All posts in Website Design Practices

The world craves minimalism.

So much so, that whichever aspect of our lives you look at – whether it is the lifestyles we lead, homes we live in, or the products we consume – minimalism is present in every facet.

Even the smartphones in our pocket prove that minimalist design has more than caught on.

Why Minimalism?

Often confused with simplicity, the concept of minimalism entails reducing all elements to only include those that are essential.

This means that while minimalism is simple, simplicity, or using simple forms, does not necessarily translate to minimalism.

In the world of design, minimalism is used to directly convey the message without the unnecessary noise and obstruction of focus due to other distracting elements.

Seeing the benefits of using minimalism to swiftly and effectively convey the message, the minimalist approach has taken root in many branches of design.

From painting and sculptures to digital product design and web design, minimalism has managed to root itself and understandably so.

Designed with minimalism in mind, digital products and web designs are no less impressive.

Apple’s brand is one of the best examples of having a minimalist approach in mind when designing products.

The design itself is clean and sleek, and it puts an accent on every aspect of customer experience – from the first moment you hold an iPhone packaging in your hand, peeling off the foil of your screen, to finally using the smartphone.

Minimalist designs are visually appealing and user-friendly, so it’s really not surprising that so many businesses prefer to have a minimalist web design, as it helps them boost their company’s bottom line.

Taking Minimalist Approach to Web Design
Your company’s website is the best business card you have.

It tells your customers all they need to know about your business – from where to find you to what the business is all about.

Read more: 3 Tips to Master a Minimalist Web Design

If you’ve ever grown your own plants, you know that they tend to grow toward the sun. This makes sense; they rely on the sunlight for sustenance, so they’re going to do everything in their power to make sure that they get as much of it as possible. To use an analogy, the same thing goes for online marketing. Companies want to be able to go in the direction of where their prospective customers are. They’re doing it for the same reason as the plants: sustenance.

Over the years of running an online marketing company, I’ve found that there are some often overlooked marketing techniques that have helped businesses, even niche businesses, to grow. Perhaps foremost among these, web design is a bigger deal than many people realize.

There’s More To Web Design Than Looking Good

So many small business owners often think that the only goal of a website is that it looks great. They want something flashy, eye-catching and attractive. That’s all well and good; it’s even important. However, good web design has many benefits beyond that, too. Quality web design should be easy to navigate in practically every way possible.

Website = Online Storefront

A good analogy is to think of your website as a store. For many small businesses that don’t have physical storefronts, it is, for all intents and purposes, an actual store. When you walk into a store, you want to be able to move around. You want to be able to check all of the wares out — easy access to what you came for, as well as exposure to some items that you might not have realized exist. That’s a well-laid-out store in practically any industry.

Read more: How To Think About Web Design To Market Any Kind Of Business In 2020

Quite often, web design is used interchangeably with web development, but are the two synonymous? In this article, I take a look at what web design entails in a bid to enlighten those who would like to pursue a career in web development and those who just want to satisfy their curiosity on the subject.

Web development and its 3 heads

The web development process generally involves three main phases. These are web designing, front-end development, and back-end development. Each stage is normally done by a person who specializes in that particular phase of development, although there are some web developers with more than one skill. A person with skills in web design, front-end, and back-end development is known as a full-stack web developer.

Not all developers end up as full-stack developers. If you identify with the philosophy that a jack of all trades is a master of none, then you should be content with specializing in one aspect of web development- like web designing.

A web designer plays a crucial role in the creation of webpages. A webpage is a document you access when you visit a website. The two words-webpage and website- are sometimes used interchangeably, but that is a story for another day. So what does a web designer do?

Designing the web…
The web designer creates a layout of elements that appear on a web page. The elements range from text, images to videos.

A logo and favourite icon (favicon), are among images that can be found on a webpage. The logo and favicon are part of a brand. Sometimes the web designer is tasked to design the brand or to ensure that existing images are in a certain format and size for the best user experience(UX). The logo typically appears on the navigation panel of a webpage while the favicon is visible in a web browser’s history and it may also appear on home screens of mobile devices.

Fonts and colours on a webpage are also chosen by a web designer and they usually resonate with the brand. The web designer comes up with colour scheme codes for use by developers later in the development process since colours are rarely referred with their names in web development. The web designer also makes sure that the correct fonts are used. Now you might be wondering what skills should a web designer possess?

Read more: What Is Web Design?