The advantage of establishing our page width in percentage terms, as 100%, is that page will adjust itself to resolution of screen. This is called a "liquid page design" (although I like to call it a "bubble-gum page design", since page looks as if it has been stretched horizontally when viewed at higher resolutions than intended). The main benefit of this method is that all available screen real estate will be utilized. The disadvantage is that layout of your page will change, and users may find it uncomfortable to read extremely wide sentences that will result when higher resolutions are used.

If you decide follow our advice to optimize your page for 800x600, and then decide to follow fixed-width page method, you must take into account that not all 800 pixels will be available (some of them will be used by browser to display scrollbar and other "browser chrome"). To accommodate most browsers and platforms, specify your page width at a maximum of 750 pixels.

If you decide to specify your page at 100% width, you won't have that problem, since it will adjust automatically to available width. Just make sure that your page looks best at 800x600, and that layout doesn't change much when you view your page at 1024x768.

* JPG files can be easily compressed by increasing loss percentage - just check that you are retaining enough image quality though. * Reduce number of colours in a GIF image to make it smaller. * Save photographs as JPG files and clip art type graphics as GIFs. * Decrease actual pixel size of your image. Although you may have high resolution on your computer monitor, your site visitor may not. Consider keeping your high quality image under 800 x 600 pixels.

2. What About Animated Graphics? With popularity of Flash movies, animation file sizes can be huge and a person with a slow modem may never get to see your masterpiece.

Simple graphic animations can be optimised in a similar way that static GIF's can. Reduce number of colours, remove redundant pixels and keep them simple! Look around at other sites for ideas for effective GIF animations if you have trouble keeping your own creative genius under control.

Flash graphics are a topic on their own, but they do require user has a plug-in so they are able to see your creation. Some people will not get plug-in, just so they can see your creation, so it may be wise to consider putting your most important content into another format.

3. Creating Backgrounds And Fonts

If you have a favourite, but obscure font you want to use on your web site, then you should use it in a graphic. However, it needs to be kept simple (there's that word again!). It really needs to be readable, so consider font size and effects you will use on it.

Don't create garish font/background combinations. Dark purple font on a navy background cannot easily be seen, and red on blue is difficult for many to read too. For more information about font design errors, send a blank e-mail to mailto:wdm-fonts@brealweb.com

So when you're making your next graphic masterpieces for your web site, remember these suggestions, and your site will be pleasing to your visitors.