Must Design

Web Design Basics
Love these five web design basics:

* Learn TYPE Design.
* Pick Great Fonts That Fit Your TONE.
* Pick 3 Color Palette & STICK TO IT.
* Photos = RIGHT SIZE.
* When In Doubt, Give It SPACE.

This last tip is our favorite. Nothing we hate more than claustrophobic web design. Problem is claustrophobia is easy to create. We all WANT to do so much.

When I was an Ecommerce Director we studied our links carefully. We found that 5% of our links received 90% of the clicks. That equation turned out to be a fractal. No matter how small we cut it, no matter how we shifted the design, a small % of the links dominated.

This means MOST of what WE, as designers, think is important isn't. We learned to be Google - Vicious about what we added. Adding meant something had to COME OFF the design. This strange User Interface math means you have more ROOM than you realize.

Find what matters and LINK IT. Design what matters and eliminate the flotsam and jetsam so you have SPACE around what matters since it is that SPACE that signals IMPORTANCE to your visitors.  .

2014 We Design Trends

1. Grid Layouts - Agree & Is Good!
Yes visual marketing + pinterest + mobile is making the grid ubiquitous. I created a Mondrian grid in 1999 when we launched FoundObjects.com (not gone sadly). Grids help share MORE information faster and in the same space than any other design element.

2. Image Captions - Agree and is GREAT
The area immediately under an image is HOT. Everyone looks there but few designers use captions to reinforce or explain the image. Paying more attention to keywords under images is a great idea.

3. Extended Form Elements with JQuery - Don't Know? Does anyone?
Can't comment on this trend as it is new to me and I don't program so its potential benefits are fuzzy at the moment.

4. Deeply Focused Landing Pages thanks to Mobile - Agree & Is Cool
Don't understand this trend except enough to say COOL and WANT ONE.

5. HTML5 Video Players - Agree and GLAD
Don't play your videos on YouTube only since you just make the rich get richer. Figuring out how to play videos "in your stack" is important and having your own HTML5 player is cool.

6. 3D vs. 7. Flat Design - I come down on Flat Design as the winner due to mobile.

8. Personal Portraits - Agree and Like

9. SVG Vector sweeps web as browser support escalates. Agree & Glad.

10. Fonts get cool thanks to server advance - cool and like but not a religion or anything lol.

11. Lazy Loading Animations - cool and can think of several uses.

12. Customized Image Galleries - cool and we need.

13. Mega Navigation Menus - Don't know but don't like idea, seems confusing where confusion can really hurt.

14. Expanding Search Bars - cool and will use.

15. Featured Detail List - LIKE and is cool and new to me.

16. Mobile First Design - Agree and am doing my first now with CrowdFunde.

17. HTML5 Canvas - cool and new to me.

18, Pixel Sprites and Browser Games - New to me but COOL!

19. Quick Registration via social - AGREE!

20, CSS3 Keyframe Animation - Cool, want one.

This is a great video by Objectified's (another great video) Director Gary Hustwit. The fact we CAN do something doesn't mean doing it is the right thing to do. This is so true with type.

Because we have more crazy "grungy" fonts doesn't mean we serve our designs well by using them. Sometimes the simple and true work best. Also, as many designers demonstrate in this great design film, the tried and true can be bent into a pretzel.

Helvetia has an innovative side too (shared in numerous examples), so font and typography are really just tools. They stand neutral and wait to see what we do TO them (lol). Helvetia is so clean it makes great headlines online where people don't want to read anyway.

They want to scroll and increasingly swipe so watch this video to learn new tricks for an old, reliable dog.

An updated look at the hottest best web design trends of 2014 including a showcase of modern web design inspiration.

Marty Note
This @justcreative post hit many nails on the head when it was initially published and Jacob's update of Helga Moreno's post doesn't disappoint either. Things I REALLY agree with:

See Less of (PLEASE):

* Stock photography (no photos? ASK your employees / followers for help but please no more Stepford people in pics on websites).
* Flash (has killed more #seo and sites than you can shake a stick at and fact it is still alive is amazing).
* Capcha - spam sucks but so do capcha forms.

More of PLEASE:

* Content First (implied in Responsive or Mobile First Design is a new way of thinking about, tagging and presenting content).
* Interactive Exploring (BIG AGREEMENT see my post about Time is Money Online https://plus.google.com/+MartinWSmith/posts/RdjAjWoJTHw and tag this next to #gamification).
* Arresting pictures and Video (YES, your great content will be ignored or under-shared UNLESS it is paired with strong visual hooks and supports).

Great post by Helga for Just Creative and so TRUE to our experience of web dev in 2014 for leading ecommerce clients such as Moon Audio.com.

When I was starting out with Web and graphic design, I was always wondering about the fonts that real designers use.

Archive of freely downloadable fonts. Browse by alphabetical listing, by style, by author or by popularity.