1. Logos in Design Composition and Branding

Many business owners try designing their own logos as well as websites. Their are a great many reasons why I could advise against you trying to be an online do-it-yourselfer, but if you are short on a budget and want a few tips I’ll help get you started. If you already have a brand and logo, consider it your persona and base for designing your site. If you already have a logo, consider it when designing your website. You may even want to consider re-branding your logo if the original is out dated or poorly done, as many are. Some questions to ask yourself before composing your website are: What is the brand theme? Are there colors or icons that will accommodate the brand’s identity better than others will?

Changing Emphasis

You can emphasize words or colors by using highlights or shadows. If you have more then one theme or product line consider using color to change the layout’s design and define the differences. Simplicity is key when you are trying to show off layout highlights. A lot of new designers will go crazy with all the different Photoshop tools and end up with a 5+ point stroke, thick highlights or drop shadows, ten different colors or shading, along with the use of bright yellow, deep red or some form of neon. The result of this kind of chaos is a Tokyo neon sign rendition that looks like it came right out of a cheap newspaper ad of the week. It’s better to use thin detail highlights. You can find a lot of tips on how to do this by visiting sites like Smashing Magazine, Tuts Design, or Go Media.

Take a Moment to Step Back

Experiment with your design and layout to see what looks best and just like any good artist remember that it sometimes helps to step back five feet every hour or two. One of my design composition teachers would always have us step away from our paintings or drawings to really get a full view of our work. In web design you can do this by making the image small enough that you can see the whole thing at once.

2. Watch and Learn from Other Web Designers

the web designers idea book

There is something to be learned from every single designer out there. Observe  how your favorite creatives construct their layouts—examine the style, the colors, the textures and how different images work together. You can implement many of the same ideas you observe from your favorite sites into your own designs and if those sites use open source plugins or stock photos you may even be able to purchase those tools and tweak them to fit your style. In design composition, like music, creatives can be inspired by others to come up with brilliant new melodies. Just make sure your designs are inspired and expand on your favorite work not steel or infringe on copyright or intellectual property rights.

3. Use Website Management Software

Website software can be a designer, programmer or blogger’s best friend. These programs aid in the coding or site management process by organizing your design layout into themes that can be called upon to make expanding your site easier and allow you to see what your doing in action faster. You will need a basic knowledge of HTML/CSS, JQUERY, MySQL, and PHP to get your site up and running on most of this software, but some programs like WordPress only require the knowledge of HTML/CSS and PHP to get things up and running. Quality software packages provide features including image management, blogging capability, RSS, page management, navigation structure, media libraries, comment systems, theme management, users, and plugins. A few examples of online software for content management systems include WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Drupal, and Express Engine. Most content management systems will require additional work to integrate ecommerce systems. The upside of all these systems is the ability to compose posts, read them, notate them and easily make edits.

4. Look for Design Inspiration

Before designing a new site, it’s critical to feed your mind inspiration. Inspiration comes from all around:

  • Emotions
  • Books
  • Relationships
  • Nature
  • Art
  • People
  • Experiences
  • and similar Mediums

Finding your design inspiration is a part of finding yourself as a creative by putting yourself in situations that rouse your inner muse, then recognize it when it comes. We all have people who come into our live; relationships that inspire us and then leave as quickly as they come. You can’t find these experiences if you sit in your house wishing for an experience, not everything just comes to your door. To generate new ideas go somewhere, do something. The old saying: things to do, people to see comes to mind. Something as simple as walking in the park or down the street could amaze you. Looking at advertisements, movies, trying to see something from a new perspective.

5. Have Fun

If you are not new to this, you’re a long time designer. You first started being a creative because you love it as an art. If you’re not enjoying composing websites, then do something else for a while. People tend to do what they love best. It makes the day go by a lot faster.

6. There is No Wrong Answer in Design, Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder.

Let’s not get into semantics please, I’m sure a lot of designers out there are going to argue that yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but some designers are still just downright awful. I’m not going to argue with you on that. I’m simply going to say understanding the basics of a good composition, typography, color composition and an eye for detail will help make sure more people agree that you have the right answer and a beautiful design.
Design is one of those things you can do and consistently make catchy layouts. Like a beautiful stanza or eye catching still life a good design is key to getting past the 30 second rule of the internet, it’s been said that viewers give websites less than 30 seconds to catch their attention or move on. On the other hand a catchy design doesn’t pay the client’s bills, meaning even though you may win a hundred awards for your artistic approach to innovating Skittle’s campaign you need to make sure that a design layout takes into account action items, the end game, and accomplishes goals. Goals? What goals do designers have? Uhm, let me give you a hint that EVERY SINGLE one of your clients have: SALES. I’m sure they have others and you will only figure those out by asking. Once you know these goals brush up on user experience design best practices. Some melodies are catchier than others, the key to understanding what works and what doesn’t is metrics and analyzing those numbers. How do you get design metrics? A few free tools from the sultan of search:

  • Google Analytics
  • Google Optimizer (AB Testing your designs to see which designs drive client’s to your call to action)
  • Google Webmaster Tools

7. Define Your Design Goals and Target

Are you designing for yourself or for other people? This alone will change the tone and style of your design. If you are designing for yourself, you have creative freedom if not you need to consult your client. When creating a site for another person, identify your target audience first, develop goals, define what will make a successful long term campaign, discover what kind of identity the brand needs to portray to get in touch with the right demographics. Just because your client is a 30 year old bachelor doesn’t mean fast cars and steel grey colors will call to his client, the 25 year old newly wed mother of one baby boy. Think more of your client’s client when you are trying to make them happy. Remind them of who you are designing for when they try to add in their personal hobbies section to an ecommerce site. They may not thank you now, but if you use facts to reason with a client you’ll get a lot farther then saying I’m right you’re wrong and leaving it at that.

8. Seek Design Advice and Opinions

People are always willing to give advice and opinions; even when you don’t want them. Take critique and comments into constant consideration. It’s good to make a list and even define secondary goals. Not everything may be appropriate now, but knowing what your users and clients like will help later. Not everyone is good at giving constructive criticism politely so take it all with a smile and a grain of salt. You’ll get more brownie points for how you handle yourself under pressure if you don’t respond like a salty fireball. Give your family, friends, client and even a test group of people you know who are in the target audience’s demographics a peak at the design and try video taping them running through target tasks. Meaning give them a task, this task would ideally be one of the goals you set at the beginning of your planning goals.

9. Design Unique: Think Outside of the Box

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut and all of your designs begin to look the same. How do you think Web 2.0 came about? Mass design rut. Even if you’ve found a great combination of icons or a beautiful icon style, changing it can be good and help you grow.

An easy way to try something new is to learn something new, try something you’ve never tried before. Take up a new hobby or learn a new style of design. Sometimes you find yourself trying the same old layouts and themes. A new medium can lead you places you never imagined and improve your technique.

10. Mastering Web Design: Practice, Practice and More Practice

There is no shame in practice. Practice makes perfect. Even lawyers and doctors call their daily profession what? Practice.

There is no substitute for hard work. When someone offers you a quick fix to your design or SEO, be skeptical and practice your craft. Practice is the only formula that can guarantee you will become a better web designer.  With enough practice maybe your next website will be the winner of the Webby awards or maybe it will reach page one of Google’s SERPS, but you will never get there without good hard work.

Web Design and Creativity are not just something you receive from being talented. Designers are one tenth talent and nine tenths good hard work and practice. Why do you think artists of the renaissance spent over two third of their life as apprentices copying their masters in study?