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3. Graphic Design & Visual Identity
Last, but not least, is the thing that most people are referring to when they say "Web design"...the graphics! Creating a vocabulary of visual elements and choosing a color palette that is appropriate to your audience is key to the success of your site. If your Web site is about a serious subject — like information about the stock market — you'll most likely want to pick a subdued, conservative palette that reflects the dependability and maturity of your content. This should be reflected in the images and typography that you choose, as well. A goofy, fun, decorative font for this subject would send off a very misleading message. But, for a Web site about your business planning children's birthday parties, a fun font could be exactly what you want.
In addition to reinforcing the personality of your site, the graphic elements are very related to the functional effectiveness of the two other aspects of Web design (information architecture & navigation/layout). If you have an excellent navigation design system, but your graphics make the text illegible, you've just undone your own good work! Or if an element provides an easy link to something that the user will want to see, but your graphic isn't designed to look clickable, your hard work is for naught!
The last component that Gif Girl wants to stress when it comes to graphics and visual identity is that it's not just the look of things that needs to be appropriate for your market: so does the download time. If you are designing for an audience who has high speed Internet connections and high quality monitors, you can take a little more liberty in loading on the graphics. But for many users, you must remain conservative in the amount that you expect they can download to their machine in a reasonable time. Therefore, Gif Girl says, "Make 'em smaller, and make 'em fewer."
As Web designers, we all need to remember that the Web affords designers challenges that are unique to Web design, and that our jobs are varied and never-ending. But that's the fun part! Gif Girl hopes you accept the challenges of this crazy medium and that you keep reaching for new heights of design prowess!
Gif Girl
What IS Web Design, Anyway?
<<back to intro
1. Information architecture
2. Layout & Navigation
3. Graphic Design & Visual Identity
Gif Girl, when she isn't out saving the world from dithered graphics and illegible Web pages, helps keep Tripod's pages running fast and furious.
Send your comments, ideas, suggestions, and of course, your solutions for saving the world from bad Web page design, to Gif Girl. She'd love to hear from you.
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