Principles of good web design no1- unity
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PRINCIPLES OF GOOD WEB DESIGN | no 1 UNITY
In this article, I am going to be talking about the principles of good de-
sign. This means the visual composition of elements - such as the design
decisions that that happen in Photoshop - as opposed to good practices
when it comes to front-end web development and areas like CSS, us-
ability and W3C. Web design is a very often just a general term applied to
both of these areas.
Every good design - irrespective of whether it is a web design, a print de-
sign, or a piece of applied art - is good because it adheres to the ‘PRIN-
CIPLES OF DESIGN’. There are lots of written resources about these
principles as they are included in every design and art college course,
so I’m not going to be explaining the details of theories behind each of
them. Instead I’ll apply them specifically to websites and genuine website
design examples.
If you want to find more in-depth theoretical explanations and definitions,
please visit one of the websites mentioned in the references section, or
even better - pick up one of the books mentioned.
Some of the ‘Principles of Design’ are: balance, movement, repetition
and rhythm, emphasis, simplicity (i.e. visual economy), contrast, propor-
tion, space and unity.
We are going to start with what is - in my mind - the most obvious sub-
ject when discussing web design: unity.
UNITY: A DEFINITION
‘The concept of unity describes the relationship between the individual
parts and the whole of a composition. It investigates the aspects of a
given design that are necessary to tie the composition together, to give
it a sense of wholeness, or to break it apart and give it a sense of variety.
Unity in design is a concept that stems from some of the Gestalt theories
of visual perception and psychology, specifically those dealing with how
the human brain organizes visual information into categories, or groups. ‘
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‘Unity exists when your elements agree. Unity can be seen as the single most important goal of any design; to make your whole design more than the sum of its parts.’
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PRINCIPLES OF GOOD WEB DESIGN | no 1 UNITY
Or to paraphrase, unity is: ‘the relationship between the individual parts
and the whole of a composition’.
When talking about unity in regard to web design, we say that the whole
website and all its elements need to look like one coherent composition,
not a random collection of elements. Nothing should look out of
place and everything should relate to each other in some way. If the
composition is ‘perfect’ then removing or adding any new element would
‘upset’ or spoil that composition.
I used the phrase ‘random collection’ on purpose. Websites can quickly
become a random collection of elements, and this can happen very easily
in design agencies and production environments (yes, just like ours),
unless it is closely monitored, creatively and aesthetically.
Let’s think about a real example: you have created a design, you are
happy with it and it looks great. Then customer requests changes.
If someone applies these amends to your design without ‘working
them in’ and properly rethinking the whole composition to make it
peacefully coexist with the new elements, this design will lose its unity.
It will gradually begin to resemble a random collection of retrospective
customer requests, functional amends, ‘ticked usability box’ changes
that QA guys may have requested…and on and on the list continues.
KEEP IT ‘UNIFIED’ - THE PRACTICAL HOW TO
Ok, let’s discuss the practical steps of how to make sure that your design
is coherent to begin with, and how to keep that coherence and unity
healthy throughout multiple rounds of amends.
UNITY - THE INITIAL DESIGN
So what makes a design a ‘unified’ one? There are a few simple pointers
that may help, but this is by no means an exhaustive and definitive list.
There is no rulebook that can guarantee the transformation of a messy
and incoherent site into a perfect Premium product, but sticking to these
general guidelines will definitely help.
1) Make it as one whole piece
It’s all about composition and making sure that things belong together
visually. Your design should be viewed first as a whole by the user, and
then as a sum of small elements all acting together to deliver a coherent
message.
Typical website elements include a logo, a header, a navigation bar, and
a hero space or feature area. Each of these elements should be a part
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PRINCIPLES OF GOOD WEB DESIGN | no 1 UNITY
of an overall page composition, and each has to be in visual relation and
complement to each other.
Furthermore, all the elements within each hero area or header must
also act as one entity, and have an inner structure and visual relation. If
a header contains a logo, a phone number and strap line that have just
been dropped into an empty container, you are going to have a bad
header.
It is a good practice is to self examine your work for elements that may
be out of place -
‘Look over your design and ask yourself if everything belongs there. The
navigation you came up with may look great, but if it doesn’t contribute
to the general concept it’s probably better left out in favor of navigation
that does reinforce the concept. You can use that great looking
navigation on another project.’
