Oh, what a tangled web we weave! But weโre not talking about deception today, weโre diving into the intricacies of web design. Itโs a tall order, but with our help, you should have a grasp on design principles and what goes into designing a website.
The Importance of Design Principles
Weโve said it before: not everyone can be a designer.
So what does it take to create an effective and attractive web design? For starters, you must understand some of the commonly-accepted design principles. Having an awareness of what works and what doesnโt can prevent you from making embarassing mistakes up front.
Hereโs a quick summary of important design principles for captivating web design.
Typography
Different typefaces can have different impacts on a reader. Itโs important to choose a typefaceย that resonates with your target audience. For example, the average shipping company wouldnโt use elegant text, but a luxury real estate agent would.
Balance and rhythm
There are several rules to take into consideration when designing a website. Funny enough, some of them can almost seem to cancel each other out. You may think โbalance is important, so Iโll group things in twos,โ but the rule of oddsย says that odd numbers are more visually pleasing. This is also true for content – lists with odd numbers tend to get more clicks!
Likewise, the rule of thirdsย seems to cancel out the appeal of symmetry/balance, but as weโve said before – rules were made to be broken. What might be confusing to the newbie designer is crystal clear to one whoโs had decades of experience.
Grids for compartmentalization
This oneโs not mandatory, but a lot of designers have used grids to keep things looking simple and clean, so itโs worth mentioning! Grids can help your web visitors keep track of where they are on the page and break it up so that itโs not too cluttered. More about that in the white space section, though!
Understanding color principles
Color principles are an essential part of web design, as they can impact consumer decision-makingย and how they feel about the brand.
Though you may be tempted to choose your favorite colors for your brand, this is generally not a good idea, because the colors you choose should go well with each other and resonate with your target audience without blending in too much with what your competitors are doing.
Culture is another consideration. Some colors have a negative connotation in one country and a positive connotation in another. Some of the colors you choose to use may not even be used in the culture youโre designing for – or have an entirely different meaning. This is why itโs important to get an experienced designer.
Consistency (graphics, colors, etc)
Some websites are doing too much. There are five fonts and seven colors used, with four different logo designs tossed throughout the website. This is too busy for the eye and can cause people to bounce from the website. Often, they wonโt even know why theyโre doing it – but itโs because your website isnโt consistent enough!
White space and scale
Speaking of โbusy for the eye,โ white space is an important addition (or negation?) to your website. You need to allow the eyes to rest so that visitors donโt get overwhelmed or confused. Additionally, positioning elements carefully will enable you to get the most out of the web design.
UX/UI
The coolest looking web page in the world wonโt do much if itโs not optimized for mobile and doesnโt have a quick page loading speed. To keep your website bounce rates low, you should ensure that youโre doing everything you can to make the user experience awesome. (Hint: user experience design is like a dance, but if youโre doing it right, no one will notice it. If you do it wrong, though, youโll look like Monica from Friends trying to dance. And no one wants that.)
How to Design a Website
Now that weโve laid out a few of the principles (yeah, there are an entirely different set of principles for UX/UI designย that we havenโt gotten to), here are some basics on how to design a website:
- Decide what you want to use it for. This typically requires a deep dive of your brand, target audience, competitors, etc.
- Choose a platform. WordPress is our favorite. Less known platforms can sometimes work – or they can squish your photos beyond recognition when you visit the site on mobile, or overlap your text to other design elements.
- Create (and/or gather) your brand elements. (Remember, all the brand development should take place before you get a logo, colors, or other brand elements.)
- Choose a theme (optional). Some sites have templates or themes you can use – or you can design your own. Whatever you do, youโll need to go through each element/option to tweak it to your brand (on every page) later.
- Create a site map. Decide how you want the pages to look and to link to each other. Knowing this ahead of time will simplify the process.
- Design the elements. Here are some common elements you might want to use: menu/search, headers, footers.
- Customize. Youโll need a home page, some service pages/product pages, an about page, a page for blog content (if you want one), and a โcontactโ page with an intake form and different ways visitors can contact you.
- Test and launch. Once youโre done with the website, youโre not truly done. This is because youโll have to test it and then cross your fingers as you launch the site.
- Optimize. Be sure to optimize your site (and update it every now and then) to ensure that your site can still compete with the sites your competitors use.
Too Much Work? Not for Us!
Creating a website is far more labor intensive than most people think. Templates can help – they have their place – but there are so many elements involved that itโs still a good idea to get an expert web designer on your team. At Matcha Design, we have been web design experts for over 30 years, and weโd love to take on your project so you can focus on what you enjoy: running your business. Talk with us todayย to learn how we can help!
