How big are your mock-ups?

We are talking about how we deisgn graphic prototypes for web deisgns. I think most professionals work this way - you start with some preliminary planning, maybe do some wireframing or site architecutre, then design a graphic mock-up using your graphics program of choice.

Sorry if that didn't answer your question, I'm not qute sure what you're asking.

Hello

what types of mockup you all are looking at ?

Please let me know

Thanks

Yeah, but even if it was higher I'd still want to do my mock-ups for the most popular resolution (1024). It should look best for the majority and then scale from there depending on usage IMO.

I'm not talking about abandoning 800 x 600, just to be clear (see note at the bottom of my originalpost). What I'm talking about is designing a site that looks *best* at the most popular resolution, which for my sites is 1024 x 768. Actually, we aren't able to track this site and my personal site so I'm sort of going by what I see happening on my work site, where 800 x 600 usage hovers around 4%. It definnitely wouldn't make sense to design a site that looks best at 800 x 600 when most visitors are running something bigger (and often much bigger!).

I mock up at 760 not because it's the width of the client or visitors but simply because it's the width that I find has the best readability. That's the main reason I still design fixed width layouts - I can't stand long lines!

I'm also an 800x600 person. I make the actual proof 1024x768 but then fit the design into 800x600. By my estimations that'll give the customer an idea of how it will look on most monitors, even if they're still using 800x600 the design image will still work for them, only the background pattern will get chopped off.

I use GIMP or Inkscape. Inkscape is a brilliant application... GIMP is, well you know, it's the GIMP.

My mock-ups are almost always 750-770px wide and 1000px down. I used imageready to whip them up.

True! And that is so funny. It has to look good to them. They don't understand that other's are seeing something different. Clients are funny little creatures.

Yeah, it's not so much the visitors as the clients that have 800x600. If the web site doesn't look great on the client's computer, they don't really care that it looks fine on 95% of the visitors' computers.

a lot of my clients are on the smaller monitor size still. Whatever looks the best to them - they want!

I'm surprised you're all still mocking up for 800 x 600! Do you all find that most of your visitors are still using that resolution? I don't, which is why I've moved up. I want the site to look best at the most popular resolution, so that's what I mock-up for. I just keep 800 x 600 in mind while I'm designing and make sure that things will adjust to fit.

I do the same as timjpriebe. 760 and I use fireworks. I used to use photoshop exclusively but found that fireworks works better for me for the web!

I work on a higher pixel ratio to fit an 800x600 site... if it's fixed width , i'll stick with those, and if fluid I increase it a bit... I usually code first the layout then decide on how I want it to look.

I sometimes use Adobe PS, and Illustrator for Icons and logos.. But if I need to work fast I use Corel...

I tend to use ~800px x (some number larger than is really reasonable), with all of the pixel pushing done in Inkscape [ Vector = warm, fuzzy thoughts]. Mind you, I've not yet worked on what I would consider a *real* website - mainly just for a defunctish community site.

If you are trying to keep to opensource tools, Krita is a promising alternative to Gimp. It's probably not on par yet, but it seems to have more momentum behind it.

I used to do all my designs in 640 x 480 when 800 x 600 was popular but, now that 1024 x 768 is more popular, I find I'm doing them in 800 x 600. Perhaps I'm just behind in the times...

I don't do mock-ups... guess I should though =/

My next project is going to be a fixed size positioned site with nice layered images and smooth curves (as opposed to my usual fixed width, center aligned header-body-footer type I always follow) so I intend to do one for that.

At the moment I'm looking at a 760x600 main body but will probably be larger in total with purely cosmetic additions to the background. Reckon i'll mock up for a 1024x 768 screen but as I said, the main part would cater for an 800x600.

At the moment I use Gimp for all graphics but I'm trying to locate a copy of Fireworks to try and hopefully switch to.

I do my mock-ups 760px wide by whatever height they need to be. I use Fireworks for all my mock-ups.

Many of my clients are small business or volunteer-run organizations that still have older computers. When possible, I try to determine the resolution of my clients. I make sure the design works and looks good under multiple resolutions, but I check it even more thoroughly on their resolution.

Oh, and another question - what program do you use for mock-ups? I used to use Photoshop exclusively, but now that I've switched to Open Source I'm using either Inkscape or the Gimp depending on the project. Inkscape for designs that need more crisp edges and shapes (like A Padded Cell), the Gimp for more photographic designs.