2) Stay focused and don’t deviate
Good coherent design needs a theme or a message; an idea that is
reflected in every element of the composition. Very often the initial
concept is shown in a mood board, and if that’s the case, you should
to it. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t deviate from the concept
if you think that your creative decisions make the whole composition
work better with elements supplied by customer, such as images and
logos. Just use your creative judgement.
Don’t overdo the design, and stick to your theme. If you indicated a few
strong stylistic elements in your initial concept design, just use them
consistently to connect the whole composition together. Don’t mix any
new styles with it as they will probably clash. Good execution of the ‘less
is more’ rule is a real winner, but only if you pay close attention to details.
3) Keep it consistent
a) Colours
If you use a colour, make sure that this colour is referenced somewhere
else on the page, even if it’s many tones darker or lighter.
It is very difficult to create a design with several completely different
colours and use each of these colours only once on the page. I’m not
saying it’s impossible, but it definitely would take a clever and creative
designer some time!
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PRINCIPLES OF GOOD WEB DESIGN | no 1 UNITY
The same applies not only to colours, but also to other elements of
composition, such as line, form, texture, value of colour, and shape.
b) ‘Design’ Elements
What I mean by a ‘design element’ in website design is anything that is
going to be an image on the website (including background images) or
stands out visually on a page due to styling like CSS shadows or borders.
For example, you’ve popped a nice curvy badge under the customer
logo, which has quite an unusual shape. If the rest of the website is quite
squared and regimental, it probably won’t work.
The same applies to other shapes. For example, if the customer logo
has bold squares in it, and you use distinctive triangles as bullet points, it
may look very odd. Similarly, if you have lots of flowing shapes in the hero
image while your navigation features square and dated buttons with a
simple gradient…yuck!
MANAGE THE CHANGE TO PRESERVE THE UNITY
Unity in design is a perfect composition that is as complete and fragile as
a human body, and like a human body it will suffer if you cut something
out or try stitching something onto it. Therefore, if you reach the state
of happy balance where all the elements are relying on each other in
the composition, you need to be careful and cautious when making any
design amends.
As I said earlier, if every bit of your design reaches unified relationship
heaven, then removing anything should spoil it. Otherwise, this element
didn’t really belong there.
‘The final and ideal test of unity is to have a design where nothing can
be added or taken away without having to rework what’s left. The
relationship between all your elements should be so strong and so right
that to change anything would hurt the design. This is the ideal.’
A few practical tips on managing the amends and preserving the unity of
the design:
a) Redesign OR make the element look as if it was always there
Always rethink whole composition if you need to introduce a new ‘alien’
element to it. In practice it may mean redesign, especially if you have
to include something that is not necessarily in sync with your design.
This may seem counter-productive and impractical, and your customer
might have seemed to actually love the original design. If that’s the case,
there is only one option left: make the new element look like part of your
design. Redesign the element, not your design! This is possible with
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PRINCIPLES OF GOOD WEB DESIGN | no 1 UNITY
elements such as web forms, or even logos - why not desaturate them
or merge them into a part of composition with a shared badge or design
feature?
b) Be there to hear the reason for change
Being involved directly in the conversation with customer, you stand
a better chance of understanding the reason for change, and you can
come up with solutions that will fit in with your design. You will also
have a chance to influence the customer’s often blissfully uninformed
decisions.
References
Online -
1. http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/design-unity/
2. http://www.digital-web.com/articles/principles_of_design/
3. Art, Design, and Visual Thinking by Charlotte Jirousek
4. Gestalt Design and Composition by James T. Saw
5. Society for Gestalt Theory and its Applications
6. Graphic Design Basics
7. Introduction to the Principles of Design by Jacci Howard Bear
Books -
1. Design Basics by David Lauer
2. The Elements of Graphic Design by Alexander W. White
3. Principles of Two-Dimensional Design by Wucius Wong
4. Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Muller-Brockmann
5. Design Principles and Problems by Paul Zelanski, Mary Pat Fisher
6. A Primer of Visual Literacy by Donis A. Dondis
7. History of Art by Anthony F. Janson
8. A History of Graphic Design by Philip Meggs
9. The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams
10. Geometry of Design: Studies in Proportion and Composition by Kimberly Elam
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Written by: Ursula Zajkowska Edited by: Honor Clement-Hayes
Thank you for reading