Getting Inspired

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Just because the left-, right-, and three-column layout configurations are the bread and butter of most web page designs doesn’t mean you have to be confined to these layouts. A plethora—yes, a plethora—of design showcase and gallery sites have been created to feature new and innovative ideas that might help you think outside the box, including the following (just to name a few):

v CSS Zen Garden at http://www.csszengarden.com/

This site is the original showcase of fresh ideas for CSS. Even if you don’t intend to design a CSS Zen Garden template, it’s a great source of inspiration.

v CSS Beauty at http://www.cssbeauty.com/

CSS Beauty is both a gallery of well-designed CSS web sites and a portal to the CSS design community.

v Stylegala Gallery at http://www.stylegala.com/archive/

Stylegala is a great source of information about web design and standards, but the gallery features only the best-of-the-best new CSS designs.

v CSS Vault at http://cssvault.com/

The CSS Vault’s gallery archive goes back to November 2003, so it’s not only a great source of inspiration, but a historical repository of great CSS design.

v Design Interact Site of the Week at http://www.designinteract.com/sow/

Just for good measure, here’s one gallery that doesn’t concentrate on CSS-based designs. Design Interact is the multimedia- and technology-focused spin-off of Communication Arts, a leading trade journal for visual communication and graphic design. Design interact has been highlighting (and archiving) a new and unique web site every week since January 1998.

Using a Morgue File

I know what you’re thinking: “Great, I’ve got a bunch of galleries to look at, now what?” One of the most useful “tings” my first graphic design professor taught me was to create a morgue file whenever I worked on a large project. The concept is pretty simple: if you’re doing an illustration or marketing project that involves trains, you clip out and print up anything you can find that might give you inspiration and keep it all in a folder. It helps with your current project, and should you ever need to do another project involving trains, you’ll have lots of inspiration on hand.

The morgue file idea kind of slipped my mind until a few years ago when I was working one web site layout. I found myself looking for a similar layout to the one I wanted to create—in particular, I wanted to see how other designers handled the background textures for such design. That was when I decided to start my digital morgue file. I started taking screenshots of sites I saw in some of the galleries listed above, and sorted them into folders with names such as leftnav, rightnav, 3column, and oddball. Having a repository of web site designs that I can look at any time has been a handy resource on countless occasions when I’ve been looking for inspiration.

TIP Capture a Screenshot for your own Morgue File

1. Select the browser window that’s displaying the page of which you wish to save a screenshot

2. Copy a screenshot of the browser window to your clipboard:

· On a PC, press Alt Print Screen

· On a Mac, press Shift Command 4,.then.Space to turn the cursor into a camera .Then, hold down Ctrl, and click on the browser window

3. At this point you should have a screenshot of the browser window in your clipboard .Open a new

4. Document in your favorite graphics program and paste the screenshot

5. Save your image or document

Bread and butter Layouts

Most of what we’ve talked about thus far has been design theory. Theory’s good, but it can only take us so far toward understanding why some ideas work—and others don’t—in a web site’s design. In my opinion, examples and practice are much more valuable. Most academic graphic design programs include a curriculum that’s rich in art history and fine art. These classes provide a great foundation for an understanding of graphic design from an art perspective, but they do little to prepare you for the specific challenges you encounter when you take your designs to the Web.

Pablo Picasso once said, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” While I like to take that approach when designing a new web site, it’s important first to know what you can do. When you look out across the Internet, you can see that the possibilities for layout really are endless. But, as I said before, only a few of those possibilities make good design sense. That’s why we see certain configurations of identity, navigation, and content over and over again.

In this section, we’ll talk about a few of the most common layouts, and explore some of their advantages and disadvantages.

Left-column Navigation

Regardless of whether we’re talking about liquid or fixed-width layout design, the left-column navigation format is the de facto standard. The ThinkGeek site, pictured in Figure 1.24, is a classic example of this configuration. Many sites that it into this mold don’t necessarily use the left column as the main navigation block—sometimes you’ll see the navigation along the top of the page—but they still divide the layout below the header into a narrow (one-third or less) left column and a wide right column. It’s a status quo, like a security blanket, or that comfortable shirt with holes in the armpits that you wear once a week even though it drives your spouse crazy. For those reasons, a layout featuring left-column navigation is a safe choice for any project.

Figure 1.24: Left-column navigation at ThinkGeek

The downside to sites that use left-column navigation is that they can lack creativity. They’ve been done so many times, and in so many ways that they tend to look the same. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use a left-column navigation layout. I’d guess that 75% of the sites I’ve designed have been based on the left-column navigation model, but I try to do something different when I can.

