Graphics evoke feelings. Whether used to create a vision or to reflect a reality - they send a message to the viewer. The most obvious element of a web page, the graphics are the showy part of the design. Because they catch your attenion, they have to be used with consideration to your visitor. Say what? Consideration of the visitor? Yes, because it's how the visitor to your page perceives these images that counts. Then of course there's the dreaded devil - download time. The bigger, the more elaborate the image, the longer someone is going to have to wait to see it. Or not. They can just as easily scroll right past that downloading picture to see what else lurks. For example, there can be an appropriate use of portrait photographs. You can see first hand that the bank president isn't wearing an X-Files tee shirt. (Well, that would probably guarantee my business, but I know I'm an exception.) But how much of the prez' face do you want to wait to see? A small photo, sure. A huge color studio portrait filling your entire monitor? Only his mother would wait through that download. Therefore, when trying to decide whether or not to use a graphic, first take the Immediate Family Graphic Response Image Test. If no one outside your family would wait for the picture, then don't use it. In techie language, IF GRIT=NO, then don't. Which brings us to the high end exciting stuff of the Web. No question that VRML (3-D virtual reality), Quicktime movies, Java script and everything done by the innovative folks at Macromedia (Shockwave) provide us with some of the most interesting possibilities for the Internet. Regrettably, all the fancy embellishments are download intensive. Big files, bigger waits. Plus, not all browsers or operating systems can display them. And, some require a plug-in to run. Keep that in mind. Some visitors may feel like your poor relations when their computers aren't adequate to view your state of the art pages. Always offer an alternative. Color is important. It can set a tone and reflects "personality." When used correctly, color can draw interest to important information. Remember, a little color goes a long way, so don't overdo. And, never sacrifice legibility for color. Ever. The Greeks believed that excess in any form was a sin. I'll buy that. So what goes for color goes for graphics, animations and text as well. It is not necessary to fill every square inch with something. That's hard to absorb. Go look at USA Today. Used to be newspapers were columns of small black and white text. Then USA Today came along and sold like hotcakes. Both easy to read and entertaining, it influenced the way we chose to get our news. All the mainstream papers had to retool, adding color, art and more whitespace. Don't forget the whitespace. Beyond the graphics, design influences the ease with which visitors travel through your site, directly effecting how long they will stay. We've all had that feeling inside a website. You know. Where the hell am I and how do I get back to the index? Don't make them use their "Back" buttons 14 times. It's annoying. That's enough rambling about design. Just wait until you hear what I have to say about Publishing.