Banner Design
Banner advertising was one of the earliest forms of Internet advertising. Today, it is somewhat less popular than it was, but it still represents and effective technique to grab a visitor’s attention and motivate him to take the next step by ‘clicking’ on your advertisement.
Banner design principles are very well established. The Internet shows literally hundreds of design firms who offer the full range of banner design and production capabilities. You can also create your own with any of a number of free websites that will guide you through the process painlessly.
Banners come in many shapes and sizes and work like this
A banner ad is a special type of hypertext link. A piece of HTML code tells a web server to produce a particular web page whenever a visitor clicks on a specific area. The link is displayed in a box containing graphics, some text elements and occasionally animation. The banner design is much like an ad you will find in magazines but has the ability to route a potential customer directly to a website with a hidden link. It is also more dynamic than a print ad as it can display multiple images, include animation and change appearance at some pre-determined rate.
Banner ads generally come in eight sizes specified in pixels that have been approved by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). These sizes are 486 X 60 pixels for a full banner; 392 X 72 pixels for a full banner with a vertical navigation bar; 234 X 60 pixels for a half banner; 120 X 240 pixels for a vertical banner; 125 X 125 pixels for a square button; 120 X 90 pixels for Button 1; 120 X 60 pixels for Button 2 and 88 X 31 pixels for a micro Button. There is no hard and fast rule about the size of a banner design, so virtually any size may be created.
Banner design uses a wide range of graphics and text
The creative portion of banner design, which is its actual graphic content, varies considerably. The simplest of these designs feature a single static GIF or JPEG image that is linked to the advertiser’s home page. One of the most common designs is a GIF-animated banner ad that displays different images one after the other to simulate animated motion. There are still other types, called rich-media banner designs that utilize audio, video or Java and Shockwave programs. These generally occupy the larger file sizes and do more than the simple linking of the more static designs that combine an HTML code for the link with the HTML code for an image.
You can readily outsource banner design at a reasonable cost
There are designers listed on the Internet that will create a banner for you with prices varying from $50 to more than $1,000 for a complex rich-media design. You can also post a project to have a freelancer make your banner ad(s) on various websites now available. Outsourcing is a very cost-effective way to have your banner design professionally done at an affordable price.
