Is there a recipe for great web design?

As with all forms of design there is always going to be debate over what is best and why.  Different designers will have different ideas about what works.  It is down to personal taste of the individual whether they prefer clean lines and minimalistic pages, or frills and extravagant embellishment.  When deciding on a design that best represents your business, it’s important to communicate and style likes and dislikes you have, so that your site is to your taste, not that of your designer.  It is always a good idea to listen to any suggestions they can make to your idea however as there are certain things that really don’t work, and others that are proven to have a high success rate.

There are certain design principles that are almost universally accepted, and are a great idea to include on your site in order to make it aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate.

Colour

The first of these principles relates to colour.  Whilst there may be a select few people that like bold clashing colours, like shouty oranges and pinks in close proximity, for the vast majority clashing colours do not engage an audience and make content difficult to read.  It is therefore advisable that complimentary colours be used on websites as in print.

Font

There are a great many fonts to choose from both as standard on certain software packages and available to download online.  However, just because there are a lot of fonts, does not mean that you should use lots of fonts.  Try and limit font use to 1-3 different ones across the whole website.  Any more than this and it will start to look cluttered, disjointed and messy.

Thirds

Start by dividing a page into 3.  Anything you add to a page in thirds will be easy on the eye.  Thirds occur in nature and are therefore something the human eye is used to seeing and therefore absorbs easily.

White Space

Don’t be afraid to leave spaces.  It is much easier to read something that has a good amount of white space around or between it than it is to read something that is cluttered and full of images and text.  White space is your friend.  Use it as a tool as you would a picture or a symbol.

Whatever avenue you chose for designing your website remember the above rules and discuss your ideas with your designer.  It is your site and you want it to showcase your business as you want it to be seen.

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