• Frank Jamison dressed as a medieval adventurer stands on a stone road at sunset, struggling to close an overfilled leather pack stuffed with glowing red and blue potions, scrolls, coins, and gear, with a castle rising in the distance behind him.
    Web Development Fundamentals

    One More Potion in the Pack: The Performance Cost of One Extra Image

    There is a moment in every campaign when someone insists it is only one more item. One more rope. One more potion. One more mysterious glowing artifact that absolutely will not awaken something ancient. Then the party slows down. Movement decreases. Initiative suffers. The dragon closes the distance. I used to treat images that way in my projects. It is only one more image. It will enhance the design. It will elevate the aesthetic. What could it possibly cost. More than I expected. I learned this while refining one of my portfolio builds. The layout was clean. The typography was intentional. The JavaScript was efficient. Performance metrics were solid. Then…