The
Five Basic Elements Of Web Design
Author: ©Semul Johnson
The
basic elements and principles involved in web design are true
for all other types of design. These principles will show you
the most effective way to put together the various design elements
to come up with a good and effective site. A good web design company
emphasizes the fact that web design is not simply about slapping
all those HTML tags on the page, but it involves the use of web
design principles to build a pleasing and useful web design. Your
web design company will need you to make the most aesthetically
attractive and effective web design, so make sure you keep these
elements in mind:
Web
design Balance is the equal distribution of the heavy and light
elements on a singly page. Balance in your web design is concentrated
in your page layout. You must achieve visual balance in your web
design all throughout the page, not only in the initial view.
You web design company might commonly suggest you to center the
text and all the other elements on your page. It is also very
common to set your page on an invisible grid system to create
the balance that you need. There are three types of balance that
can be achieved when designing a page.
1.
Symmetrical. This is achieved by placing all the elements in an
even fashion - a heavy element on the left is matched with another
on the right. Be careful with symmetrical balances as you do not
want your site to look flat or plain boring.
2.
Asymmetrical. These are more challenging to build, but there are
strategies to achieve this which can include the varying texture,
color and image positioning and size to arrive at a pleasant looking
page.
3.
Discordant. Web sites that are off-balance suggest action or motion,
so you can create a discordant design on purpose. This type of
designs make viewers uncomfortable or uneasy, so they are best
used for sites that are intended to make people think.
Web
design contrast is more than just about colors and black or white,
but also involves contrasting shapes, sizes and even textures.
You can take full advantage of contrast by changing font size,
weight and family to provide textual contrast and varying sizes
of images and elements. However, be careful not to blast your
readers or scare them off with contrasting colors which are way
too loud. The links on your content should be contrasted well
to draw most attention.
Web
design emphasis involves the main points where the eye is drawn
into in a design. One of the mistakes that your web design company
may warn you not to make is to have everything in the design stand
out. Keep in mind that if everything in the design has equal emphasis,
the entire page will tend to appear too busy for comfort and may
end up unappealing. What you should focus on instead is to create
a visual hierarchy in the web design - to put emphasis only on
the right elements. You can use semantic markup to provide emphasis
even without the use of styles; change the font size of image
size in order to emphasis or lessen emphasis on them; or you can
use contrast in colors for added emphasis.
Web
design rhythm, also known as repetition, brings the much needed
internal consistency into your web site designs. Almost all elements
in your design can be repeated in order to create pleasing rhythm
into your design. For instance, you can repeat your headline a
few times for more emphasis, repeat the same image across the
page, create a background that is tiled and patterned with repetitive
elements, or repeat a particular style to provide site design
consistency. It is also a good idea to repeat the navigation elements
in your site design across the pages of your web site.
Web
design unity, also regarded as a site's proximity, is the what
keeps all the similar elements in the site alike and those diverse
further apart, and pulls everything together into one integrated
whole. Unity when it comes to web site design is mainly achieved
through the proper placement in your layout. You can implement
this in many ways. You can, for example, adjust the layout of
your elements to put them close or far away from each other. In
the body of your page, you can change the spacing around the text
in your page contents. You can further achieve unity by playing
around the box properties and change the margins and paddings.
A
good web design company keeps in mind all the basic design elements
with each and every page they design and collaborate with. This
way, you and your web design company will come up with web sites
that are pleasant looking, effective and attractive. As the website
designer, it is important that you keep these elements in mind
and apply them appropriately to your web page design.
