Archive for the ‘Design Crush’ Category

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Design Crush – edition 11

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Once upon a time, web design was just boxes and text with a few ugly hyperlinks splashed about creating highly functional but fairly uninteresting and unattractive sites. These were the dark ages, and now more and more inspiration for web design comes from everyday objects. A trend that has been occuring for a while and looks like it’s here to stay is using everyday tactile objects and surfaces and recreating them online. But this isn’t a completely brand new idea; from using images of folders to save files to and naming a computer ‘desktop’, there has always been an association with computers and traditional objects.

Imitating natural materials for backgrounds is becoming a popular design trend. Some sites have been using wood and paper to give a comfortable and familiar feel. The use of tactile material can also give a site a retro feel that breaks the mould from the usual sites we so often come across.

Replicating everyday objects like desktops, scrapbooks and pin boards are popular within web design to create fun, friendly and quirky layouts. This style however, looks easier to create than it actually is and requires a large amount of talent and time. Get it wrong and it can easily look unprofessional and outdated, get it right and you create an enviroment in which your users can explore and enjoy.

Here are some good examples of using everyday objects and surfaces to create successful web design:

 

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Design Crush – edition 10

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Blogs play a major role within the web; gone are the days where blogs were just for the normal individual who wanted to write whatever was on their mind. Most companies not only have a website but now utilise blogs too. More and more corporate companies from all sectors of business are utilising blogs to not only advertise their products or services, but to give their brand a voice. And with this surge of new blogs, came new design challenges.

Designing for blogs is not just about using the thousands of free templates that are so readily available or just sticking a colourful header graphic at the top. Blog design is about creating a solid visual structure, with a thoughtful hierarchy of content elements and should be able to connect the content of the site to the presentation.

For this to be achieved, you need to think about accuracy, simplicity and a good use of typography and illustration. Because blogs are content based, mostly being text, getting the typography right is the most important element of blog design.

There is a large difference between corporate blogs and personal blogs. With corporate blogs, they are often made to look the same, if not very similar to the main website. This allows them to tie into the main corporate identity to amplify the company’s personality. Good examples of company blogs can be seen from Econsultancy.com and Topshop.co.uk

However, personal blogs take a slightly different design slant, with many designs using slightly more adventurous styles to create attention-grabbing and unique identities online. Because of the nature of blogs, being that they are an expression of someone’s thoughts, likes and dislikes the designs often reflect this and become a very personal thing. Good examples of personal blog design can be seen from ilovetypography.com and bubblessoc.net

Overall, blog design relies heavily on how the content and text is structured and treated and for what purpose the blog is being used for, whether it is part of a company’s website or a standalone blog.

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Design Crush – edition 9

Friday, June 5th, 2009

This week’s design crush is all about button and icons. Most of the time people click on buttons and don’t take much notice of them, but a well design icon can not only give a site a more professional and sleek look, but it can also encourage users to select the button and give your site that all important personality.

Icon design is tricky, with such a small area to play with, it can often be hard to design a successful icon. It’s all about the details. With icons, there should almost certainly be simplistic detail used; only the necessary details should be included to allow your button to be easily understood. And the more it stands out the more chance you have of people selecting it. RSS feed icons are a popular button to be redesigned to try to attract people to sign up to the blog feed. Here are some examples for you to have a ponder over:


Why would you spend hours of your time designing a new icon instead of using a standard one? The answer is personality. If you want your website and company brand to pack a bit more punch online, having unique elements in your site is sure to deliver. And there no easier way of doing this than having unique buttons and icons. But if you’re not up for designing one yourself, there are many websites where you can download more unusual looking icons to give your site that little twist.

Resources:

Make your own RSS button

Download RSS icons

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Design Crush – edition 8

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Web design can be inspired from almost anything, which is what makes designing for the web so diverse. However, an area of inspiration for many web design layouts is from the traditional print, mainly magazine design.

