Designing with web eco-graphics

Digital media are numerous, and their environmental impact is considerable. For greater relevance, it’s best to:

• Limit your presence on the various digital media according to your targets;
• Adapt your communications to the specific characteristics of the media on which they will be broadcast.

A few tips for eco-design on social networks:

• Moderate the number of visuals you post;
• Make sure that your images do not exceed the maximum dimensions supported by the social network;
• Think mobile: your visual content must be understandable on a phone screen;
• Reduce the quality of your videos, and make sure they are not too long;
• Think accessibility: don’t forget subtitles!

Depending on the screen technology, the colours displayed can have an impact on the energy consumption of the device: white is the most energy-intensive colour, black the one that consumes the least.

Adopting and creating dark themes can therefore be interesting for those with AMOLED screens, which are becoming increasingly common. But be careful if you’re designing for a dark theme: make sure your content is always accessible against a black background!

There are different ways to lighten your visual content:

• Use the right formats for your images, such as .jpeg for photos and .svg for illustrations;
• Compress your visuals using tools such as TinyPNG;
• Offer short videos of no more than 720p;
• Moderate the use of videos, and remember to compress them using the Handbrake tool.