What actually goes into crafting a beautiful, high-end web design? What makes a design feel a certain way?
I’ve been pondering this lately as I tackle a few very different projects. One thing I’ve come to realise- it’s taken years to develop and enhance my design capabilities. With every new project, I learn something new about design fundamentals and myself.
This is why I love what I do – I am always evolving, refining, learning. Design challenges me to be better, think bigger, open up, step up.
This got me thinking: what goes into creating a beautiful website design. And here are my thoughts:
- Select beautiful font combinations: I’m obsessed with fonts and how they can elevate a simple design. Font choice is essential to communicating the right feeling. I could spend days selecting the right fonts (but for obvious reasons I have to set limits here otherwise I’d never finish projects).
- Choose colours that compliment and communicate: colour plays an essential role in enhancing the design to feel a certain way and to appeal to specific groups of people (aka ideal customers / clients). Colour is also one of the most challenging parts of design. It can take hours of experimenting to get the perfect balance. This is why brand design is so important – a good brand designer will help a business put togetheran aligned + balanced colour scheme that communicates the essential message of their brand and helps connect with their ideal customer.
- Imagery – images are powerful messaging tools. When selecting images for a design I consider the shape of the composition, image colours and subject / emotion conveyed. All of this impacts the overall feel. It also highlights why it’s so important to invest in photography with the right-fit photographer who’ll be able to bring your vision to life.
- Contrast – when we talk about what makes a design or photograph ‘pop’, what we’re really referring to is contrast. Contrast is what makes a design beautiful. While this might sound simple, it’s actually not. All design elements need to be considered here: white space (ie the space between elements and sections on the page), colour, fonts (and sizing), call-to-actions and layout. This is what takes practice to develop – the understanding of how to use contrast.
Here are some of my favourite transformation projects where I have helped elevate the design:
- Saysha Baker Photography – https://sayshabaker.co.za/
- Soul Design – https://souldesign.co.za/
- The Stone Cellar – https://thestonecellar.co.za/weddings/
- The Silk & Cotton Co – https://nutmegstudio.co/the-silk-and-cotton-co-website-redesign/
- Jen de Charmoy – https://nutmegstudio.co/jen-de-charmoy-website-design/
