Max File Size for a Logo, Guideline?

[Fergal]

A website logo logo should never be of such a large file size that it slows down the time it takes the page to load on the visitor's PC.

Do you have an opinion as to what the max file size of a logo should be, to ensure that it doesn't slow down load time?

[nbshopper]

I don't think this is a major issue really. If files are saved correctly in Photoshop or otherwise, then you can have a relatively large logo in pixels which is still quite small.

If I had to put a number on it I might say 10kb perhaps? I've just checked and our logo is 1.2kb, so that's pretty small, I can't see any reason for making it bigger than this. The size of the businessadviceforum logo is 7.12kb.

[Nazreen]

I think that this consideration on file size and loading time is quite important. A lot of internet users nowadays are quite impatient and might not wait for the site to load if it takes too long.

7kb is quite small actually. I've seen other forums which have 20-30kb logo and they still load very fast.

[Fergal]

Thanks for the feedback. Our logo here on Business Advice Forum, was originally about 27KB, until I noticed that I had the smaller version on file and replaced it to the one you see now.

Our logo is a Jpg file, I also have a Png. version, but it's 36KB.

[nbshopper]

Ok I'll revise my estimate to about 50kb, but I just think it's not the logo itself which is the important thing, it's just another component part in the wider issue of page loading speed. I agree that page loading speed is very important, but the logo itself can be a small part of this. Javascript libraries and CSS files can also be quite large, and I think are the main reason for our site being a tad sluggish at times. What about background images on sites?

I've just checked our site actually and we're using jQuery, which uncompressed is 97kb, but packed is 28kb, so we're now using the packed version instead. That should shave a micro-second off or something. :)

[harigopinath]

Ok I'll revise my estimate to about 50kb, but I just think it's not the logo itself which is the important thing, it's just another component part in the wider issue of page loading speed. I agree that page loading speed is very important, but the logo itself can be a small part of this. Javascript libraries and CSS files can also be quite large, and I think are the main reason for our site being a tad sluggish at times. What about background images on sites?

I've just checked our site actually and we're using jQuery, which uncompressed is 97kb, but packed is 28kb, so we're now using the packed version instead. That should shave a micro-second off or something. :)

Thats true

[Fergal]

I've looked at the files sizes of a few forum home pages, using Google's search engine results. Business Advice Forum's page is 65K and a lot of other forum sites are a little under that. There are still people with slow web connections, so I like to keep our page load time as quick as possible.

[DEADMAN]

Fergal, you should be targeting this issue to Dial-up users and slow net users.

BAF should be available to every user at optimum speed. It should be low as far as possible. I guess the present logo is ok with.

[pendelton]

You took the words right out of my mouth, always aim at the lowest possible user, and, there are still DUN users out there that get bogged down on sites that think they need a lot of flash and what not.

[Kay]

Yep, folks like me with slow connections really appreciate being considered by webmasters. I'd say anything under 30kb is fine. What I do usually is look at the different versions of the images, jpg and png, and adjust them down to the smallest file size I can get without distorting the pic. You can easily trim it by 15% sometimes with no discernible difference, depending upon the complexity of the image. Usually jpg's smaller but occasionally the png is.

[Fergal]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I do try to keep the logo size as small as possible and will ensure to maintain this view for any future versions we use.