Image background question

[bntz313]

Ok so my boss wants me to redesign our website and the IT guy is going to code everything.

He originally wanted flash and talked him outta that, now we want to use a background image of cardboard and float the material on top of the cardboard.

My question is: How large should the image be that I'm going to use, I demographic is mainly 40+ (it's a Harley dealership) so I don't think that everyone visiting the site is going to have huge screens with high resolution.

-Thank you very much
bntz313

 

[angelwatt]

Is it going to be a single piece of cardboard, or something you could tile, which means you could use a flexible width? A 900px width would likely be OK, but impart depends on the content. I generally go for something a little more flexible using em and % measurements rather than px.

 

[ChicoWeb]

Depends. Is it a body background or a content background? If it's body you can really do as large as you like, but keep in mind 1024 is standard monitor resolution, which leaves your viewable width around 960.

Also, don't forget file size. Your pages should be around the 100k mark IMHO.