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Be a Banner Ad Designer

By Stephen Bucaro

The most prevalent form of advertising on the Web today is banners. A banner is the Internet equivalent of a billboard. Although a banner can simply display some text, most banners are graphic images and many are animated. Some banners are designed using Adobe flash. But regardless of the banners design, every banner acts as a link to the advertisers Web site.

One reason for the rapid growth of the Web is the thousands of small businesses and entrepreneurs putting their businesses online each day. Most of these small businesses and entrepreneurs can't afford to retain an in-house banner designer and they don't have the talent or skill to design their own banners. They have to go to an outside source to have their advertising banners created, and that's an opportunity for you.

Skills Required to be a Banner Ad Designer

As a banner designer, the most important skill you'll need is the ability to use a graphics application to create a clean professional looking banner. One of the most important concepts to understand in order to create clean professional looking graphics is anti-aliasing Anti-aliasing is basically the process of blending colors together to smooth out rough pixelated edges. Fortunately, most graphics applications today automatically perform anti-aliasing, you just have to know when to use it.

If your customer desires an animated banner, there are several different methods of animation. The most basic animation method is the animated gif image. Animation may also be created using Java or Java Script. One common method of creating animation is through the use of Adobe flash. But regardless of which method you use to create the animation, it almost always starts out with a sequence of images.

Standard Banner Sizes

The traditional and most common size is the standard 468 x 60 pixels banner, but there are many other standard sizes. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is the agency that sets recommended banner sizes.

Rectangles

300 x 250 IMU - (Medium Rectangle)
250 x 250 IMU - (Square)
240 x 400 IMU - (Vertical Rectangle)
336 x 280 IMU - (Large Rectangle)

Banners

468 x 60 IMU - (Full Banner)
234 x 60 IMU - (Half Banner)
120 x 240 IMU - (Vertical Banner)
728 x 90 IMU - (Leaderboard)

Skyscrapers

120 x 600 IMU - (Skyscraper)
160 x 600 IMU - (Wide Skyscraper)

* there are many more standard sizes