Graphic design is a field that can significantly benefit many businesses and individuals alike simply by their ability to communicate messages through unique and compelling visuals. This can be priceless for companies that want to build their brand or establish their presence in their chosen industry.
However, the demand for graphic designers has grown exponentially, and so it can be quite difficult to find affordable graphic design services. Often, it can take a while to discover one that suits your needs exactly. So while looking, it’s good practice to familiarise yourself with the basics.
That way, when you finally have yourself a designer, you can go over important details with them without missing a beat. Below are the things you need to pay attention to when it comes to designing graphics for mobile devices:
DIFFERENT MOBILE DEVICES MEAN DISTINCT RESOLUTIONS
Unlike desktop devices, which usually have display graphics at a standard 1920 x 1200, mobile devices have different display resolutions depending on their size. When you’re thinking of a design, you have to keep this in mind.
A graphic designer will create multiple graphics to show how they’re going to look on different mobile devices, and you’ll have to choose the best one that’ll suit phones that most users have.
USE A FLEXIBLE LAYOUT FOR YOUR DESIGNS
These days, many smartphones come with a feature called a G-sensor. It allows your phone to know at what orientation you’re holding it so that it can display information correctly. If you’re handling your phone upright, the G-sensor enables your phone to understand this and, as a result, reveals everything you’re looking at at the right angle.
A fluid layout in your design is crucial for mobile devices. This lets your design fit the needs of the screen’s layout completely and still keep the design looking good.
SMALL FILES ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND
Storage and connection on a mobile device are something you’ll want to remember when designing for it. A person’s connection determines the time it’ll take for your design to load and even download if that’s something they can do with it.
Mobile users with poor connections or those without unlimited data plans won’t have proper access to what they’re supposed to be seeing, which is why it’s best to keep your files small.
ALWAYS USE THE PNG IMAGE FORMAT
As mentioned earlier, a mobile device’s resolution differs greatly from that of a desktop computer. Because of that, you’ll have to be mindful of how to achieve high-quality output on a smartphone.
The PNG image format will work best for your design because it allows for greater colour depth, with up to 254 levels of partly transparent pixels. It ends up making your layout look much better on a mobile device.
REMEMBER TO OPTIMISE YOUR COLOURS
For mobile devices, you’ll need to prepare for the different levels of colour support in various smartphones. Colour support means that other brands of mobile devices support different amounts of colours.
For example, Nokia and the iPhone can support 16 million colours while Blackberry can only do 65 thousand. That’s a big difference in the colours a person will see on their mobile, and you need to prepare your design for that scenario.
To do this, you need to make sure your designs have sharp and bright images to counter the possible effects the colour support will have on them.
STAY AWAY FROM ABSOLUTE PIXELS
Staying away from absolute pixels means avoiding defining the dimensions of your designs in absolute pixels. Instead, the best thing to do is to use attributes like percentages and ems. This way, the size of your design will automatically adjust to that of a mobile device’s screen.
CONCLUSION
Designing graphics for mobile devices is no easy feat, which is why it’s not simple to find affordable graphic design services that’ll still ensure high-quality outputs. In this case, the viable
