At mapformation (our “parent” mapping company), we are hired as sub-contractors on a semi-regular basis to produce maps and diagrams for communications consultants, marketing and public relations agencies, etc. as a part of larger overall branding and identity campaigns. Sometimes we can publicize those projects/relationships in our marketing materials, sometimes we cannot. However, that type of regular “sub-contractor” work has grown into becoming roughly 10-15% of our firm’s annual revenues…which is fabulous “insurance” against economic downturns or other occasionally unpleasant forces in the marketplace.
One of the great agencies that we recently have worked with is Freeman Design out of Newtown, Pennsylvania. Freeman markets themselves as “an award-winning marketing design agency that enjoys doing innovative and sharp work for companies who need progressive and high impact results.” Joe Freeman, Principal at the agency, is a very passionate and impressive individual…who also shares my heart for all-things “green.” Joe has recently even gone so far as to send out occasional email messages to clients, partners and other friends of their agency which specifically help people learn more about innovative methods for going about their business in an environmentally-friendly manner. ANYONE who makes a true effort in (and has a heart for) “going green” scores about 100 points in my book…so I promised Joe that I would make sure to write a blog posting about Freeman Design to make sure that the readers of this blog are familiar with his services.
I chose five graphics from the Freeman home page at random, in effort to see what might be done in relation to optimizing imagery and subsequently reducing bandwidth/electricity consumption while reducing the time it takes to load/display the content of their site. The results of that experiment can be found below:
Unoptimized 1000×1000 pixel .gif graphic – 484 KB
Optimized 1000×1000 pixel .png graphic – 336 KB
Unoptimized 32×32 pixel .ico file – 27,673 bytes
Optimized 32×32 pixel .ico file – 3,638 bytes
** NOTE: For some reason, WordPress is forcing that 32×32 pixel .ico file to be displayed at 16×16 pixels…so you’ll have to trust me and take my word that the new image is 32×32 pixels and looks identical to the previous .ico file.
Unoptimized 420×282 pixel .jpg graphic – 64,568 bytes
Optimized 420×282 pixel .png graphic – 8,277 bytes
Unoptimized 227×98 pixel .jpg graphic – 14,209 bytes
Optimized 227×98 pixel .png graphic – 2,248 bytes
Unoptimized 380×282 pixel .swf object – 131,410 bytes
Optimized 380×282 pixel .swf object – 131,222 bytes
Playing it ultra-conservative with their .swf file, in order to not risk any noticeable effect on overall presentation quality, I was not able to shave much file size off of the Flash file using Eltima Software’s Flash Optimizer program (0.015%). However, what I was not able to save in file size in that .swf I was more than able to make up for in the other four images! The Freeman favicon file is currently saved at 27.0 KB. Simply saving a copy of their .ico file off their web site and re-creating that .ico file using Chami’s FavIcon from Pics online service was able to re-save that same 32×32 pixel .ico file at 3.55 KB, an improvement of 87 percent!
The one .gif and two .jpg files that I looked at could all be converted into 8-bit .png format without any decline in on-screen image quality whatsoever, so I used xat.com Image Optimizer to convert file formats and do a bit of initial optimization work. Running the resulting images in PNGSlim took 561 KB of imagery and reduced them to 346 KB in cumulative size, an improvement of 38 percent. All-told, about 4-5 minutes of effort on those five images would save visitors approximately twenty percent of the time it currently takes to download and display that content in their browsers, as well as 238 KB of image caching and bandwidth transfer as well. Not too bad….not bad at all! 
Given Joe Freeman’s passion for environmental issues, my guess is that this information will be met with great excitement…helping to give him lots of great ideas for how their firm might better serve clients creating electronic campaigns/sites going forward. That gets me excited too…as every ONE web site we can change for the better out there is a site visitor/owner who might help spread the word about image optimization and the enormous benefits it can to the future of electronic communications. Keep up the great work, Joe! And if there is ever anything that our firm can do for your firm in the future, please do not hesitate to let me know.
