To make matters even more confusing, neither do PC nor Mac computers display images the same way. In short, images created on a Mac appear much darker on a PC, and images created on a PC appear much lighter on a Mac. Pixel size differences (72 pixels per inch on a Mac and 96 pixels per inch on a PC at 640×480) make font sizes vastly different.

So, there has got to be ways around these differences, right? What we’ll cover in this article are a couple of tips to make sure that your pages are displaying nicely regardless of the system or browser, and to help your pages download as quickly as possible no matter what they’re being viewed on.

Step One: Compress the Graphics

Before we do anything else, we have to make sure that our graphics have been optimized for the web. Most graphic programs have an option under file called “Save for Web”. Once you have created the graphic you need, made sure you like it exactly as it is, and are ready to upload it for your website take a minute to open this original, great graphic in your software and click this option.

When you click Save for Web, you should be able to preview the end result before actually saving. In Photoshop, you will be given this option and a “slider” that lets you move from maximum to low quality when saving as a JPEG. As you move between qualities, you will notice that the file size drops or increases. Look even closer and you will see a spot that shows approximately how much time it will take to download that graphic on various connection speeds.

The actual method for optimizing your graphics will vary according to the graphics software you are using. The end result is the same, you need to take a minute and create the highest-quality vs. lowest file size image that you can. The two main Internet graphic formats, JPEG and GIF, have some compression built in. There are major differences between the two formats, as we’ll see, and there are always ways of compressing that image down just a bit more to squeeze as much time out of it as you can.

JPEG - Is a loose compression method. In other words, to save space it just throws away parts of an image. The JPEG algorithm first divides the image into squares (you can see these squares on badly compressed JPEGs - commonly called “pixellating”). Then it uses a math equation called Discrete Cosine Transformation to turn the square of data into a set of curves that go together to make up the image. Depending on how much you want to compress the image the algorithm throws away the less significant part of the data (the smaller curves) which adds less to the overall “shape” of the image. This means that, unlike a GIF, you get a say in how much you want to compress an image by. However, the loose compression method can generate unwanted effects such as false color.

GIF - Stands for Graphics Interchange Format. It’s a loss-less method of compression. This means when the program that creates a GIF squashes the original image down, it takes care not to lose any data. It uses a simple substitution method of compression.  The maximum compression available with a GIF depends on the amount of repetition there is in an image. A flat color will compress well sometimes even down to one tenth of the original file size while a complex, non-repetitive image will fare worse, perhaps only saving 20% or so.

One problem with GIFs is that they are limited to a palette of 256 colors or less. Also, because you have no control on the compression amount, download speeds will greatly vary when using a GIF. Personally, I recommend using GIFs only when you need them for animation and relying on the flexibility of a JPEG for anything else.

ANTI-ALIASING - Anti-aliasing is a technique used to make curved edges appear smooth on a computer screen. It’s mostly used with large font lettering but can be used with graphics also. The effect is achieved by using intermediary colors at the borders, which obscure the hard edges. Anti-aliasing is a clever way of getting around the low resolution of computer screens and making your text appear as smooth as if they’d just come from a glossy magazine. When using text in a graphic or using a graphic to replace text always anti-alias the text. In Photoshop, you are given this option right in your toolbar - just tick the checkbox.

Step Two: Take a look or two

Since there is such a big difference between platforms and browsers, make sure that you “test-drive” your graphics - and layout in general, for that matter - before you decide that you’re “done”. Try to view your site in as many different browsers as you can get your hands on, and then take a look at it on a different platform - If you use a PC, see how the other half surfs on a Mac, and vice versa.

Another step you should take to help reduce download speeds on your page is to use the Height and Width tags on your images. WYSIWYG Editors will usually do this for you. If you do your html by hand, make sure that there is a height and width specified for every image on your page.

Finally, the more that you recycle the images you use throughout your site, the better the visitor’s experience will be. Once an image is in the browser cache, the browser will not download it again. This means that if you use the exact same navigation bar image for ten separate pages, the browser will only download it once.

The Bottom Line Choosing clip art that is well-designed, not too busy, and has a pleasant color palette helps make web pages or publications design look professional.

You can buy inexpensive clip art software at any office supply store these days. Lots of people are satisfied with this kind of clip art, the kind that advertises “10,000 Images” on the box.

But think of how many of those images may be too ugly to use, and how many more of those images are simply variations on a theme. When the final count is tallied, you might actually have 500 to 1,000 unique, attractive pictures.

There are plenty of variety and style in various Microsoft programs, such as Publisher. These programs have some beautiful illustrations that look like fine art, “retro” designs in sepia-tones from the 1940s and 1950s, funny cartoons, loads of symbols and dingbats that you can color or enhance, and still thousands of more images that can be accessed and downloaded on the Microsoft site.

Images to Avoid At All Costs

Being very sensitive to colors, preferably avoid lime green combined with red, bright blue and stark yellow, and illustrations that have a pixelized “coloring book” appearance. Any of those elements spell “cheap” to me.

Any clip art that choose for flyers, publications or web pages must come from the same family, or look as though they were created by the same artist. A hodge-podge of clip art always pinpoints a hack from a pro.

Even if you decide to use 50 images of bad clip art, it will look a hundred times better if it’s consistently bad and seems to be drawn by the same person. And good clip art looks much better when consistent. Don’t mix different styles, even if you can’t find exactly what you want in one family, and exactly what you want in another family. Keep in mind that not every point you want to make with a graphic needs to be associated with a graphic, less is more!

Try to See The Program and It’s Art Gallery Before Buying

Before you invest lots of money in clip art, ask friends what they have and if you can take a look at it. Browsing through the categories of images offered is fun, and you should be able to tell at a glance if you’re going to like the looks of the entire library.

