The primary graphics on your website will be for your products or services. You should therefore choose pictures that are both clear and sharply focused.

For products, it is best to use individual shots of each item. We do not recommend groupings, as people often have a hard time focusing on the specific item they are interested in purchasing. You must make it as easy as possible for your customers.

One of the biggest mistakes that you'll see as you surf around the web are pages with way too many pictures, so they take forever to download. We do not design pages like this.

Our general recommendation is to use about 5 or 6 smaller product images on each page, each image being about 240 pixels wide or high (approx 2.5 inches). Then, when the person clicks on one of these, a larger version will display for more detailed viewing.

If you assume that each page will hold a maximum of 6 items, then you can easily figure how many pages you need just for the presentation of your products -- 18 items would require 3 pages; 24 would be 4 pages, etc. Note however that this "rule" is not written in concrete -- if you have 14 products for example, then we'd go with 7 items per page, in order to keep to just 2 pages.

If you are working within a specific budget, then remember that the more items you add, the more time it takes for page construction, and thus the higher the cost. Therefore in this case it is our advice to start out with between 5 and 15 very strong selections, then as the site gains in popularity, add additional choices.

So as you count the number of graphics for your site, begin with the total number of product pictures. Then add to that your logo (if you have one); a picture of yourself (we recommend this, but it is optional); your studio or place of business (optional); etc.