I really don’t mind giving my opinion on website design. And it’s always so nice to comment on a really good one for a change.

A photographer friend of mine asked for my reaction to his new website design while it was being renovated. My first reaction was very positive, with its clean, clear, crisp lines providing a very professional layout. It was the grey words and logo on the white background that did it for me – how nice to see an uncluttered presentation with plenty of white space and light!

But I felt compelled to provide some comments to increase his website efficiency:

The index page should work to the three second rule. Three seconds to make up their minds that this is the right website and what they should then do. Getting the visitors to do something is paramount; they should be encouraged to go further into the site to learn more, or sign up to something with a suitable incentive (this is to gather their details for future communications). The last thing you want is for them to leave!

Also, don’t overload other pages with detailed content. My friend’s grey text may have looked elegant and contributed to the spatial atmosphere that was so pleasing, but it did make it very difficult to read in large quantities. Websites are not like books. People don’t find it easy to sit down and read through webpages with a cup of tea. Also if they are surfing they usually do not have the time to plough through densely packed paragraphs.

Your accompanying webpages should act like little landing pages for specific subjects. This means they should contain the same structure and marketing elements as the index page, because spiders direct surfers to the most relevant page to their search, and this may not be the index page of the website. Allow for drop-in visitors for that particular subject, and adapt the page for the three second rule too.

Design your webpages with the initial concept of getting your customers to make contact. Once you’ve got them across your threshold then you can give them all the necessary detail to seal your capture. Your content should be delivered quickly and concisely with poignant and relevant information. Separate each benefit with bullet points or paragraphs. This allows the eye to rapidly choose what it wants to read and then enables the reader to digest and take action.

Whilst cleaning my bathroom I was struck by the Body Shop bottles on the shelf. That got me thinking on a variety of levels.

One: how the contents of the bottles matched the colours on the labels. Silly really, but I liked that consistency.

Two: the labels themselves were simple and uncluttered, and each bottle matched its partners so that you could tell they were of a set: cleanser, toner, moisteriser, serum, eye cream, etc.

Three: I thought of the consistency of the Body Shop interiors; as a franchise, they are all presented in exactly the same way, so regardless of where you are (Reading, Brighton, Brisbane in Australia) you know exactly where the shampoos are, as well as your favourite brand of face creams.

Four: the consistency of the patter of the sales persons; they all spoke from the same hymn sheet, so no conflictions of information could confuse a potential customer.

Don’t you think that consistency makes your marketing safe? You should make it so that your customers don’t have to think too hard, that it is easy for them without being condescending, that they can find things really easily without losing their interest, that your messages are consistent to avoid confusion, and the simplicity factor highlights your success because everything runs like a well-oiled machine.

That’s something for me to strive for in 2009…

Margins and white space

A colleague recently showed me her portfolio, which I admired appropriately, but something didn’t seem quite right – and then I got it – there was an inconsistency of edge space, the space around the outside of each piece of work. This lack of awareness within this area of design can be disturbing, as its purpose is to draw the eye inwards and navigate it where it needs to go. This breathing space, created by the margins (or borders) surrounding the page, provide a sense of both protection and presentation within its frame.

Let’s consider an example of cordon bleu served on a large white plate. Typically served in small portions, the food is aesthetically placed to unconsciously please the eye and draw attention to itself. The presentation revels in the juxtaposition of colour, shape and flavour, culminating in gourmet gratification.

Alternatively, if the meal was just slumped in the middle of your plate, unceremoniously swimming in gravy, would you be encouraged to eat it? Potatoes don’t appreciate balancing precariously close to the rim, rubbing shoulders with a steak that looms menacingly over vegetables cowering in a corner somewhere.

Design should not suffer the same consequences, and this was brought home when some leaflets I had designed were termed ‘crowded’. In spite of containing a lot of information, this was no excuse for clutter. I had adhered to my principles of allowing plenty of margin around the outside, but had neglected what was in the middle.

The answer was to adjust the font to a thinner, cleaner version, only slightly reducing the size of the words, adjust the leading to rearrange line positioning and enlarge the margins while preventing the words becoming crammed up to the edge. The overall effect was clean and crisp, creating more space while not overpowering the design.

If you would like to know more about how margins can affect your work, go ask Alice!

Today I met a office furniture company while out networking. They were an established foreign firm who were looking to expand into Europe and the UK, and had formed a Reading branch. The sales rep was out networking around various groups to tout her wares, which included a well designed brochure sporting the clean, simple lines her furniture was valued for.

Now there are plenty of other office furniture businesses in Reading, so how could she get her company’s reputation levitated above the rest? I suggested she should first collect some testimonials of satisfied clients, and also statements of successful return on investments, such as how the lives of their workforce had been improved through a better environment, increased their sales because of the ambience and quality of their premises had impressed prospective clients, and the efficiency of layout of furniture had made the processing and resourcefulness of their business that much easier.

How to get all this information out to the public? Well, take this newly resourced material and use it in  articles, press releases, blogs, newsletters, speaking events, direct mail… just to get your concept out there. Keep the same clean, simple style as the company’s branding, in both presentation and writing style, to promote your branch effectively. All this can be accommodated in both a paper format and the web, as combining the two can produce very powerful results. Using all the technology resources to best effect can have quite an impact on your business’s success and sales…

Want to know more? Then go ask Alice!

Make sure that whatever you are presenting to the general public is seen through their eyes.  It’s all too easy to get so involved in your work so that you don’t see the wood from the trees.  What may be obvious to you might not be so for others.  You need to take a stand back and look at it as though you were them.

This became apparent to me this morning. I emailed a sample of some stationery to an interested inquirer, and on receipt of this she had to ring me up to get an explanation.  I thought it was self-explanatory, but during my conversation with her I realised that this was not the case.  It needed to be simplified and presented in a clear, concise and uncluttered mode, as though it was already printed and in her hands. Only then was she able to appreciate and understand the concept and product on offer.

The moral? – Simplify, package well and present as obviously as possible – then there will be no misunderstandings.

Just a little idea I had: a lady at a networking event proudly showed me her new iPod, which I much admired.  I’m used to products made by Apple, and noticed one feature that showed a gallery of record covers relative to her music that ’swelled’ up to the fore when moused over.

I wondered if this could be put to another use – a series of images that backed up a pitch or small presentation in a 1-2-1 situation, intimately shown to the prospective as a visual aid.  Examples and information pages could ’swell’ into view to emphasise certain points or highlight subjects to concentrate upon.  An audio description could accompany each slide if necessary.