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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
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