Smart Alice’s Web Design Blog

Someone was curious about the “mood” image on the home page of my website.  My daughter made a puppet in 8th grade art class.  First I photographed the puppet as a standard portrait:

Then I wrapped it in black fabric and startled it with a spotlight pointing up towards the face!

I took this image and used Photoshop to paint around the face and hands with black.  Then I used the perspective tool (Edit – Transform – Perspective) to distort the proportions.  Finally, I used Curves to saturate the colors for a more lurid effect.

Photos by Alice Gebura    Analysis by Smart Alice Web Design, smart web design for businesses who want a unique and effective presence on the internet.

Copyright 2010,  Alice Gebura,  All Rights Reserved.

I attended a workshop in Ikebana,  the Japanese art of flower arranging. The Ikebana concept that impressed me the most was that of visual motion.  Ikebana strives to keep the eye engaged by eliminating any element that would stop the continuous scanning motion of the eye.   Some examples of such eye stopping elements are:

• Straight lines
• 90 degree angles
• Absence of  negative space (space between objects)
  

The photo to the left shows an Ikebana arrangement.

Example of Ikebana

Notice the following:

• Simplicity, only 3 elements: white calla lilies, pink azaleas and black tray
• Curved lines, no straight lines
• Only 5 upright flowers grouped as 3 + 2, creating negative space between the vertical elements, the stems
• Negative space between the horizontal elements: calla lilies at the top,  azaleas and tray at the bottom

Despite the sparse, simple aesthetic, its visual interest  pulls you in and keeps you there.  Isn’t that what we want for our own web sites?

I gave some thought to how I could  apply this to web design.  I believe when you drill down and understand your goals and core values and how to realize them, you arrive at a truth that can be expressed simply and effectively.

If you don’t really understand who you are and what you’re doing, what better way to cover it up than to keep piling on more and more until you get a web site that looks like this:

Analysis by Smart Alice Web Design, smart web design for businesses who want a unique and effective presence on the internet.

One of my favorite photographers Bruce Percy says the following about creating a landscape photograph:

“The strength of an image lies many times in what we exclude from it.  Putting more things into a scene can often dilute the strength of the message. Keeping it simple is key.”

Web designers would do well to follow this advice.  Similar to creating a landscape, creating a web site should isolate and focus on what’s important by carefully selecting and streamlining graphic components.  We create something ugly and unfriendly when we clutter a page with multiple ideas, extraneous information, or unnecessary functionality.  Choose one idea and execute it well.  Don’t add stuff just because you can.

Redundancy

For an example of what I’m talking about, let’s visit the Harvard Parks & Recreation web site.  The left column provides links to the rest of the site.  When I mouse over the Main Page tab, the same content links appear (see screen shot on the left).  Why do I need to see the same links twice?

Ugly Graphics – and lots of them

There are three different graphics on the home page.

Landscape photo – used as background for title. Note the gray, out of focus, pixelated photo.  If you can’t find a great photo locally (hard to believe), why not spend $3 for a decent image from iStockPhoto?  The landscape theme is relevant, though.  The message it conveys is “lake/recreation/swimming/boating/fishing.”

Tree logo in the left corner. Suggests a conservation theme.  Relevant?  Not really.

Lawn – close up photo used as background. The obvious message to me is lawn care. Also worth noting are the unnecessary functions that create more visual clutter.  The text next to the check box is barely legible.  Just because it’s easy to count and display visitor numbers, doesn’t mean it should be included.

Three different graphics with three different meanings create visual and mental confusion.  Extraneous functions and poor design contribute to usability issues.

A Simple But Effective Layout

An example of a simple yet effective web site is that of screenwriter Zen Freese.  The coffee stain graphic, the horizontal lines, and the tape are things that remind us of the writing process. We write at our desk, cup of coffee on top of the last draft, taping the latest revision to a page in progress.  Our tools, represented by the two fonts, are a typewriter and a pen.  The message is clear.  Nothing extraneous distracts us from the message.

Web design is about common sense way before it is about how much functionality or other junk you can stuff onto a page.  Keeping it simple for both impact and usability is key.

Commentary by Smart Alice Web Design, smart web design for businesses who want a unique and effective presence on the internet.

Do you like animation or flashy motion effects on a web site? In general, I don’t, unless they provide added value to me. A scrolling or jumping animation might catch my eye for a second, but it takes less than a second to click to another web site that isn’t so irritating.

I detest advertising. We all do, that’s one reason why TiVO is so popular. Advertising invades our mind space without asking our permission. When a web site is more flash than info, it starts to look like a TV ad. Instead of pressing the Fast Forward button, I’ll just click to another web site.

There are instances when motion graphics are useful. For example: slide shows for art galleries, photographers, etc. Or, high quality embedded videos when they are relevant, make me laugh, or teach me something. One of the keys to success, if you’re going to put something flashy on your site, is to give control to the visitor. I don’t want to passively sit while something runs. That’s why I always click Skip Intro (you know what I’m talking about).

Why Do It?

Why do web developers build junky animation? It seems, because they can. Here’s an example. If you go to the Longy School web site, you’ll see Latest News scrolling vertically on the right. Since it’s moving, I can’t read it. So what’s the point? This site also has a video tour of the building. I care about ambience only when I’m booking a hotel room. Irrelevant information just creates visual clutter.

Award Winners

Beantown Web lists its picks for best web sites in 2008.

There are some cool sites listed here. My favorite is James Zabiela’s site. He’s a high tech DJ so it makes sense that his web site puts on a high tech show. I like this twist: instead of placing motion graphics against a static background, he puts motion graphics in the background and places static text over it. I also like the sleek and elegant music player he provides unobtrusively in the upper right corner.

What’s Appropriate for You?

A super flashy web site is expensive to build. Keep in mind it also screams “high priced” to visitors. It could scare off potential customers who might infer you are too high priced to do business with. What is your message and do motion graphics enhance or undermine it? Know your target customer. Make the site comfortable for them. And, put them in control of the graphics.

Analysis by Smart Alice Web Design, smart web design for businesses who want a unique and effective presence on the internet.

Copyright 2009, Alice Gebura, All Rights Reserved.

As a designer I’m always looking for visual inspiration.  One place I find it is Flora in Winter at the Worcester Art Museum, an event where floral designers interpret various art works in the museum.  It’s not just a matter of putting some flowers in a vase.  The designer studies a painting for color, texture, line, movement, pattern, etc. and recreates the experience using floral material.  This event takes place every February when I deeply appreciate all the plants and flowers I’ve missed since the first snowfall.

Interpretations can be rather literal, or they can be abstract.  In any case, a successful designer creates a symbiotic relationship between the painting and the floral arrangement.  The more we see of the painting in the floral design, the more we see in the painting itself.  Below are highlights from this year’s Flora in Winter.

What does this have to do with web design you might ask.  When I work with a client I observe who and what the business is about.  My job and my challenge is to visually interpret what I find and create a web site design that reflects that.

Last but not least, a reminder that spring is just around the corner.

Photos by Alice Gebura    Analysis by Smart Alice Web Design, smart web design for businesses who want a unique and effective presence on the internet.

Copyright 2009, Alice Gebura, All Rights Reserved.