Bring the Web Graphics Designer Out In Yourself

I personally learned website graphics design by looking at people's sites and trying to emulate what they were creating. It worked, but it took me years to learn probably what I could have learned in a couple days using a video course such as the one shown here.

Most Website Graphics Internet Marketers need to know these skills quickly in order to start making a couple bucks, so the course pretty well can pay for itself in a very short time.

One of the best things about this course is it teaches you how to use a free graphics tool (GIMP) instead of having to buy a $299 copy of software.

Anyway, check out Mel's sales page and give it a buy if you think it interests you. It is only $27 for like 23 Videos!


Mel Bryans's Graphic Design Masterclass
The secret to creating outstanding graphics for your products.


CLICK (and save about a billion hours of learning)

Website Layout - Using Tables to Control How a Visitor Views Your Site

Some website graphics designers want to splash graphics and text the entire screen width. I just hate it. White space defines more of a website then actual graphics headers and streams of text.

Only 1% of my website visitors has a screen resolution set below 1024 pixels wide. (by the way, Google Analytics is free tool you can use to track tons of data about your visitors).

This is why I always use a main table with no borders to control how people can view my web pages. In other words, I never use a percentage of the window because this is an unknown.

I usually set it to around 800 to 1000 pixels wide. People do not want to read a long sentence without a wrap around. I mean, just look at this blog. Can you imagine a sentence that is 25 words wide! It's just uninviting.

This way I know exactly how everyone is going to view my web page and the graphics on it.

See one of my sites as an example. It has a main table set to 750px.

Control those views :-)

Website Fonts

Most used fonts in website graphics, website design or web graphics in general:

Impact: Headlines, Logos
Arial or Verdana: Body of Text, Figures Explained:
Times New Roman or Garmond: Make It Look Like a Professional Book
Cool Handwriting Fonts: Hand of Sean or Just Act Casual from Dafont are awesome.

Myriad Pro Semibold: Apples Website Font. I use on graphics. Don't use on your website text though as most people will not have it installed on their system.

Obama or Clinton Font: Gotham (this free one is similar)

You can get some of these fonts Free from http://www.dafont.com/ or you can buy others from here or from Linotype.

When in doubt, I use Arial because it is easy to read and consistent.

Do not use too many fonts on a give page. Try to limit it to two, three if you know what you are doing. Remember, just as sometimes one word can replace 5, one font can replace 5 also.

Using Premade Web Graphics

Sometimes I just don't have the time to create eye-popping graphics to use on my own sales pages and just want to grab a few really cool, modern graphics. It saves having to scour the web for graphics, then emulating what I found in fireworks or photoshop.

In this case I grab a few from this product: Web 2.0 Graphics

It has like a Bigillion Buttons, Medallions, Add To Cart, Download Buttons and other cool graphics for only $29 bucks and change. At rates of up to $100/hr I charge clients, I am saving the cost of this web 2.0 graphics package in less than 20 minutes.

They are all web 2.0 style graphics that will grab your visitor's attention and hold it.

I mean look at how cool this one looks:Or this one:So anyway, quickly modernize your site. Swing over to Drew Castle's site and download a copy of his Web 2.0 graphics package.

Website Graphics Formats Explained

GIF - Graphics Image Format or Graphics Interchange Format. Bitmap graphic format. Used if you want to reduce the image file size by reducing colors. I also use if I need an exact color to match with something else instead of using a JPG.

PNG - Portable Network Graphics. Fireworks native format. Another Bitmap graphic format. I am using PNG almost always not for website graphics and web graphics in general.

ANIMATED GIF - A GIF file that can be used for a very limited animation.

JPG or JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group, Image that is compressed. I use only for photos. I used to use for text graphics and general website graphics or web graphics but changed to PNG for a more controlled image (especially with dreamweaver).

BMP: Bitmap Uncompressed - Too big to use for website graphics. Loads too slow. Old school. MS Paint native format.

Website Graphics Software I Use To Make Cool Custom Graphics

The most common tools I use to create website graphics, website backgrounds, website banners, web design graphics and web page graphics are as followings:

Vector Graphics, Vector Drawing: CorelDraw. I use it because I know it better than Adobe Illustrator. I usually only use vector tools to quickly envision a website layout.

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Bitmapped Graphics, Pixel Graphics: For fast work I use Adobe Fireworks. For detailed photo editing I use photoshop. If you use Dreamweaver, Fireworks integrates much better into it. Microsoft Paint is simply not powerful enough to use for website graphics -- such actions as layers and masks are not possible. I will explain this more in later posts. You can also use the free software called GIMP which mimics the web graphics capabilities of Photoshop but is sometimes a bit difficult to use. If I had to choose only one tool, it would be Fireworks.

Photoshop Filters, Graphics Filters: I use a lot of filters including the stock filters and Alien Skin Eye Candy. The graphics filters I use most are drop shadow filter, glass filter and metal filter.

Well those are pretty much the only graphics software tools you need to make killer website graphics.