Sexy Web Page Design
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As I said in Chapter 1, aesthetics are what I consider to be the fun part of design. Its the part of the process that deals exclusively with making our project sexy!
It can be very easy, with deadlines looming and technical difficulties prevailing, to cut corners with aesthetics. But its so important to do it properly, because that extra layer of care goes such a long way. The difference between good design and great design can often be subtle, but subtlety works on a subconscious level: people will be impressed by good design without knowing it, but great design will thrill them. Theyll love what they see, and theyll come back for more. And with the whimsical, temporary, intangible nature of web design, its so important to motivate your visitors to return.
Before we start, heres a quick word about the build stage: as you know, were dealing only with design rather than code in this book, but its still important that you consider how all of these design elements might be executed once its time to develop the site–in case you create a design thats unnecessarily difficult to build. Well be exploring this idea further in Chapter 6, but well also be keeping this in mind as we think of aesthetics.
A Small Introduction to Layout and Composition
Rather than go into detail about layout and composition theory, I will first refer you to The Principles of Beautiful Web Design,1 written by Jason Beaird (Melbourne: SitePoint, 2007). The books first
chapter is all about composition, and its available for free at SitePoint.2 If youre new to the web game, or even design generally, Id recommend it as a good starting point.
Should you be concerned Im going to send you off to Jasons book and put my feet up? Well, actually, theres still a lot we need to discuss! Wed started to tackle layout and composition already when we created our wireframes in Chapter 3. They were only very rough, though, helping us to work out element placement in a very loose sense. Now well be looking at page layout in a more precise manner.
Art and Design Traditions
Theres a good reason that many of the principles used in art and print design have carried across to the Web. Weve mentioned before that our primary focus is on making sexy web sites, and thats certainly most true when were talking very specifically about aesthetics. So it makes perfect sense, then, to consider these traditional techniques.
The Golden Ratio
The golden ratio (sometimes called the divine propor tion) is a magical-sounding phrase used to describe an aesthetically pleasing way to