It’s becoming increasingly important to make your website design stand out in a crowded markets. The best websites employ creative design to achieve this distinction, whether through the use of dynamic and interactive features, or a careful positioning of brand values across different platforms. Moreover, some of the most creative websites currently available are designed with an eye towards mobile optimization, and ensuring that user experiences of a site remain consistent across their devices.
What Makes a Creative Site?
A creative website arguably needs to have a strong balance of usability – people can find the information they want as easily as possible – and a design aesthetic that makes them want to stay on that site and revisit it in the future. HTML 5 sites, and sites designed using additional editors and interactive elements act as a great showcase for graphic design and animation, and can become destinations that users want to go on to again and again. In some respects, what makes a creative site will depend on the type of company or reason it’s for, from emphasizing information, through to experimenting with animation and graphics that suit the look and feel of an overall brand.
Excellent website design should be full of features without being too packed, and designed in such a way to load quickly and smoothly on most connections and phones. This means being able to coordinate different parts of a site for intuitive use – static menus are replaced by animation and pop up features, while home pages can be easily returned to without having to spend a lot of time navigating. Interactive elements that invite users to play around and build a more emotional relationship to a site also work well, with a good example being Google’s frequent redesign of its home page logo to be more interactive, but still practical.
Branding
In terms of how strong branding can make a site stand out, it’s important for each individual part of a website to connect to the broader representations of a brand online. This means being able to produce per-page variations on the same brand, whether that’s through a home page, or through social networking content. While social networks do maintain templates for different companies, continuities can be created in terms of content, how it’s showcased on a site, and how individual promotions and contests are made to appear within different interfaces without losing their impact.
Mobile Optimization
One of the main challenges for website designers at the moment is to make mobile versions of sites look effective on smaller screens. In most cases, this means simplifying an interface, while making it intuitive enough to not be confusing. Designers have to consider how well certain graphics and animated elements will work on a phone, and how swiping touch screens will affect navigation.
With Internet speeds increasing, more people will be looking to mobile sites and web applications, which puts the pressure on designers to create portable versions of sites that still look as impressive as on a large screen. Considering these elements, and the overall need to engage users with creative strategies, is essential for anyone looking to build a new website.