URL to reference images in Magento

what's the best way to reference an image from within a .pht开发者_JAVA技巧ml file in Magento. I'm trying to insert an image (sitting in the 'images' folder) into footer.phtml and

{{skin url='images/image.gif'}}

doesn't seem to work. any ideas?

---

If you're referring to the images folder in your skin folder, then you could use Mage::getDesign()->getSkinUrl('images/image.gif').

---

$this->getSkinUrl('images/image.gif')