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Design

Heath Hughes
Heath Hughes
19,766 Points
Posted by Heath Hughes
Heath Hughes
19,766 Points

Is it a bad idea to have an image as a background?

I'm working on a design for a site with a shiny, metallic background. The easiest way to do this would be with an image, but I'm wondering if having such a large image loading every time would slow the page down too much. Thoughts?

5 Answers

Adam Sackfield
Adam Sackfield
Courses Plus Student 19,663 Points

You can optimize the image to take out some of the weight (file size) to ensure it loads faster, then it shouldn't be a problem, especially if it is an image with few different colours. Plenty of image optimisation techniques around the web, or in Photoshop if you click save for web then you can play around with the settings and see how it degrades and find a nice balance, as it will give you load times too :)

Heath Hughes
Heath Hughes
19,766 Points
Heath Hughes
Heath Hughes
19,766 Points

That's helpful. I've decided to go a different route with the design, but these tips are definitely useful!

Jaehak Kim
Jaehak Kim
3,084 Points
Jaehak Kim
Jaehak Kim
3,084 Points

I've used smush it before and it does a good job of optimizing images, but I also found an article with other [optimizers[(http://mashable.com/2013/10/29/image-compressors/) that might work just as well/better/worse.

Jaehak Kim
Jaehak Kim
3,084 Points
Jaehak Kim
Jaehak Kim
3,084 Points

I've used smush it before and it does a good job of optimizing images, but I also found an article with other [optimizers[(http://mashable.com/2013/10/29/image-compressors/) that might work just as well/better/worse.

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points
James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

> I'm wondering if having such a large image loading every time would slow the page down too much.

Depends on the image. Here are a few things to check on about image performance