optimization is much less complicated than other SEO techniques. Your website graphics can be easily optimized by you naming or describing them. That is, adding an alt-tag to the web graphics of your website helps them to be picked up and recognized by different search engines. This helps your website and content be ranked more easily in search results. Strikingly has made this even easier. It simply allows you to add your alt text by clicking on the website graphics you have already created and added to your site editor.
8. Originality
While there are a lot of generic and stock photos that you can use and download for free on various sites online, your website and your web graphics would stand out better if you use original photos. Because in the long run, you will not be combating different websites that have originality locked up, but you will also risk your web graphics taken down because of plagiarism and ownership issues - which you wouldn't want. Thus, it will always be better to make your graphics for your website as much as possible. After all, with today’s technology, you can easily create a make-shift studio in your own home and create your website graphics from scratch.
9. Icons, Illustrations and Photos
Image taken from Strikingly Product
This item reminds you that your website graphics do not and should not only pertain to photographs. In general, website graphics refers to any visual cues, symbols, or representations on your website. Therefore, there are many different types of web graphics for your website. And one of the most basic things you need to learn in web graphics for beginners is what these different types are. There are icons, GIFs, illustrations, sketches, color schemes, logos, etc. It would benefit you to learn when, where, how, and why you should use a specific type to have effective website graphics.
There is a lot of information you can find online about web graphics for beginners. All of which will tell you exactly how you can create a graphic design for websites, whether it is yours or not. After all, creating and designing website graphics can be a promising and profitable career. No matter what path you decide, we hope this article has helped you understand the different elements that go into graphic design for websites. Website graphics, after all, take a lot of effort and time but are worth it in the end.
Have a partner in all these graphic design and web graphics creations with Strikingly, and let us assist you in bringing your creative genius to life!