Many elements of web design have be derived from traditional magazine print from using headers, and margins to employing columns to layout and organise content and body text. The main reason that using magazine layout for web design works is that it allows you to cram as much information as needed into a relatively small space. By using magazine layouts, you can optimise the space on the page and make the presentation of information that little bit more user friendly.

A good example of using this method of magazine design elements in web design is the Cannes Film Festival website. Here they have cleverly used a grid structure layout to neatly show images and videos of the entire goings on in Cannes throughout the festival. With updates every day, this site had the potential to become busy and crowded, but by using a 3 column grid like structure, they have successfully pulled the information together in an attractive and user friendly way.

Another example of a website mimicking magazine design is The Loop website, an online arts and culture magazine. This site is clearly inspired by traditional print with the use of columns, margins, headers, footers and white space, creating a light, easy to follow design that is not only pleasing on the eye, but functional and efficient.

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Design Crush – edition 7

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Designing for the web has to encompass many factors; not only does it have to serve a purpose for a company, it also has to consider the users behaviour. As many web designers know, the top left area of a website is where most users eyes travel to when looking at a website. Therefore this part of the site is tremendously important to communicate the websites message to the users. By using this area of a web page to put a company’s massage across to the users, it increases the chances of them seeing it.

Many designers are now employing this design technique when designing sites, to capture the companies branding and messaging allowing it to be the main focus of the web page. Large and legible typography is used to translate company slogans or introductions to the site’s users. To make this text area stand out even more, they usually take up a large proportion of the site. For design companies and corporate companies where company massaging and branding is vitally important to their success, these introduction blocks are a great way for the company to tell its users why they are different from their competition.

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Design Crush – edition 6

Friday, April 24th, 2009

Since spring has sprung and as the better weather settles in (much to our delight), here at 360innovate we have come over all green. For this weeks Design Crush, we wanted to talk about using nature in graphics and design that can really transform a flat standard website into something that is full of life and personality.

There are many design trends out there, some come and go, other stick around for a while, and one that always seems to re-surface is the use of nature as inspiration for web design. There are more and more sites out there recognising that with a few clever uses of imagery inspired by nature, you can transform a site and bring it to life. Using shapes derived from nature such as plants and flowers to any type of natural element can transform a rather simple site design into a world of its own, giving it real character and interest. And the best thing about using nature in design is that you have so many options making it very easy to create something that is totally unique to your site. So its easy to bring life into web design using nature as inspiration.

Here are some good examples of how to use nature in web design:

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Design Crush – edition 5

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

For our 5th installment of all things nice in the world of design, we wanted to talk about how a website can use design to promote more usability and to actually convert visitors into sales or lead generation. Many people get so caught up in design, they forget the basic function of the website. The primary purpose of a site is to try to create custom for the business. However, there is a fine line between the design of a site and the call to action.

A call to action is a simple marketing tool in which design is implemented to direct visitors to a specific or desired action. With web design this can be often seen where people are directed to form fill-ins and contact pages. With many online retail websites using call to action to attract customers to buy their products it can be the difference between more sales or less. A clear and eye catching call to action in an optimal part of the web page can make all the difference.

Good examples of successful call to actions can often be seen from charity websites. These website heavily rely on call to actions to promote donations from their visitors. Most have very striking call to actions that are well deigned to entice people to donate. An example of this can be seen from the Scottish SPCA website. Here there is a donation button that is obvious and clear to users while not being too in your face which can be off putting.

However, getting the call to action just right can be easier said than done. Another example of a charity website that could have a slightly improved call to action is Children 1st. Here, the donations button is at the top of the page where many people may glance over. Also the size and colour could be changed to make it stand out. So this site could benefit from re-thinking the position, size and colour of their call to action to attract more visitors to the sites desired function.

If you need help with your websites call to action, then get in touch!

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Design Crush – edition 4

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Design is everywhere, from street signs to simple food packaging, and much of it goes unnoticed by the untrained eye. Design can influence you without you even noticing and one major element of design that can be very influential is typography. The art of typography has been around for centuries, from cast iron letter and ink right up to our modern day fonts. The history of type and fonts is fascinating however, thats another area altogether. We at 360innovate pride oursleves in keeping up with current design trends and fonts are a major part of this.

