Designing graphics for mobile sites
 |
| Graphic Design |
With the broad
range of mobile devices available in the market, designing effective graphics
for mobile sites is an in-demand career option. Organisations are looking for
graphic designers who understand the dynamics of mobiles & tablets, and can
design graphics &
images as per their screen size. We give you the top five tips to create
effective images that will look great on all the mobile phone & tablet
formats available out there.
Design for various resolutions
Mobile & tablet
resolution is smaller than a PC or a laptop. In fact, every mobile & tablet
comes with its independent resolution depending on the number of features that
it offers/supports. Therefore, a graphic designer needs to create images to
suit different devices in the market. Since it is very difficult to dictate the
platform from which a user may visit your website, it is advisable to create graphics
that would adjust to all screen resolutions.
Keep your files small
When you design
for mobile devices, be sure to remember that not everyone has a 3G connection.
The images used on the pages must be small in size in order to avoid delay in load
time. Also, it is important to remember that web browsers of mobiles & tablets
have smaller cache sizes. Thus, it is better to avoid multiple images of more
than one megabyte on your pages.
Use .png as your preferred
file format
The image file
format that you choose determines how usable your images could be on selected
platforms. Instead of .gif or, the more popular, .jpeg use the .png file format
to get that extra colour depth. It is a fully lossless file format with
variable transparency. It comes with up to 254 levels of partially transparent
pixels that allow users to take complete advantage of alpha transparency.
Optimise your
colours
Smartphones are
very different when it comes to colour support. A phone that has 65,000 colours
will display quite a different image than the one that can be seen in a
smartphone that offers 16 million colours. A graphic designer needs to make sure
that the colours used are commonly available on all mobiles & tablets.
Use relative
pixel sizes
If you are going
to allow devices with different screen resolutions to access your website, you
are going to have to forget defining dimensions in absolute pixels. For
instance, if you set a width of 300 pixels, that would take up more than the
entire screen on certain devices. Rather than setting up absolute sizes, it is advisable
to set up relative sizes. This can be done using percentages instead of
absolute numbers in the image size boxes.
With mobiles
& tablets becoming common platforms for internet browsing, you can earn
high salary packages as a graphic designer. The right training can prepare you to
build a successful career as a graphic designer.
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