see?
go a long way!!!
animations are great to enhance a site, but never should be ruled by them. a little gif goes a long way. the more animated gifs you add to your site, the more they compete with each other, and you'll end up with a page that looks like a scene from a nightmare. not to mention the increased bytes and download time.
it's relatively easy to make your own animations. just remember that gifs have jerky movements, they do not move smoothly. so graphic designs and cartoons and abstracts work best. realistic images are difficult to translate into gif animations, realism only emphasizes the jerkiness of the movement. sure, it can be done, but you'll end up wih a file size that would boggle IBM.
try to let this sink in:
-
the smaller the area size, the less bytes.
fewer details, fewer bytes.
fewer colors, fewer bytes.
less blending of colors, fewer bytes.
fewer frames, less bytes.
but the more frames, the more interesting.
with a little creativity, even one little gif can enhance you page enormously. look at this cute little booger. it's barely over half over a kilobyte. despite the size, it can be used to change the whole look of a page just by repeating it, as shown here. cool, huh? the same can be done with something like this gif, as shown on this page.
here's another great trick. look at this miniscule gif that couldn't even hurt a gnat. it's only 8x8 pixels and is 5 KB despite it's size because it is composed of many frames. but how can this possbly have a visible effect on a page? enlarge it to huge proportions! instead of 8x8, i've used the 'width' and 'height' tags, and stretched it to 300x300 for an amazing effect. now, the very pixels have become art. you can see the effect on this page.
try t! take your favorite gif to an online tool such as Gifworks, resize it to a tiny scaled square (even numbers), and use the 'height' and 'width' tags to enlarge it (again, even numbers). as with everything else, this effect looks best with a few colors, matching or related.
if you wish to display an animation that is of a large file size, place it at the bottom of your page, as a little gift or suprise. that way, the text on your page can load, and as your guest is reading, your desired animation wlll quietly be loading. by the time your viewer gets to the bottom of your page, it should be set to go, in all it's glory. it's a simple, considerate concept.
