Website design trends for 2018 are pointing towards “go big or go home”. Designers are using saturated colors, organic or geometric shapes, broken grid layouts, & bold graphics in ways that we haven’t seen before. These trends create interest, and a more artful website design, but if you are a beginner to intermediate level website designer, those trends may not be realistic.
Regardless of your website design experience, you can create a visually appealing website by using awesome website graphics. When creating an eCommerce website design, the layout, color scheme & content are important things to plan out before development begins, but the graphics are what can take the website from “blah” to “ta-da!.”
These graphics can inspire emotion, help communicate a message, and direct users to important information within a website when used correctly. But if used incorrectly, customers could be leaving a website faster than the large and oddly placed images can load. So here are a few tips to keep in mind when using graphics for a website:
Less is more
Don’t overload your website with graphics. One or two awesome graphics will go a long way. Use colors, web fonts, and CSS along with graphics to enhance your website to the fullest.
Placement
Web graphics should draw the customer’s eye to important or helpful information. Bad placement can make the website confusing to navigate and the customers will leave to find another source.
File formats & sizes
PNG’s, JPG’s, GIF’s are all acceptable image formats for your website in DistributorCentral.
- It’s important to know the dimensions needed for the web graphics because the image dimensions shouldn’t be larger than necessary. This helps reduce website load times.
- 72 ppi resolution will also keep your images crisp for the web and optimized for the best load times.
Where to find Images
Finding the base image to use on your website can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be pricey. Don’t believe us? Take a look at these stock image websites. They are free and make finding that perfect image easy!
If you are feeling a little overwhelmed with all of this, you can hire third-party design companies to create your graphics, and even your website. For example; DistributorCentral offers website design services to our suppliers & distributors and those design services can include some graphic work, if needed.