Basic Design Theory

Seeing as how our most popular forum is Web Site Critique I started thinking more about the role of design. This post might be long but I think it'll be worth it.

My personal background was in programming, and I came into web development on the programming end. Eventually I got clients that needed design too, and took a stab at the creative end of things. Mostly I looked at what's on the web and tried to make sites that look like the ones I liked. This is probably what most of us do at least in the beginning, and the results are decent if not inspiring.

Later though I realized if I want to do this for a living or even just do something unique then I have to do better. I noticed that some of the coolest designs I was seeing weren't on the web, but in magazines, billboards, tv. Web design has been around for maybe 7 years with any real quality, but print design (and graphic design in general) has been evolving for 1200 years at least. So why not take all the design rules that have developed over that time and apply them to web design?

Kearning, leading, typography, layout, color theory, white space, balance, consistency, tone - the basic rules are simple and once you understand them you can make great looking sites even without artistic talent. There are real reasons to design in a certain way, like the way your eyes work in scanning, or psychological responses to colors. Use all this to your advantage in making a site.

With a little practice you can make polished sites that really look professional. Some people spend thousands of dollars on a degree in graphic design. I spent maybe $100 on books on basic graphic design and layout rules and techniques. You could go to a library or even find plenty of stuff on the web for free.

No matter what your role in making web sites, you owe it to learn the basics of design, and in my opinion those start before "web design rules" but go back to the origins on paper. Even if you're just a coder you'll work with designers at some point and when they say "the leading on the sans-serif font needs to increase to balance the white space" you'll know what to do.

I could rant for a lot longer on this topic, but for now I'll just leave you with a few links... There's plenty more out there if you look too.

<u>Overall Design Rules and Theory</u>
About.com design guide
http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/contents.html - A very complete guide to web design including layout, navigation, typography, color theory, images, and style

<u>Color Theory</u>
http://old.alistapart.com/stories/color/
http://www.colormatters.com/entercolormatters.html
http://old.alistapart.com/stories/bluegreen/ - Effect of logo and color trends
http://www.worqx.com/color/

<u>Writing for the web</u>
http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/writing.html
http://html.tqn.com/compute/html/msubwriting.htm
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/ultimate/
http://old.alistapart.com/stories/writing/
http://old.alistapart.com/stories/writing2/

<u>Authoring for the Web</u>
http://old.alistapart.com/stories/author/
http://old.alistapart.com/stories/author2/ - Making a interesting site Part 2

<u>Web Site Usability</u>
http://www.useit.com

<u>Collections of well designed sites</u>
http://www.coolhomepages.com
http://www.k10k.net/

AGH!!!!!!!!!! Information overload,

Cheers for the links ... just what i've been looking for, allthough, i think it will take some time to trudge through it all!

-Paul

Nice thread catalyst, you've made some intresting points here.

*checks out the links*

i realized the same thing a little while ago... i started looking at magazines and thinking "what makes this good" and started to apply them to websites. It helps a lot, everyone should at least give it a try.

i'm very new here but i have to say those are wise words Catalyst.

formal training is something that has passed me by too, but i've spent an unhealthy amount of time and money reading 'design' orientated books.

at some point i'm going to have to put it all into practise in a more than hobby type fashion and see if my skill/knowledge stands up to realworld scrutiny.

enough of my waffle anyway.

what i wanted to say is: from what i've seen on a lot of sites i wonder if a great number of people even notice poor design work. i'm not going to name names but i've seen some quite terrible layouts for well established businesses and the only way i think they can get away with it is because the design flaws are invisible to a lot of visitors.

maybe they have an inclination that something doesn't really look right but i suspect they would need a comparison to base it against.

i know i must sound like a right meany. it's just something i've experienced first hand with other creatives (mainly semi and pro photographers) who just didn't quite get it.

i suppose it's all very clear when you've been initiated with a few design rules. until then, you've either got an eye for it or you haven't.

... I gave this a bump so you'd know which post I was referring to in the other forum.

Good points, catalyst. Everytime I design layouts, I always want them to look like the ones that I have seen. But that gets you no where if you don't have imagination.