Gathering Design Inspiration
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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been guiding you through the process of Planning a Website the Organized Way.
Your next task is to look for websites that you like and identify why they appeal to you.
Don’t limit yourself to websites within your own industry when seeking design inspiration. To stand out from your competition, gather ideas from a wide variety of small and large business websites. You might be surprised by what you find!
Hubspot recently published a list of elements to consider during this activity:
- Use of imagery
- Use of video
- Use of colors
- Use and sizing of fonts
- Logo placement
- CTA (call to action) placement
- Responsive design
- Social media links
- Search box
- Headlines
- Punctuation
- Menu bars
- Box design
Read Making Changes to Your Website? Draw Inspiration From These 13 Web Designs to see how HubSpot went about this exercise.
You should be able to produce a list of at least three websites, complete with notes about each. Create a second list of websites that you don’t like, identifying what about them doesn’t appeal to you.
The point isn’t to copy someone else’s ideas, but to heighten your awareness of what you like and don’t like.
This exercise will save you a lot of time when you sit down to build your own website. If you’re working with a web designer, the information will go a long way towards helping them create a website that’s just right for you and your business.
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Thanks for this step by step way to find inspiration. I did this when I started my website and I am going back to it now to update.
When you define what attracts you to a site, you are defining your attraction generally for potential clients. It’s a powerful way to attract more clients that will work well with you overall.
That’s a great point, Ellen! Even though everyone has different tastes, we tend to work best with clients that share similar views. In my case, I aim for a clean and uncluttered look because I know that’s what my clients want too.
I love that you mentioned making notes about sites you DON’T like as well. This actually was very helpful to me when I started. I had a strong desire to have a “clean” website and no pop-ups, which drive me crazy as a reader.
Sometimes we have to identify what we don’t like in order to figure out what we do like!
This is great, Janet! Thanks for sharing. I love the idea of looking outside your own industry for web designs you like. I did that before I redesigned my websites. I created a list of areas I wanted to have on the website. I felt more prepared to explain what I was looking for to the web designer. There were still questions, but it really did help me express myself better and I could show examples to the web designer.
Thanks, Sabrina! I mentioned that because I’ve worked with quite a few clients who only gave me examples from their own industry. Although that can be very helpful too, especially if you’re trying to figure out what type of information you should include, design is a very different thing!
Helpful post, as always, Janet! I’ve read so many posts lately that mention a search box so I think I need to get on that!
Glad to hear it, Sarah! It’s not usually needed in the beginning, but sometimes I’ll visit a content-rich blog in search of information, sometimes even something I remember reading there, and it’s frustrating to have to scroll back through many pages just to find what I want.