What is Web Design?
Over the next few months, you’ll find our blog primarily focused on web design. The easy explanation for that is because we offer services in web design. However, this blog is not just meant to promote us or our services. Instead, it’s to leave our website guests with a greater understanding of various topics that we interact with on a daily basis. Web design is one of those topics, so before we delve into the debate of good design or web design trends, we thought it would be helpful to better define web design and the aspects that fall underneath it.
What is web design?
The basic answer is that web design is the process of planning, designing, and building the layout of a website. Under this broad definition falls the layout and structure of the site, the fonts, the color schemes, the images, and the graphics, so essentially anything that goes into the visual aspect of your website.
Now, the copy of your website is a visual aspect, but different web designers will handle that in different ways. Some might not offer any help while others might give you a questionnaire or framework to help work out the language of your company, its vision, and its intended audience.
How is web design different from web development?
In an overly simplistic explanation, coding. Web designers typically handle the creative aspect of designing your website. Web developers are the ones who take the creative mockup and translate it into code where everything appears as desired. They’re the ones who go into the muck of HTML, CSS, and CMS. Sometimes web designers are proficient in web development or user experience, so they can successfully do it all.
What are the elements of web design?
When we’re talking about the broad, technical side of web design, there are several different components that every website has to consider. There’s the graphic design portion, which focuses on the appearance of your website. We’ll get more into design specifics below but also includes layout and navigation. There’s the user experience design and the interface design, which is focused on the coding aspects and on making your website as user-friendly as possible on a technical level. Search engine optimization is a vital component as well as content creation. All of these elements affect a website’s appearance, functionality, and overall tone.
What design principles are considered in web design?
When designing a website, most web designers will consult principles of design for reference. The goal is always for a website to look appealing and function well, so here are some principles that might be applied.
Balance: Using symmetrical or asymmetrical balance to make sure that none of the elements on a page are too overpowering.
Contrast: Incorporating juxtaposed elements to highlight important information and create a compelling image. Think of the use of light and dark, large and small, etc.
Emphasis: Making sure that there’s a dominant aspect of your design. Emphasis leads your visitors visually to the most important things first through bright colors, size, boldness, etc.
Movement: This is what guides your visitors from one element on your page to the next; it’s typically achieved through size, direction, and the order of elements.
Rhythm: Repetitious elements to create consistency. The best example is using similar fonts, brand colors, etc.
Hierarchy: Structuring your content where the most important information is in a prominent spot then filling in the rest accordingly.
White space: The void in your visual elements. It might not be white, but every kind of design needs space to breathe.
Unity: Making sure all the individual elements of your site work together to create a cohesive experience. Basically, making sure your website isn’t visually overwhelming or confusing for visitors.
Why is web design important?
It’s important because a strong web presence is a necessity for every company no matter how big or small. The look and experience of your website will determine a lot for visitors and can communicate whether or not you care about your company, your products or services, and your customers. You don’t have much time to create a good impression on your website, and good design plays a huge role in creating that first impression.
So, here is our little introduction to web design. We’ll be talking about specifics surrounding it for the next few months, but in the meantime, we hope that this helps you out on your own web design journey.
Also, as always, if you’d like more information on our web design services, you can find out more here .