Fontorama!

Choosing a font can be vital to the success of a design, whether its a logo or a website, getting the font to match the look and feel you are wanting can be time consuming but ulimately rewarding. With millions of fonts to choose from, your are spoilt for choice. And with sites like Dafont there is unlimited access to free fonts for you to use. Trends emerge through web design and print design and we thought we would talk about a couple of trends that we like within font design.

Hand-Draw Fonts

The first font trend that we love is the use of hand-written fonts. These styles of fonts are being used more and more because of the personal style they give to websites and other media. Hand-written fonts come in a variety of shapes and styles so it is best to use ones that are open and more legible than some sripts to overcome illegibility issues. However be careful not to overload your design with hand-written fonts, use them sparsely to create a more modern feel while still adding the personal touch that you are wanting.

Example of hand-written font:

Retro Inspired Fonts

Another font style we are totally crushing on at the moment are fonts that have a vintage and faded feel. This almost grundgy type of font gives an edgy feel to a design making it look old and used giving the impression of a retro era. Retro styles have had a large comeback and many fonts have embraced this by-gone era providing us with a selection for vintage inspired fonts. Again, this font styles should be used sparingly to really make a statment and impact.

Examples of good retro fonts:

So the next time you are designing, take advantage of all the great trendy fonts out there.

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Design Crush – edition 3

Friday, March 20th, 2009

This weeks design crush comes from our love of chocolate. Many a time there have been large Cadbury’s chocolate bars kicking about the office, soon to disappear. With chocolate on the brain and after just consuming a Creme Egg McFlurry (trying not to think about the calories), we thought we would have a look at the Cadbury site.

With the Easter period coming up and the award winning adverts that they have been producing, we were not disappointed with the official Cadbury site. The first thing that hits you is the colour. Their deep royal purple is the dominant colour ofcourse, but there is colour everywhere. Not one single pixel has been left untouched to create this Cadbury world. The website is successful in creating a complete environmet where you can explore the Cadbury factory through the fantastic Flash animation. Although Flash has been used to navigate the usability is not dependant on just this, and there is additional navigation along the top of the screen to allow for better accessibility. When you start to navigate, the rest of the site is less exciting than the home page due to the normal layouts that don’t have the same amount of impact. However, this does not derive from the overall strong branding that the design has created.

The Cadbury’s site successfully combines their creativity and unique marketing with their traditional yet fun image, producing a site that truely represents Cadbury’s products.

P.S. Only 22 days left to stock up on Creme Eggs, “here today, goo tomorrow” !

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Design Crush – edition 2

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

For the second post of the Design Crush series, we thought it apt to review the new online Zavvi (http://www.zavvi.co.uk) website. Since the high street chain went into administration last year, the online store has been re-launched and is now open for business as usual. As avid fans of buying DVD’s and CD’s online, we jumped at the chance to check out the website and pass our judgement.

There are plenty of sites out their all doing the same as Zavvi, such as Amazon (http://www.amazon.co.uk) and Play (http://www.play.com) so it faces stiff competition for established and popular sites. However, the Zavvi site feels a little fresher and slightly more straightforward than its more well known competition. This is largely due to the good use of colours and layout. The colour scheme is derived from the well recognised logo and it works well in creating an eye-catching and inviting theme that gives it strong personality and a bold statement to match.

One major element of the site that truly stands out is the lack of additional adverts that seem to cover the other entertainment retailing sites. Because of this, the website design seems to be clearer and gives the site a more welcoming feel instead of bombarding you with in-your-face advertising. This also makes it easy to work your way around the site, with an easy to use menu and clear product layouts.

We think that due to the websites clarity and bold design, Zavvi stands a good chance against its competition. We hope that Zavvi online sees more success than the stores did, but only time will tell.

What are your thoughts?

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