My online travels are often touching, always fun, and sometimes I learn something new. This posting is about the later and passing along what I've learned in the hope of helping others.
In my travels I love visiting some of the other sites who create fabulous backgrounds and blog elements. Some might consider it taboo to visit a "competitor" but I learned along time ago in jewelry design that to have an appreciation for other talented artists is a true gift. While there are many of us who create blog backgrounds and themes we each have our own unique style and cater to different tastes, rather like art itself being in the eye of the beholder.
Today I learned that some of the lovely ladies who create blog backgrounds are doing themselves a disservice. While their designs are drop-dead-gorgeous, the technical aspects - specifically the sizing - is lacking just a bit. I'm fortunate in that I have two monitors and this helps so much with the design work I do, I find them invaluable. One monitor is the standard 17" square screen while the other monitor is the popular 21" wide screen.
What I discovered in my travels today is that some blog backgrounds are being created for viewing on a 17" monitor like so...
However, when viewed on a 21" wide monitor the background is suddenly cut a little short (note the blue areas to the right and left highlighted in red). This is a tragic shortcoming in my opinion and one that's easily fixable.
So... for my friends and associates who spend time creating blog backgrounds, simply
increase the size of your background image
to 1800 x 1200 pixels
(see updated measurements below). This will help ensure that your gorgeous creations can be viewed on some of the most popular monitor sizes while ensuring your fabulous creations fill up the page.
And for those of you who work with one monitor you can easily check the background image size by simply dragging a corner or edge of your browser window out beyond one side. Then click on the top of your browser bar and drag the browser across your desktop. This will bring back into view the side of the image to judge whether it's large enough. The image below shows my browser stretched to about the size of 25 - 30 inch screen where the white areas begin to show rather than the background...
Lastly, to show my appreciation for some of the other fabulous designers I have the pleasure of sharing this online design stage with, below is a little shout-out, a way of saying thank you for continually inspiring my life and work...
I realize I may have forgotten a few and hopefully my list reflects an accurate list of those most commonly used by bloggers.
**UPDATE** {{I've done a little checking and
to completely avoid any border colors showing through around backgrounds the
standard size would be best set at
1920 x 1536. This takes into consideration the highest HD wide screen resolution commonly used today at 1920 pixels and the highest square monitor resolution at 1536. I'll be updating my backgrounds over time to compensate for this new info and hope it's helpful to you as well.
}}Enjoy!
I thought a nice way to begin the New Year was through an act of giving back. It's a way for me to say thank you to all of my wonderful customers for their continued support. The truth is I love what I do so much and although it's a struggle to get by sometimes, I feel blessed that I can help make blogland a little prettier with each creation.
The giveback gift ~
