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Web Graphic Design

Designers who create web graphics and website layouts face unusual challenges. Not only do their clients and company expect innovative and aesthetically pleasing websites, the end users of the site should be able to quickly understand and utilize all of a site's functions with little or no instruction.

Sometimes, the conflict between a company's needs and the requirements of an audience plays out on a web designer's sketch pad. Use these four rules of thumb when you design web pages for yourself or for a client.

First, understand the most important actions your audience will take once they reach the site, and make those actions very prominent from the first screen that a viewer sees. For example, if your client wants their customers to sign up for a newsletter, make that signup box leap out from the page through creative use of color and layout. You may need to convince your client to shift their four page "letter from the C.E.O." from the front of the page to somewhere deeper in the site. When they see the results, they'll be glad you fought for a stronger web design.

Second, remember that your audience views your graphic design on a monitor, not on paper. You may have experience designing superb print pieces that feature subtle shifts in color and contrast. Such understated graphic design may look great on a mail piece, but web viewers will find it difficult to read and enjoy. Instead, rely on high contrast color palettes, like light text on a dark background, or vice versa.

Third, test your web design on multiple web browsers. With Internet Explorer, FireFox, Opera and others battling for supremacy on your viewer's desktop, you should develop a site that looks great regardless of the browser platform. Not only will you increase your viewer's satisfaction, but you'll insure yourself from having to redesign the site for future browser versions, since any new software will render your web design the way you intended.

Finally, get creative with the images you use in your web design. Research indicates that e-commerce sites that use pictures of people consistently throughout their design perform two to three times better than text-only sites. Be sure to optimize your images so they load quickly, even on older machines using dial-up connections.

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