Graphic Design vs. Web Design

Although graphic and web design go hand in hand, they are also very different. In the similar sense, both types of design need to be done and changed according to what our clients wants, they both need to be done with some sort of feel and talent for design and both can make or break a company, depending on how well or bad the design is.

Web design, however, is more limiting than graphic design. While graphic designers have complete freedom in their designs, say in editorial and pamphlets, where they can make use of fancy fonts and skew text, web designers have to conform to certain rules. I will outline the basics as well as I can.

When designing any webpage, one should keep the following in mind:

• The main links for any webpage should never be an image (you will find a lot of people use fancy graphics as buttons for their main links). Main links would look similar to: home | about us | contact. Main reason for this limitation is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - Google needs to 'read' you links. It cannot read images.
• Only the standard windows fonts may be used in text. The reason being, with all the millions of fonts, not everyone has every font. However, PC’s and Mac’s come with a standard set: Times New Roman, Verdana, Arial, Georgia and Courier (New). This way, we are always sure people can see the intended font, even if limiting.
• We need to design with web-safe colours when we put together the initial design, and colours within the text. This basically makes sure everyone sees the same colours when browsing. Photoshop has a built in function that only displays and lets you use web-safe colours when designing.
• We always put an extra set of the main links, at the bottom of the page. So ‘home | about us | contact’ must be put at the bottom of every page too. It is just a standard.
• Text cannot be made skew, put upside down or backwards without using images in web design (Please note: this is now a bit more possible with new CSS and some javascript coding so this rule is becoming obsolete). Websites conform to vertical and horizontal display of the main content. If you wanted to make a fancy header with weird fonts and colours, it would need to be done in a flat image (.jpg, .gif or .png). A whole paragraph of text should never be an image!
• Designers need to keep screen sizes in mind. If a website is too big for the smallest screen (800x600) it can be a nightmare. However, the most used screen size to date is 1024x768, so we generally work around that size.
• We also work in 72dpi as opposed to 300dpi (for print). This makes our lives a little easier in this aspect, because the 100% size you see, and the colours in RGB you see, is what will be seen online. (Where as when you print, there are lots of complications when it comes to CYMK, pantones, dpi etc.).

Those are a few guidelines when designing a website. Most have been put into place for SEO purposes. They are not written in blood but if you want to be seen by Google (the most popular search engine in the world), we as web designers, must conform.