Hey Folks,

When optimizing a webpage layout, is it a bad move to use 1920 by 1440?

Is it better to stick to 1600 by 1200 ? Whats the standards these days?

I believe 1024x768 is still the most widely used resolution. If it's for a portfolio, though, your audience is most likely going to have a higher res. Something like 1280x1024 might be good to shoot for.

Just as an example, I have a 1680x1050 and 1600x1200.

1024px wide.

Yeah, i think with the advent of netbooks and stuff it's still good to optimise for 1024px.

I know I know, who will be using netbooks to view portfolios... but hey better safe than sorry

Wow... a bit out of touch here. I guess I can do 1280by1024 as my images are 1200by900 in general, notebook are going to have to scroll up and down for the 900by1200 images though.
I can always do a link to a hi res shot in some cases for those capable of viewing them.

thanks

Not less than 800 wide.

Originally Posted by Kevin Johnstone

Wow... a bit out of touch here. I guess I can do 1280by1024 as my images are 1200by900 in general, notebook are going to have to scroll up and down for the 900by1200 images though.
I can always do a link to a hi res shot in some cases for those capable of viewing them.

thanks

You should keep in mind that the browser and OS navigation also takes up a part of that space, just like your own website nevigation I have some good visited websites under control in google analytics and the percentage of people that use a resolution under 1024x768 is neglectable(like 1,5%). Also, most people use an exact resolution of 1024x768, but when you combine all the people that use a resolution higher than that, you end up with 4 times as many! In other words: make it work for 1024x768, but design for higher!

If your target audience (remember that one?) is artists you'll have some leeway to use a larger resolution.

And remember that the screen resolution isn't always what people run their browsers at - some folks maximise the browser and others don't. I don't on my 1900px mac or my 1600px PC, but do on my EEEPC

I look at portfolios on my netbook (maximised on that wee screen), but I *DON'T* expect artists to tailor their portfolio to my tiny screen.

Originally Posted by kwakkie

In other words: make it work for 1024x768, but design for higher!

Agreed. Also, I think it would be a good idea to make your pictures fit 1024x768 at least in width, and link it to the epic sized version for those who want it.

Generally you'd want to make it useable on 1024x768. It's a good idea to aim for about 800 pixels wide or make a site that can fluidly stretch to fit any resolution.

But you also want to remember that that's the full resolution of the monitor, not the amount of screen-space that a maximised browser window can display a page at (you tend to get window borders, menus, etc, that all take a few pixels off).

Here's the resolutions of people who visit my site, if it's of any use;

1680x1050 22.18%
1280x1024 20.07%
1920x1200 13.63%
1440x900 11.28%
1024x768 10.29%
1280x800 9.42%
1600x1200 3.72%
1280x960 1.86%
1152x864 1.36%
1920x1080 1.12%

My feeling on it is that no smaller than 800 for basic layout. However pimp images should be as big as they can be to load fast and look good.

Rick is spot on with the target audience thing. Just depends on who you're targeting.

I think my site scales to %s of width... I can't remember but then again I haven't seen what happens when I put a pic in the blog.. been a while since Itouched my site >_<

Did mine for 1024 resolution. so its 950px width.

I think everyone else has answered your question already, but for what its worth I'd aim to accommodate a 1024 resolution for the main site and offer a couple of sizes when showing your work. Even if the lower (or larger) size images weren't viewed by a prospective employer it shows that you put some thought into catering for as wide a range as possible.

Here's a helpful Web Developer plugin for Firefox (if you use it) which can help you test a bunch of stuff. I'm mainly recommending it for its window resize tool which is helpful for testing your site out at all these suggested resolutions.

Hi!

Perhaps a slightly old thread, but figured that I should share my findings as a webdeveloper.

I agree that it'll have to do with your audience, to some degree. At the moment, I'm seing a huge increase in larger widescreen screen resolutions on the web (at least 1280x800). I still stick at optmizing page width for 1024 tho.

And when doing so, I use a max width of 960 pixels, which can be divided into 12 or 16 columns (60 or 40 pixels each with a 20px gutter between columns) , for creating an easy-to-maintain grid.

Example photoshop templates can be found at http://960.gs/, and for general web-tips I suggest http://www.smashingmagazine.com/!