Graphic Design

Absolutely.
Always use good quality images. Good quality images are large in height and width and large in file size. Images optimized for web pages with small file sizes shouldn’t be used when editing within a graphics program. You can optimize large images and make them smaller after editing. Small images cannot be made bigger without distorting the image.

When finalising your images, make sure they are the correct size where they will be used on your website. Then optimise your images by reducing the file size for fast rendering on your page.

The general rule of thumb is that your images must be able to accommodate large computer screens 1920px by 1080px
Images that display across any page width should therefore be 1920 x 1080 pixels or larger.

Other images on a page will be sized accordingly.
Product images should be bigger than 500 pixels on their smallest axle.

Graphic Design is a very time-consuming exercise. 

The first thing that takes the most time is sourcing images. It can take hours to find the right image to use and then the number of images required.

If you cannot find free images online, the next place to look is stock images that must be purchased. The last resort will then be to get a photographer involved. 

Once all the images are collected, then the editing starts and it all depends on what needs to be done and how long it will take. To give you an example: Product images look way more professional when the background is removed, then a shadow gets added and the colour adjustment makes it stand out. When you then put the product images on a general background it sells itself.

Here we added a few images with different shadows to give you an idea Demo Site in Action

Another time-consuming exercise is logos, animations and custom icons for your website. Such graphics must be drawn up and take a lot of time.

When custom fonts are required then such fonts must be sourced and often be bought.

What often takes even more time is running back and forth between the designer and a client until everything is perfect.

How much will this cost? The cost is determined by the hours spent plus the purchased items or services. On average you can set a budget between R2,000 and R10,000 as a rough idea. More advanced graphics, large quantities and video production will be more expensive.

Optimising and adding the images to your website will be the last step that normally forms part of the web design process.

Try and do most of the sourcing yourself with as many visual ideas to indicate to the designer what it is that you want.
Graphic Design is complete two-way communication between the client and the designer. Remember that the designer cannot read your mind to know exactly what will look good for you. The more you give the graphic designer to work with the better.

You can search for images on Google Images

Yandex has a greater variety of high-quality images and is used by most designers. Watch our video on How to find images on Yandex

Canva also has a big variety of Free images.

You can also search for Free Stock images on Google. Many websites offer Free and Paid Stock Images. 

When you send images to us use .jpg or .png
Most images such as photos and backgrounds on a website will be .jpg
Logos, Icons and any image without a background will be .png
The background of a .jpg image can be removed and then saved as a .png to be used on a website. To remove a background requires a fair contrast between the image and the background to be separated from one another.

Watch our video on How to remove an image background

If this does not work then you will need the assistance of a graphic designer to do it for you which will still require a good quality image for the job.

Watch our video on How to resize images using Canva

If this does not work then you will need the assistance of a graphic designer to do it for you which will still require a good quality image for the job.