Great designs happen when designers put in the effort to come up with something different all the time. You can’t stick to the same old designing template and expect to come up with successful designs. The trick to achieving web designing success is to push the envelope, stretch the limits of your imagination and tap into the deepest recesses of your knowledge and skill sets to come up with the kind of design that hasn’t been seen before.
If you are worried about coming up a cropper you push the envelope, your worries are well-founded. Not every design innovation succeeds, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a shot. But in case you are still worried, take a look at the tips given below. The purpose of these tips is to make sure you are able to do something innovative with your design, yet not risk it all:
1. Custom Images and Icons
When we are designing websites, most people are in the habit of picking some of the common available icons and images and center their designing decisions on them. Most of us take the easy way out and do not invest in custom imagery, icons and illustration. But, that’s the wrong way to go about things; if you want to create a truly unique website, why not create custom icons and graphics that your target visitors wouldn’t have seen before. Take time out to sketch and create icons and graphics, and start building a stock of them. This way you are sure to have something unique up your sleeve whenever you work on a website project. You will be amazed at the quality and exclusivity of the website experience resulting from the use of custom images and icons. So give it a shot.
2. Focus on a single Design Elements and Blow it Up
You will see plenty of websites that use only a carefully chosen typographic element or an image as the centerpiece of their website. Think of a Home Page with only one high resolution, emotionally potent image that is staring at you from the back ground and you get an idea of what we are talking about. The idea behind choosing a particular design element and making sure that it is given prominence in the website layouts, gives the site a sense of uniqueness. It also allows you to use this element with all the creativity at your disposal. The fact that you are making one element the center of attraction eases the pressure somewhat, allowing you to give full vent to your imagination and creativity.
3. Mix and Match Design Approaches
Now we all know that retro and vintage designs are becoming a popular choice for designers who want to do something different, but why not push the envelope further. Why not bring to your website an interesting mix of the vintage and the contemporary? That’s what mixing and matching designing styles is all about. You could use contrasting styles to make your point in the most impressive manner possible. Another example would be clubbing a minimalist design approach with flash animation. Wouldn’t a website that sports such design, stand out from the crowd? Of course it will, and it will do so by a long way.
With the numerous design approaches and styles doing the rounds, it’s up to you to select a particular style and combine it with another markedly different designing approach to come up with a brilliant visual experience for website visitors.
4. Interactivity First, Design Later
When you are thinking about a unique design and how you can push yourself to come up with better and successful design, you need to focus your attention on ‘Interaction’. Yes, the level of interactivity of your website determines whether the website will be successful or not. You must provide different points of interaction on your website which allows users to interact with it. As far as the number of these interaction points are concerned, the more the merrier! Interactivity ensures more user engagement, so you need to give it the importance it deserves. Use of elements like sliders, model windows, etc. helps improve the interactivity of the site. But, you must not just limit yourself to the commonly used elements. Think of out of the box interactive elements and design a website that is able to weave these elements into its fabric. This will definitely take the user experience to a whole new level altogether.
5. Never Ever Forget the Basics
This is a tip that must never be forgotten. In an effort to push envelope, people tend to forget laying a solid foundation based on the fundamentals of web design. All your web design endeavors, irrespective of their scale and scope must begin by adhering to the basics of web design. The basics act as a solid launching ground for bringing your imaginative design ideas to life. Even the most innovative and carefully planned website design must have solid support, and this is provided to you by the fundamentals of design. The reason why you must stick to the fundamentals of web design even while thinking of unique designing concepts is because, even if the design fails to catch visitor attention, the fundamentals will ensure that the design doesn’t come crashing down.
So, that’s it. These are five tips that will help you think innovatively and come up with websites that have the kind of design that differentiates them from the rest of the crowd. If you want to push the envelope, you will do well to remember that the process of learning never stops for designers, whatever their experience in this domain. They need to be clued in to the latest trends, the latest happening in the niche, and the latest technological developments. This way you will not only be able to get hold of newer designing ideas, but also make sure you can breathe life into them.
Also, don’t be scared to think different. Even if you fall, think of every fall as a learning experience. Even if a particular design doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter. Get up, dust yourself and start thinking afresh again.
August 31, 2013
