Friendly website design
Monday, 23 June 2008
I’ve recently started work on a website project for a client who asked for “a serious business-like feel, and at the same time trying for a Google-style cuteness”.
To achieve the desired result I had a look around for inspiration. What I really wanted to do was produce a professional looking design that was also friendly. From my own experience, the websites that demonstrate this best don’t include Google but do include Moo.com, Flickr.com, and Boagworld.com.
There will no doubt be many others but these are websites I visit frequently. To me they look and feel friendly, cute and most importantly professional. I believe it is the following elements that help them achieve this:
General design – they have a significant amount of white space. Every element is well spaced out. Where lines or boxes are used they tend to be curved and soft rather than strong angles. Strong colours are only used as accents and highlights that lead your eye around the screen in a helpful manner.
Friendly text – they begin with a warm, welcoming message and use words such as love, happy, and friends that evoke an emotional response. Generally, their language is very informal with no business or technical jargon.
Typography - the use of larger fonts make the content easy to read. Also, logo or title typefaces tend to be curved or less structured. The increased spacing between sentences also adds to the overall whitespace.
Images – the correct use of images pull the design together and give it the desired focal point. These can be either photographs or illustrations. Photographs of people or familiar objects make visitors feel relaxed and comfortable. While illustrations can add a degree of humour or informality to the design.
Gaining this understanding of what makes a friendly design has help me produce the website design. From client feedback so far, I seem to have met his expectations. Check it out for yourself at TTY project…
I’ve recently started work on a website project for a client who asked for “a serious business-like feel, and at the same time trying for a Google-style cuteness”.
To achieve the desired result I had a look around for inspiration. What I really wanted to do was produce a professional looking design that was also friendly. From my own experience, the websites that demonstrate this best don’t include Google but do include Moo.com, Flickr.com, and Boagworld.com.
There will no doubt be many others but these are websites I visit frequently. To me they look and feel friendly, cute and most importantly professional. I believe it is the following elements that help them achieve this:
General design – they have a significant amount of white space. Every element is well spaced out. Where lines or boxes are used they tend to be curved and soft rather than strong angles. Strong colours are only used as accents and highlights that lead your eye around the screen in a helpful manner.
Friendly text – they begin with a warm, welcoming message and use words such as love, happy, and friends that evoke an emotional response. Generally, their language is very informal with no business or technical jargon.
Typography - the use of larger fonts make the content easy to read. Also, logo or title typefaces tend to be curved or less structured. The increased spacing between sentences also adds to the overall whitespace.
Images – the correct use of images pull the design together and give it the desired focal point. These can be either photographs or illustrations. Photographs of people or familiar objects make visitors feel relaxed and comfortable. While illustrations can add a degree of humour or informality to the design.
Gaining this understanding of what makes a friendly design has help me produce the website design. From client feedback so far, I seem to have met his expectations. Check it out for yourself at TTY project…
posted by dN@redNests at
13:33
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