Look at your website as your business card. Only with a website, along with your name and a way of contacting you you have the opportunity to tell about yourself in greater detail. And not only tell, but show!
When I just dove into web design, my how-to book was Save the Pixel, by Ben Hunt.
My favourite rules from this book are:
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Don’t try to be be smart, be clear and
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Save the pixel. Meaning, spare your visitor’s time, get to the point as soon and as clearly as possible. And don’t clatter limited page space with unnecessary elements that don’t add to yours or your visitor’s end goal.
My own innate principals are:
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I try to have a theme running throughout the entire website that reflects the nature/passion/raison d’etre of the person or business behind it.
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Main menu should have as few links as possible. These links (wording is important) are the heart and essence of your website.
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The header on the landing page is very important. This is the first glimpse of your website and this is where you make it or break it. Your visitor will either stay or leave.
In some ways, being a designer of any sort is like being a film director. You make people feel. It is power. It is thrilling!
My inspiration is the natural world around me and television programs and shows cretaed by brilliant artists.
TV Programs
Programs like Shakespeare’s Mother: The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman or Ruth Goodman’s documentaries enthral me. I save their screenshots and learn from them. A few examples below.
The world I observe
The header image for this page is one of the photos I took on my and Meg’s life-long voyage. See some more here.
What TV shows and nature around me give me as a designer, is color combinations, composition ideas and textures and elements that I groove on: rough fabric, stone, flame, wood, clouds, plants.
Don’t loose the track of it all
Why do you need a website? What do you want to achieve with it? And what is it that your visitors are getting from being on your website?
My and yours task is to figure that out and build the kind of a website that makes all the parties feel terrific!