Custom Website Design using Advance  

Custom Website Design using Advance Visual Grading Tips

Producing a good custom website design takes years of experience but here we are going through some standards in understanding what a good custom website design consists of. Some good designers have their way of grading a website design. In this modern age we are accustomed to producing our artwork through an electronic medium so it is different than grading an art piece. In this write-up we will discuss several key elements in grading the design of any custom websites:

Visual

1.) Balance: This term is so easy to pick out but it covers so many parts in a website. When designing your site, you should always ask yourself if your site is balanced. I cannot stand it when I see a site that is off to one side and leaning toward the other. To balance things while setting up images, dividers, and contents you can draw a circle around each element and correspond it to another element on the opposite side, usually the diagonal element. A group of text can correspond with a large logo, navigation can correspond to an opposite navigation that sits diagonal to it, a center piece navigation can be folded in half vertically or horizontally, etc…

When we think about it, something must be going on, on the other side of the line if we add an element. This arrangement is really important. Each element has a weight to it determined by color value, size and distance. Try and balance these weights out. Grade: Is this custom website design balance? Yes or No

Info: When looking at a Mondrian art piece, to the untrained eyes it looks like the artist did not plan this through but upon closer inspection it is balanced. Piet Mondrian is known for making these balances while drawing colorful boxes. Each corresponding color is balanced out with the same color on the other side. We can take this into account and try to design our website like Piet Mondrian. Look at some Mondrian artwork and try to replicate them to understand balance. Piet uses colors mostly in yellow, red, blue, white, and black.

2.) Color: The tone of the color set the mood for the audience. There are a number of ways in matching different color groups to bring out the right effect. The color goes with the theme and attracts the kind of audience you are trying to draw. Earth colors are for mature audiences and easier on the eyes. Deeper color such as deep gradient blue brings out an elegant professionalism and sharpness but drops the friendliness appeal. Grade: Do this custom website design’s colors match? Yes or No

Info: Different color that sits next to each other brings out different affect to the viewer. Johannes Itten in his book “The Art of Color” emphasizes this. After designing for awhile each designer will prefer and specializes in their sets of colors. The web designer may use each set of colors pertaining to an industry. For example Grunge dark colors for the urban industry, Smooth light colors for the corporate industry, and slightly neon/light colors for the hip web x.x era. You can use a tool by Abode to pick out a set of color that matches at: kuler.adobe.com

3.) Quality: Quality comes from many angles. The font needs to be sharp and full yet clear without much pixilation. Images are of the best quality and any slight pixilation can bring the site off balance with quality degradation. Sometime an associated ‘meaning’ of an element is associated with the quality. Large line should be grayed or light gray and darker lines takes on a slim pixel. Round corners are pixel blurred to be sharpened around its edges. This brings out a more solid round corner. When quality comes to mind, it is a refinement of the design through repetitious practice or slight improvement from mentally preparation and thorough work. We only use the finest of images, of lines, and of text. These are call assets to the web designer. The assets are the foundation in producing quality web design and having the best assets will bring out the best design. Grade: Is this custom web design of the highest quality? Yes or No

Info: Quality comes from the quality of the assets the web designer is using while working on his custom website design. In history, famous artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo use the best form of raw pigments and are familiar with fresco and tempera. Today, designers do not necessarily produce their own asset but they tend to use the best photo-editing software and have a good understanding of CSS and HTML.

4.) Uniformity: When thinking uniformity we think of uniformity in colors, shapes, and style. The correct question to ask is if this fit in the web design? Sometime an obvious design will emphasize an element that it wants to bring out. Several slightly contrasting colors emphasize a search box but marginally breaking the uniformity of the site is okay and sometimes intentional. Today, many websites are run by 3rd party ads and they usually break the uniformity of the site. A website cannot have perfect uniformity but balance. It is okay. Can we think of any website(s) that does not have balance but have uniformity? Grade: Is this custom web design uniform? Yes or No

5.) Font/Images/media: Like in publications a web design will not have more than 3 different types of fonts. It makes the site look messy when the designer overuses it. These assets are usually organized together. The only images that are not grouped together are design images used for only design purposes. We use placeholders for these assets for we do not have it yet and design and organize around these assets. Grade: Are these assets made for publications? Yes or No

6.) Theme: What is the theme of the site? Does it follow the content of the site? A lot of niche websites out there follow a theme. These kinds of themes can fall under an industry, location, time, or a product theme. Grade: Is the content of the site follow along with the theme? Yes or No

7.) Audience: Think of the type of audience looking at this kind of website and try to be in their position. If you think the site is attracting them and isn’t confusing then it is fitting. Grade: Does the site fit with the targeted audience of this theme or industry? Yes or No

8.) Usability: The most important of all. Is the user confused? Does the user see this “element” intended for them? We can have a site that looks really great with a good UI, but then lack interactivity. Grade: Is the site user-friendly? Yes or No

9.) Trends: Following the trends in great but improving the trend is better. Web designers are always going for quality, as imaging technology advances so does the concept of design to accompany the quality. What we see in WEB x.x will make us bored as we move along to web x.x++. We will benefit from going in this direction at first but find that a simpler and elegant style tends to look more attractive. Either we move forward or stay simplistic. Grade: Does the site slightly improve the trend? Yes or No

10.) Simplicity: Simplicity always stands up against the test of time in any designs. Similarly to art, a design that follows a strong sense of direction will always fall under that era. We are not talking about table tags with 1 pixel border but simplistic design with less going on. It is more difficult creating a simplistic site with the right information than putting together a busy design. Grade: Is this custom website design simplistic enough while portraying all the necessary information? Yes or No

11.) Custom Web Design Intention: By looking at the design we have to see the intention of the web designer. What were they thinking or trying to achieve while working on this custom design project? We can guess the emphasis on certain key factors on what the designer tried to achieve by panning up and down and left to right through the site.

List the most important content on the site, the spotlight contents from most to less important. This is what the designer tries to convey. Now look at the design that accompanies each item on your list. Grade: Does this custom website design help illustrate the importance of this element to the user? Yes or No

Overall Visual: _ of 11. It is made out of 11 because simplicity and trends conflicts with one another but they can have similar answers.

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4 Comments

1. web design says:

   February 4, 2009 at 5:45 am

   well trends play a very important role.

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3. James Murphey says:

   January 25, 2010 at 9:57 am

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4. Connie Edem says:

   February 9, 2010 at 10:33 pm

   In our business we can sometimes thin we know it all, but after reading this I can see I have much to learn.