Less Ridiculous Standard Ad Sizes

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Chris Coyier on

I recently said that I thought the current “standard” pixel dimensions for ads are ridiculous. 728×90? 88 x 31? Wha? I have a new idea: ad sizes that make sense.

Let’s start with a basic building block. 125×125 is very popular, already a current “standard”, and supported by a wide variety of ad networks. So if we start there, and chose a reasonable gutter size (10px), we can build a whole system of ad sizes that make sense.

Using just this block and the 10px gutters we can get a whole bunch of rational sizes:

125×125 260×125 395×125 530×125 665×125 800×125
125×260 260×260 395×260 530×260 665×260 800×260
125×395 260×395 395×395 530×395 665×395 800×395
125×530 260×530 395×530 530×530 665×530 800×530
125×665 260×665 395×665 530×665 665×665 800×665
125×800 260×800 395×800 530×800 665×800 800×800

Our 125px building block is also divisible by 5, making 25px.

So, we can substitute and multiple of 25 (e.g. 25px, 50px, 75px, 100px, 200px, etc) for heights as needed. Need more of a button size: how about 125x25px?

 

Any thoughts?

If I were to build a new site that incorporated ad sizes, I’d definitely do this (or something very similar), rather than try to “accommodate” old ridiculous sizes like 728px that have nothing to do with anything. And besides, if an advertiser can’t be troubled to make an ad to a specific and rational size, we probably aren’t going to be a good match anyway.