When looking for inspiration for your next web design project, it’s easy to become entranced by all the creativity and different techniques that are out there. You start working on your project, harmlessly trying out a couple of new ideas. Then, all of a sudden, you have a full-screen background photo with large typography, a horizontal scroll, an oversized footer, and hand-drawn elements. In other words, you’ve got a mess on your hands.
It’s always exciting to try out new techniques and styles, but patience is important if you want to be a good designer. Instead of trying out your new ideas all at once, save screen shots of the designs that inspired you and come back to them later.
Perfecting your techniques
“You can’t master a design style if it’s only a small focus of your design.” You can’t master a design style if it’s only a small focus of your design. Practicing one technique repetitively and finding variations of the technique will improve your skills in that area. To be an effective designer, you need to invest the time and focus in perfecting the techniques that interest you.
Avoiding all the noise
“Combining too many techniques in one design will create a lot of noise for your readers.” Combining too many techniques in one design will create a lot of noise for your readers. Multiple bold design elements will all be clamoring for attention, and the lack of focus will disorient your readers. Keeping their attention on what’s most important will allow them to easily navigate to what they’re looking for.
Choosing the appropriate style
“Certain techniques just don’t work in certain situations.”Certain techniques just don’t work in certain situations. Depending on your audience, you may need to create a very run-of-the-mill design so readers can focus on the content and tasks at hand. For a law firm website, you wouldn’t want a hand-drawn design or distracting colors that might make the business look less legitimate. On the other hand, a web development agency might prefer these techniques to showcase their unique creativity. Use your judgment on the type of project you’re developing, and what an audience would expect out of the website.
Learning by example
Well-designed sites usually only have one bold design element that becomes the main focus of attention. These designers understand that there is no shortage of websites to be built, and can successfully spread out their techniques over a period of time. Keep in mind that there’s no need to put all of your inspiration into one site, when there’s tons of other sites still to be made. Below are some examples of current design techniques. If you’ll notice, each of these sites only showcases one technique at a time, and all have very effective designs for their particular audience.
Mel Kadel (hand-drawn elements)
Mel Kadel uses hand-drawn elements for a personal portfolio site that is fun, casual and creative.
Five Cent Stand (vintage/retro style)
Five Cent Stand has branded themselves with a retro theme that dominates their web presence, and further emphasizes their style.
Aedas
Aedas uses a high-quality, full-screen background photo that doesn’t detract from the content or disorient the user.
I’m always hungry (large typography & bold colors)
I’m always hungry has a unique interface and bold colors that may take some adjusting too – but are the main elements of the design and don’t compete with eachother.
Dean Oakley (horizontal scroll)
Dean Oakley uses a horizontal scroll layout with a background image that also provides instructions with the arrow pointing the user in the direction to scroll.