Choose clip art packages that contain images, symbols, and stock photographs. Be sure the hairstyles and clothing of human characters is classic and up to date, but will continue to look good in a few years.

Some clip art packages are woefully outdated. If you’re looking for images of a modern spaceship, you might find 50 or 60 Sputnik-like drawings, circa 1960, and a few dozen little Martians peeking out of a glass-domed flying saucer. Unless that’s exactly what you’re looking for, you won’t be happy.

And there’s nothing worse than looking for a drawing of a woman to illustrate today’s working mother, only to find June Cleaver, complete with pearls, or Carol Brady with her darling little shag cut and a mock-neck sweater.

Be Sure Your Images Match Your Web Page Colors

One of the fastest way to spot a solid web business is by the graphics they use on the website. If I see garish colored animated GIF images of e-mail envelopes, globes, hands holding pens, mailboxes and little houses (to take you to the “home” page), I think “here today, gone tomorrow.” Especially if the images are overlaid on a hideous woodgrain or tile background that clashes.

Keep experimenting with the images and the background until you have an overall, eye pleasing color combination. Don’t cause your web page visitors to have vertigo.

And even if your clip art is free, keep in mind that this doesn’t mean you have to use lots of it! Use your clip art sparingly, and make sure it has a purpose.

Graphic Design carries on a numeral functions. It sorts, differentiates and distinguishes one company or organization or nation from another. It acts on our emotions and helps to shape how we feel about the world around us. Just Imagine! If Graphic Design was banned, what would have happened? There would be no written words, no newspapers, no magazines, no internet, and no science books to speak of and so on.

Fortunately, it does exist in our routine life as Morning Newspaper, on our commute to work and of course on the cover of books. It encompasses with logos, websites, business cards, advertisements, book design, brochures, product packaging, posters, magazine layout, newspaper layout and greetings cards.

Graphic Design is inconsequential, ultimately decorative; a question merely of picking one typeface or color rather than another would work just as well. Graphic Design performs a number of functions like arranging visual elements such as typography, images, symbols and colors to convey message globally in particular. Sometimes it is also called visual communications with a collaborative discipline comprises with writers produce words, photographers and illustrators which create images that the designer incorporates into a complete visual message.

Although graphic design has been practiced in various forms throughout history, it emerged as an explicit profession during the job-specialization development that occurred in the late 19th century. Its evolution has been closely bound to developments in image making, typography, and reproduction processes.

Many companies think that it’s not important for them to have a website. The questions that rise are: Why do we need a website? Why do we need to pay for a website when there are no profits gained? But all wrong! No matter what the size of your Company a professionally designed website can both bolster and in many cases help describe or develop the Company’s corporate image.  Having a professional website is the best way to:

1. Improved the Corporate Image
2. Improved the Customer Confidence
3. Increased Sales Margins

Improved Customer Confidence

Nowadays, when a consumer is searching for a new product or service, they tend to use both traditional like: newspapers, adverts, yellow pages, telephone etc and newer are web and email methods in the search. Even though the majority of prospective customers of small businesses will still use the customary methods, for finding a suitable company, many will then progress to look at the Company’s website to investigate whether their needs will be fulfilled, whether the price is right, and perhaps more importantly, whether they like to look of the company. By combining both traditional and newer methods, your Company can exploit these tendencies, and given a well designed website, provide the prospective customer with the right signals to turn them into a paying customer, and with the right website into a standard customer of your Company.

Increased Sales…The Company will be able to increase the conversion ratio, of prospective customers, into paying and repeat customers. A well designed website, is not only a pretty face for the Company, it is an essential part of the success and future of the Company in the 21st Century.

How do Arkis Data Ltd design and develop a website?

If you ask Arkis Data Ltd to design and develop a website for your Company, we will begin by gathering information from you. The more information you can provide the better the resultant website. This will ideally include information such as letterheads, sales brochures, business cards, and any other materials that help define the nature of your business.

Once we have this material, our designers will input all relevant information into various computer systems, and pull them together to produce a website visual. This will simply be a graphic that shows the proposed design of your Company’s new website, which will enable you to verify whether or not the proposed design suites you and your Company.

If approved, our developers will then take this design, together with textual information which will be incorporated into the website and build a test system. Once complete, this will enable you to see what the website looks like on a web browser, and whether all the content and visuals are to your liking. If again you are satisfied with the test system, we will purchase for you, a domain name (www.YourCompany.co.uk or www.YourCompany.com) which you will choose, then to complete the process the test site will be placed on a live server, and linked to your new domain name. Your new website is now live!

Nevertheless, at this stage it is not a simple matter for people to find your Company’s new website. To facilitate this we will submit your new website to a large number of search engines and web directory like “http://www.google.com”, which will help people searching the net find your new site. There is a time lag between, submitting a new site and the site appearing on the search engine. This lag can be anything between a few weeks and several months.

To increase the chances of your site being viewed by the most people possible, at the earliest possible opportunity we offer to include a Links page on your site. This page can both include links to other sites of your choosing, but more importantly will include links to other sites Arkis Data Ltd has developed. The benefit to your Company comes in that when we list sites on your Links page, we will also list your site on the Links page of the other sites we have developed.

This will enable the company to get visitors directly from other websites that we have developed, and more importantly, links pointing to your website will greatly help the chances of your website being listed both quickly and getting high rankings on the majority of search engines.

Final Touches

To conclude, it is up to the Company to help itself. It is significant that once the Company’s website is up and running, a responsible one should spend a little time in promoting the website. For instance, adding the web address to all letterheads, business cards, brochures, advertisements, signs, vehicle livery, and anywhere the Company’s name is likely to be seen.