What Is A Good Website Banner Size?
It’s true what they say about first impressions. The header of your website is the first thing visitors see when they arrive. Several eye-tracking studies have revealed that humans scan computer and mobile screens starting at the top and moving down in a zig-zag pattern. The primary function of the website header is navigation. However, it also plays an important role in communicating the style and look of your brand. In this guide, we’ll look at the world of website headers and discuss what the ideal website header size should be. Learn graphic design through Blue Sky Graphics online graphic design course.
Key Principles of a Website Header
1. Establishing a brand
Begin by developing an image, graphic, or other visual concept that captures the essence of your product or service. The graphic should depict your company’s brand and include a logo. An artistic header will have a proper style and color selection that matches your website and inspires readers.
Atlassian is big, bold, and unconventional.
Atlassian’s header is large and eye-catching. Perhaps a nod to Atlas, the Greek Titan God who “carried the heavens upon his shoulders.” Atlassian’s blue brand is prominently displayed in hyperlinked copy, call to action buttons, and imagery.
Apple is subdued and understated.
Few companies can achieve Apple’s minimalist aesthetic. It excels at simplifying everything and visually communicating its brand so succinctly for an organization with many divisions and over 130,000 employees worldwide.
Oxfam is action-oriented.
Oxfam, a global non-profit organization, uses their header to drive the most important action: donations. The placement, size, color, and prominence of the “action bar” serve not only as a navigation tool, but also as a means of communicating their purpose and, most importantly, encouraging action.
Shutterstock is at the forefront of your search.
Website for stock photography Shutterstock is all about finding what you’re looking for. The search bar is prominent and seamlessly branded, incorporating the brand font, color, and iconography.
2. Dimensions
The header is a useful tool for showcasing popular products and promotions on websites that sell products. Carousels and sliders are frequently used to rotate through featured products or sections that serve as a launching point into important parts of the site.
The header serves as a hero navigation element in this full-width variation from Virgin Galactic, with background video providing awe-inspiring visuals.
3. Information
Every element in your site’s header must be compatible with one another. When users first land on your website, the location and size of each object in the header gives them visual cues about how to navigate and use it. The color of a button, the spacing and padding around elements, or the font size of a title can all make or break whether a user takes the desired action.
The Carousel of Images
An image carousel is commonly used in website headers because it accomplishes several goals:
To avoid confusion, communicates one piece of content at a time.
It is heavily reliant on visual communication (which is best because people generally scan content, as opposed to read content)
Gives prominence to important content; functions similarly to pre-navigation, allowing the user to explore different content without leaving the main page
A website element that is well-known and expected by users and with which they are familiar and interact: To advance the slides, swipe through them or tap the dots.
The Prompt to Act (CTA)
Sometimes all you want is for the user to take action. In this instance, The Information wishes to obtain the visitor’s email address. The Information is able to optimize for the desired action by removing all other elements and focusing solely on the CTA:
The Editorial Design
BMW has reimagined their website as a publisher, presenting stories and articles to the user beginning with the hero article in the header about the history of the M logo and colors:
Catalog design
Target’s website is designed to look like a physical catalog, with the header highlighting Women’s New Arrivals, followed by the various departments within the store that mix collections, promotions, individual products, and information.
Target
Using WordPress, how do you find the right size?
Check your “Media Settings” under the “Appearance” tab in the WordPress Admin.
What is the best image width for a blog post image (for example, 1024px for the Showcase Pro theme), and what size image works best in your theme’s sidebar? (300)
This section, however, will not provide optimal image dimensions for your Home page, Header image, or page banners.
WordPress media options
WordPress should list optimal image sizes for your home page/header image under Appearance —> Customize —> Front Page Header Image, depending on your theme. The majority of the sizes shown here are around 1600 px by 1050 px.
How to Find the Image Size of Any Page Header Banner
Enter your website’s URL into Chrome Browser and use Inspect to get the exact image size using the steps below:
Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac) on the web page.
Select Inspect.
Click on the three-dot menu to see the Elements at the bottom of the page, so the page view is not responsive.
Examine Element
The Element at the bottom of the page is as follows:
Setting an element
Right-click on the header image. Select an image that is the same as the header banner.
Dimensions: Set the exact image size that was used in the theme’s demo.
The size in this example is 2548 px x 227 px. While the width of the header is responsive, the height of the header may be too small to be classified as a header.
Choosing a Style
What? Each header banner image is not the same size.
Use images that look good in long and narrow spaces if the Home header (1600px x 1050px) is not the same size as the Blog header banner (1080px x 960px).
Recommended pixel size for your website’s header image
Despite the fact that screens are getting larger, a header width of 1024px is still the most popular. Websites are designed with a resolution of 1024 x 768px.
Use one of the following header sizes if you intend to use a header that is larger than 1000 pixels:
1280pxs1366pxs1440pxs1600pxs1920px.
These are high-resolution sizes that can easily adjust to maintain resolutions greater than 1920.
To summarise
Consider what you want your visitors to do when they arrive at your site and optimise your header for that action. Make sure your images are no bigger than 72 dpi and use the colour format. The fewer the elements in your header, the more focused the desired action. The more elements in the header, on the other hand, the more burdened the user is with scanning the content and interpreting what is most relevant to them. There is no right or wrong answer; it all depends on your typical user journeys and the desired action. Keep in mind that the more rich media in your header, the longer your loading time and the larger the size of your website page.
