starting out with some design stuff now :-): background images and screen sizes

OK! Almost ready for some design fun! 

I figured that it might be nice to let you guyz start out with something that should be quite enjoyable - adding a background to your site. But before we get there, I would still like to remind you of something which is actually quite obvious: Not everyone has the same computer set-up and so everyone sees things differently, depending upon how large their screen is. There is a top left bias in all of this, which means that everyone, always, sees the top left corner of the browser. All else that people see varies from resolution to resolution.

The screenshot above shows you how this site is seen at a 1024x768 screen resolution. As the site's content slides left, one of my pixelmen is actually placing himself very nicely behind the header, so I am quite pleased about that. True, folk can no longer see the big pink fellow to the right but since the image that I have is more like an abstract backdrop I can live with that.

 (Tip:  A very nice freeware application that lets you test out screen sizes is Sizer (PC only). I would advise you to make use of it and often check to see how your site looks to others.  ) 

The widest screen resolution which we need to take into account is 1920x1080 or if we think lengthwise 1600x1200. However, this is not as wide or as high as it gets, Wikipedia gives a very nice list going all the way from the smallest to the largest sizes.

Some older websites are designed flush left, but nowadays for the largest part we tend to favor a centered layout. As the screen gets smaller all content will slide to the left of the screen.

 Upshot:  Your background image needs to take all of this into account. It is of no use whatsoever having a gorgeous image where the main elements are on the bottom right since there is no way that someone with a 1024 x 768 display setting is going to be able to see the stuff. It is equally bad to have full background images that are smaller than 1920 x 1200 (1920x1080 - 1600x1200) since anything smaller will result in really nasty patches when viewed on a large screen. So, unless you are tiling a small image (more on this later), always make sure that your full screen background image is larger than 1920x1200 and that the nice parts of the image are located towards the top and left. That way everyone, small and large, will be equally happy!  :-) 

 Update:  While all info above is still valid for most purposes, there is also an update on making resizeable full background images, which you can read here:
http://easypeasydesign.blogspot.com/2011/03/can-you-resize-background-image-on-non.html

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