When looking around at sites and mockups for inspiration or learning, what do you focus on?
I have a degree in computer science and work as a software dev so when I saw the opportunity to make sites for small businesses around me, I thought "sure! I can make a site, no problem!"
Now I feel like I have no idea what a website actually looks like 😂 I have a pretty big gap in knowledge. Right now, I'm trying to just make a few mockups of existing sites in styles I like to try and get a grasp of what it is that make these look so beautiful while throwing boxes and text on a page in approximately the right place doesn't quite cut it. I know I can always grab templates or UI libraries (and I have when I truly need to, like if a deadline is coming), but I like having control over my projects and hate when my own lack of understanding blocks me from doing something I'd like to do, such as making a new unique component in the same style as the rest of the site.
So... when looking around, what items really stand out to you on how websites are designed? There's obvious things, like the border radius of cards or color and font choices, but there are a lot of things I miss until they're pointed out, like overlapping boxes or text for example. Any tips or even just thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
3 Replies
This doesn't answer your question directly but design is a whole other skill. Are you sure it's practical for you to do both the design and development of the website? Think hours of work and effort level for the money you'll get for making that site for a business
If you do that's great too just trying to temper your expectations a bit - it takes a lot of practice to get decent at design
A lot of it though is learning the fundamentals (lots of YouTube videos / articles / courses on this topic), then practicing those fundamentals... and then eventually you can start creating your own stuff
Lots of how I do it now is make a Figma board of all the designs I like, whether it's pictures of fonts, specific components, whole pages etc... it's about thinking what your site should accomplish and what "vibe" you want to give off and then picking out pieces of media that fit with that and using them as inspiration if that makes sense
So for example you can make a list of 30 vibe words you want your site to give off, then with that list look up inspirations from websites, print design, literally anything (I know of one guy that finds inspiration from movies, books, etc) and see how you can use the elements they have into your own unique site
Or alternatively you can skip a lot of that and just get design templates if you think it makes sense as a business owner
Tbh it always seemed a little like it would come naturally since I've actually always been more artistically inclined, I just knew I was good with programming as well so I pushed in college to learn that for career opportunities over getting competitive with design. The main clientele around me though are contractors and real estate agents so I am hoping to have a baseline level of skill to be able to make very straightforward brochure sites on my own. I've also been a little anxious about how other developers find designers to work with? Whether it's an individual basis of commissioning a single design, or if it's a written agreement? It's always felt like such a big commitment to get anyone else involved.
But yeah, I absolutely am realizing I underestimated the requirements. There's so many missing pieces it feels a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. Like I KNOW what it looks like put together but I didn't realize this section was so complicated, and currently it doesn't look anything like the finished product!
that's a good idea though to use the words and also, especially, to look outside just sites/UI. I already figured that things like posters and other forms of advertising had a lot of overlap to web design, but I could see going further and breaking away the strictness to simply locate the "vibe" so-to-speak
It is for sure but you can always look at places like fiverr or upwork where it should be pretty straightforward, or places like themeforest where they have base themes you can use