Design Is Innovation

What Makes Design Powerful?

Web design is a form of graphic communications – a point of difference between companies that give their audience similar products or services. Outstanding Web design goes beyond site architecture to position the company through content and user experience that is undeniably relevant. Design creates an environment where the audience feels control over the experience and empowered, but not so much control that it is overwhelming.

Transforming User Experience

Designing the experience that’s right for the audience is critical to having good design. Take Facebook for example. Facebook’s popularity is due to two main things: it’s a simple idea – telling your friend what you’re up to and users having control over what we see or post without feeling overwhelmed. The lessons from Facebook are users have enough control over the experience to make us feel as if we are expressing ourselves, but not so much control that the experience becomes overwhelming or intimidating.

Organizing The Aesthetic

Elements of style such as size, scale, color, texture and depth are integral components that designers leverage to communicate content and appeal of design. An effective design unity takes precedence over the individual elements, so that the audience perceives design as a cohesive unit. Creating visual language means grouping the elements of design together, either through meaning or function and shaping the visual relationships between them. An effective design synergy takes precedence over the individual elements so the user perceives a synergistic design from page to page.

Importance Of White Space

Deliberately constructing empty space is overlooked as an element of Web design. In fact, a common mistake is to focus on the objects to be placed on the page. For example – words, images, points and empty space. Usually, white space is simply what’s left over when design is finished. Empty space is essential for creating relationships that inform design language. The use of white space in Web design has extra significance over other forms of communication, since the elements of a design aren’t just elements, it’s the interface that people need to navigate and to find information. Design leads the user through a layout for maximum usability.

Stylistic Elements Of Design

A design style connects with our audience’s need to relate to things. The elements of design style include: color, texture, typography and imagery. Additionally, there are means of manipulating these elements to create a sense of scale, or depth through the use of animation and variation. The crafting and manipulation of these aesthetic elements of style make a practical design memorable. Design style comes primarily from two areas: the trends of our time – what’s fashionable and the technology available now to create design.

Importance Of Color

More than any other design element, color has the ability to guide, direct and persuade the audience. Color appeals to each person’s emotions by setting a mood or a tone for design. Colors signify meaning for many people and culture, making it a powerful tool for every designer. The immediacy with which colors can be recognized makes it valuable for forming clear relationships.

Texture Informs Tactile Experience

Adding texture to design gives the audience greater sense of a tactile experience and helps connect her/him to the content on a page. Types of texture can range from smooth, shiny buttons, to rough or grungy treatments, type imagery or backgrounds. Aside from the stylistic treatments of texture, it’s important to remember that on a macro level, every design has a texture, intended or not. Type images and illustrations combine to make an overall texture that the user perceives on a subconscious level.

Iconography

A designer’s choice of imagery should be deliberate and add to the branding or the message of the page. All images add to the page’s file size, so gratuitous use of imagery can impede a good or fast user experience.

Depth And Dimension

Applying depth + dimension to a page gives it an element of realism giving the audience a more tactile experience. There are many ways to create depth of design. From overlapping design elements, adding gradient color, shadows, three-dimensional elements, of course, all in moderation add visual interest. Design with depth and dimension draws the audience into design.

Animation

Animation is a tool used by digital designers to layer information, create a sequence of information or simply surprise and delight the user. Animation can be the focal point of a design – like a slideshow or video in the main feature area – but animation can also be simple and subtle, like small amounts of movement where a user mouses over a button. Too much repetitive animation becomes distracting to audience. The designer should always give the audience the ability to pause a large animation or if an animation is looping to cycle for no more than three cycles.

Variability

The speed at which you the Web designer can apply changes combined with the need to continually “refresh” the site, gives you the ability to vary elements of a design. What was once considered unthinkable – altering a corporate logo, for example, can now be a playful way to add relevance to a Web site. The best way to keep a site fresh is by updating the content. But if that’s not possible, design variations can give the audience an impression that the site is fresh.

Art Of Typography

Typography has the greatest effect on the success or failure for a piece of communication. This is because type carries readability of the message and the craftsmanship of the typography can either enhance or take away from the message. Many designers share a passion for the art of typography and can spend hours learning new fonts, adjusting the rag onto a column of type or placing punctuation. It has been said that outstanding typography is highly invisible, but typography can also be aesthetically expressive and attention grabbing. In either case, type must carry the message further to our audience.

Creating Relationship Through Powerful Design

You the designer must create form that’s the new new. Design combines art and technology to communicate ideas. Designers push forward by dreaming big. The larger the idea – the better it can be made through design. If the idea is really outstanding, the designer may worry about how to create it. Sometimes the yardstick of a good idea is the “no,” of un-comfort that it may generate. The “no’s” suggest the idea is actually worth doing because if it doesn’t challenge the status quo it may be similar to other ideas in the realm.