A Guide To Using Large Backgrounds In Your Web Designs

One of the main reasons that large backgrounds are used in web design is because they are known to make quite an impressive impact. Designers are able to play with the depth of field or focus that such backgrounds offer them, allowing them to create more interesting and engaging websites. And these backgrounds don't even have to be photos - it could be another sort of large illustration or even a video. If you are thinking about using a large background in your next web design project, this article can help you to get it right.

Common Mistakes

There are a number of mistakes that frequently pop up when large backgrounds are used as a part of a web design. It is important that designers are fully aware of what these problems are so that they can avoid making them during the course of their own projects:

• They have to conform to many screen resolutions. Whilst the background may look fine on a smaller screen (such as an iPad), it may look completely out of place on a larger desktop computer one. To avoid this problem, designers should test their backgrounds on a variety of screen resolutions and browser window widths.

• The image isn't wide enough or doesn't blend. A centred, tiled or scaled image may look fine in a 1024x768 screen resolution, but when opened in a screen with a resolution of 1680x1050 it sticks out like a sore thumb. To avoid this problem, make sure that the image is wide enough for the more common screen resolution or that you have blended its edges into the background.

• Cutting an image for use as a background. This can actually be very tricky to do right, as you will not know how each browser will render and replicate the smaller piece of the image that you are using. To avoid this problem, make sure that the edges of the image are consistent in order to create seamless joins.

Whilst there is nothing to suggest that you shouldn't use large background as a part of your web design projects - in fact, they can be very aesthetically pleasing - it is important to ensure that you implement the project correctly, otherwise your image may appear very out of place. By testing the background in as many screen resolutions as you can, ensuring that the background is wide enough or blended and by creating seamless joins, you will succeed in achieving an attractive image background for your web design.