Designing GIF's for Mobile Devices

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Hello,

I have been asked to design a series of GIF images to be delivered to mobile devices via bluetooth and wondered if anyone had any suggestions as to what size to make the images to ensure consistent display across different devices?

Also are there any other things to look for when designing for mobiles?

Any help appreciated,

Thanks

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I have done a lot of design for mobile devices, and the most important thing to keep in mind is processor speed. Mobile phones are getting more powerful, but they still don’t have the horsepower of a desktop PC - so keep your file sizes small! One simple animated gif on a page might not be a problem, but if there are several together on one page, you might run into trouble (again, it all depends on the software/hardware specs).

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That’s totally not what I meant Alex. :wink: Just thought I’d point to a relevant resource. If someone can explain all that mobile stuff well in “normal web speak” on these forums then point me in their direction! I will gladly listen. :slight_smile:

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Why would you say that? Just because I don’t hang around on a mobile orientated forums doesn’t mean I’m incapable of resolving mobile design issues. :confused:

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Thanks for all your help, most appreciated

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Oh OK, it was just the below which threw me :stuck_out_tongue:

If they can’t give you an answer then I doubt anyone here can either.

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Mobile has an even smaller data allotment than standard web - I’d say make it as small as you reasonably can. Mainly because of download speed - and the fact that many people pay for the amount of data they download.

Sorry I can’t say exactly what size would be recommended. You should try looking around on MobiForge, or ask around in their forums. If they can’t give you an answer then I doubt anyone here can either.

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I’m not sure what you mean by “delivered by bluetooth” but what I’ll say is that you should stick to the 100KB if your users have to download the image through their Internet service plan (that’s the main consideration in regards to the price your end users end up paying). As for dimensions I wouldn’t go with a specific one because all devices use their own non-standardised resolutions and widths, that being said you may want to keep it as small as possible without the info being unreadable. :slight_smile:

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Thanks for your help. I now, have two more questions if that is ok.

The images are being delivered via bluetooth as full screen ads. Therefore can I boost the image size? OR should I stick to sub 100k still?

And, In terms of dimensions, should I use 240px x 320px as I hear that is the most common handset resolution?

I know this is slightly off topic but I haven’t produced GIF’s to be served via bluetooth before so need to get this right.

Once again, really appreciate your help

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Keeping the number of images to a minimum can be good because of the mentioned issues. What I would say in general is to ensure the dimensions of the image are small (to fit screens which have very little in the way of width and height and can’t scale things - pretty common) and ensure the file size is as small as possible (bandwidth costs, especially for commuters can be obscene). I would say keep images to under 100K - or 250K for high res images (as their charged by the GB). :slight_smile: