The GIF was invented in 1989. And since its beginning, the GIF has been used to make money. At first, GIFs were sold as placeholders for the web of the ’90s and early 2000s. But after web design became informed by professional standards, gifs lost their role as placeholders. Eventually they became tools of expression, turning snippets of video from popular culture into bite size communication devices. Today, a few big tech companies are trying to capitalize on this new use of GIFs, partnering with brands who want their content to be used as communication (VOX, 2016).
Stands for “Graphics Interchange Format.” GIF is an image file format commonly used for images on the web and sprites in software programs. Unlike the JPEG image format, GIFs uses lossless compression that does not degrade the quality of the image. However, GIFs store image data using indexed color, meaning a standard GIF image can include a maximum of 256 colors (Rouse, 2006).
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The multiple images within a single GIF file are displayed in succession to create an animated clip or a short movie. By default, animated GIFs display the sequence of images only once, stopping when the last image or frame is displayed, although it can also loop endlessly or stop after a few sequences (William 2016).
References
Rouse M. (February 2006). GIF (Graphics Interchange Format). Tech Target. Retrieved from: http://searchwindevelopment.techtarget.com/definition/GIF
William, D. (8 March 2016). What is a GIF? Small Business Trends. Retrieved from: https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/03/what-is-a-gif.html