Speaking of different, how about picking that left column up and sticking it on the other side of the content? Then you’d have a right-column navigation layout.

Right-column Navigation

Although it’s difficult to find sites like Audi’s (depicted in Figure 1.25) that place the main site navigation along the right-hand side of the layout, it’s quite easy to find sites that use a right-hand column for sub-navigation, advertising, or sub-content. Since, in western cultures, our eyes scan from left to right, this allows the page’s main content to be the first thing viewers see.

Figure 1.25: Right-column navigation on Audi’s web site

I’m not sure why there aren’t more sites that make use of the right column. The studies I’ve seen tend to swing both ways in regards to the usability and practicality of right-hand menus. In my own experience, my cursor tends to hover on the right side of the browser window anyway—so I can be closer to the scrollbar.

Ultimately, this is a judgment call that’s really about the needs of your clients and how they want people to perceive their online presence. Left-column navigation is familiar and more standard, but that’s not always the number one priority in designing a new site. One thing’s for sure, though: if you want your design to be different from the average web site, but you still want users to be able to find your navigation, you should give a right-column layout a try.

Three-column Navigation

The typical three-column layout has a wide center column flanked by two diminutive navigational columns. The Apple Store web site shown in Figure 1.26 is an example of this common web page layout staple. Although three columns may be necessary on pages that have a ton of navigation, short bits of content, or advertising to display, it’s important to remember that whitespace is essential if we are to keep a layout from appearing cluttered. Fortunately at the Apple Store, the three columns only exist on the homepage, and the center column has some whitespace that helps to promote eye movement.

Figure 1.26: Three-column navigation at Apple Store

Proportion

One interesting way of creating emphasis in a composition is through the use of proportion. Proportion is a principle of design that has to do with differences in the scale of objects. If we place an object in an environment that’s of larger or smaller scale than the object itself, that object will appear larger or smaller than it does in real life. This difference in proportion draws viewers’ attention to the object, as it seems out of place in that context.

In Figure 1.22, I’ve taken my monkey and superimposed him over the skyline of Manhattan to prove my point. Between the sharp contrast in color, and the difference in proportion, your brain immediately says, “Hey, something’s not right here,” and you’re left staring at the monkey until you force yourself to look away.

Figure 1.22: Proportion—a monkey in Manhattan

This principle works for miniaturization as well. If you take a look at my personal web site, Jasongraphix, pictured in Figure 1.23, one of the first things you might notice on the page is the mini-me leaning against my artwork just under the logo. As with the I want one! Button on Woot, this little guy stands out because of contrast and isolation, but also because of the eye-catching use of proportion.

Figure 1.23: Jasongraphix my personal site, featuring mini-me!

A few standard HTML tags and CSS properties have been designed to take advantage of the preceding theories to create emphasis in a web page even without customization. For isolation of content consider the block quote element. This element indents the left- and right-hand side of any text placed within it, purposely breaking the continuation lines of the page content and drawing attention to itself. For positioning, consider the position property in CSS. By absolutely positioning an object with CSS, you take it out of the low of its containing block, so you can place it strategically to draw attention. And when you think about contrast, think about the blink tag. Just kidding! Don’t ever think about the blink tag. Yes, it creates contrast … over and over and over again. Please don’t use it. Don’t get any ideas about using a marquee tag either. Design is just as much about what we leave out as it is about what we put in.

Next, we’ll look at some well-tested examples of designs from which you can work.

Contrast

Contrast is deined as the juxtaposition of dissimilar graphic elements, and is the most common method used to create emphasis in a layout. The concept is simple: the greater the difference between a graphic element and its surroundings, the more that element will stand out. Contrast can be created using differences in color (which I’ll discuss in more detail in Chapter 2), size, and shape. Take a look at Figure 1.21.

Figure 1.21: Woot using orange for contrast

The site is Woot, an ecommerce web site that sells just one item per day. When you look at this layout, what’s the first thing that grabs your attention? My guess is it’s probably the product they’re selling. Products at Woot change daily, though, so what grabs your eye I want one! Button although the same colors are used elsewhere after that? For me, it’s the in the design, the oval shape isn’t. When set against an area of white space, the button has both contrast and isolation working to emphasize it. The owners of Woot really want you to click that button.

Isolation

In the same way that proximity helps us create unity in a design, isolation promotes emphasis. An item that stands out from its surroundings will tend to demand attention. Even though he’s sad to not be with his buddies on the other page, the isolated monkey in Figure 1.20 stands out as a focal point on the page.

Figure 1 20: Isolation

A sad monkey