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Web_Design_Guidelines

This project contains guidelines on how to design beautiful websites.

Table of Contents

Guidelines

Typography

  1. Use a font size between 15 and 25 pixels (Body).

  2. Use (really) big font size for headlines.

    • EXAMPLE: 60px.
    • NOTE: The more you increase the font size, the more you need to decrease the font weight.

  3. Use line spacing between 120 and 150% of font size.

  4. Maintain 45 to 90 characters per line.

  5. Use good fonts (a bit subjective)

    • Sans-serif

      • More Neutral
      • Clean
      • Simple
      • Modern websites

    • Serif

      • Traditional purposes
      • Storytelling
      • Long reading

    • EXAMPLE:

      • Sans-serif
        • Open Sans
        • Lato
        • Raleway
        • Montserrat
        • PT Sans
      • Serif
        • Cardo
        • Merriweather
        • PT Serif

How to choose a Font?

  1. Choose a font that reflects the look and feel you want for your website.

  2. Decide: sans-serif or serif typeface?

  3. Use a good font.

  4. Use only that one typeface.

Color

  1. Use only one base color.

    • A list of base colors can be found here.

  2. Select a darker a lighter version of that color for your palette.

    • A tool to achieve this can be found here

  3. Use color to draw attention.

    • NOTE: You can use a color wheel tool to mix colors. An example of such a tool can be found here.

  4. Never use black in your design.

  5. Choose colors wisely

    Color makes a difference. This happens because there are psychological effects behind each color.

    • Red: power, passion, strength, and excitement.
    • Orange: cheerfulness, creativity, friendliness, confidence, and courage.
    • Yellow: happiness, liveliness, curiosity, intelligence, brightness.
    • Green: harmony, nature, life, money, and health.
    • Blue: patience, peace, trustworthiness, stability, professionalism, trust, and honor.
    • Purple: wisdom royalty, nobility, luxury, and mystery.
    • Pink: romance, passivity, care, peace, and affection.
    • Brown: relaxation, confidence, earthiness, nature, durability, comfort, and reliability.

    NOTE: Brighter tones are more energetic, while darker tones are more powerful and elegant.

Images

Techniques when working with images

  1. Put text directly on the image.

    NOTE: This only works if the image is quite dark and your text is white.

  2. Overlay the image with a color.

    NOTE: The simplest way to do this, is by using the color black.

  3. Put text in a box.

    NOTE: The box should be opaque.

  4. Blur the image.

  5. Floor fade.

    NOTE: This works when you are planning to put the text at the bottom of the image.

Applying techniques with CSS

Here is a list of example CSS code for some of the effects. Please change it according to your needs.

  • Overlay the image
    .darken {
        background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5)), url(YOUR IMAGE HERE);
    }

Example

  • Put text in a box
    .text-box {
        background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);
        color: #fff;
        display: inline;
        padding: 10px;
    }

Example

  • Floor fade
    .floor-fade {
        background: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) ), url(YOUR IMAGE HERE);
    }

Example

Icons

  1. Use icons to list features/steps.

  2. Use icons for actions/links.

    NOTE: Here are some rules to follow when applying this concept.

    • Icons should be recognizable.
    • Label your icons.

  3. Icons should not take center stage.

  4. Use icon fonts whenever possible.

    NOTE: icon fonts use smooth vector images instead of raster images to display icons.

Whitespace

  1. Use whitespace

    • Put whitespace between your elements.
    • Put whitespace between your group of elements.
    • Put whitespace between your website sections.
    • Don't exaggerate with whitespace.

  2. Define hierarchy

    Whitespaces describe invisible relationships between the elements of your website.

How to apply whitespace effectively?

  1. Define where you want users to look first.
  2. Establish a flow that corresponds to your content's message.
  3. Use whitespace to build that flow.

Summary

  • Most of your content will be text, so beautiful typography is a key element to a good-looking website.

  • Images are getting more and more important in web design, so choosing great images and putting text on them is an essential part of your work.

  • Icons are also a good way of setting a friendly tone for your website but use them carefully.

  • The adequate use of whitespace makes a website look professionally designed, so use it a lot, but in the correct way.

  • Build a layout by defining the visual hierarchy of your content. Whitespace is also important for this.

  • Your website should be designed in a way that ensures that both the user and the owner of the website achieve their goals. This is the user experience.

  • You must get inspired by studying well-designed websites by other designers.

Resources

This is inspired by the Udemy course: Web Design for Web Developers: Build Beautiful Websites! by Jonas Schmedtmann.