3 ms·

I'm a designer. Many sites I see that are made by non-designers suffer from two major flaws: - Lack of white/negative space: You need room for your elements an

I'm a designer. Many sites I see that are made by non-designers suffer from two major flaws: - Lack of white/negative space: You need room for your elements and type to breathe. Along this same line, you need to give generous padding and margins to things. If you ever have type squished up against the edge of a box, that's guaranteed to look bad. Have a repertoire of spacing that gets used in multiples: 5px, 10px, 20px, etc. - Lack of hierarchy/scale: I think these two go hand in hand. One of my typography teachers in school had a saying: "Don't just make it 60pt, make it 600pt." Rather than bumping the heading up 10px, bump it up 30 or 40. Bonus tip: Read about Gestalt Theory and you'll start to understand the psychology behind design. Might work for you if you're a techie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology

rbreve 16y ago
Others I have seen - using too many fonts - using too many colors or weird combinations of colors - not using a grid to align elements
alanh 16y ago
Agreed. Allow me to add a few “avoids:” For me, biggest tell-tale of a new designer is overuse of design elements and frills. Adding gradients, shadows, faux 3D, outlines, images, etc. should not be done without a good reason, and sparingly. Your user’s attention is limited. Plan for this. Visually emphasize only the most important thing(s) on the page — 2 or 3, maximum. This often means not using many saturated colors (ever notice how much there is grey in OS X? It stays out of the way. I find Aero Glass unbearably distracting at times.) You don’t have to make your content (as opposed to nav) hyperlinks use a color from your branding palette. In fact, don’t, as rule of thumb. Make them a decent blue (not super saturated like #0000FF), and do vary them for :visited. If it sounds like I am saying “don’t have fun,” I apologize; I tend to be overly minimalist. Do the fun stuff, just use them as demos, not in production (music band sites excepted).
alanh 16y ago
For me, biggest tell-tale of a new designer is overuse of design elements and frills. Adding gradients, shadows, faux 3D, outlines, images, etc. should not be done without a good reason, and sparingly. Your user’s attention is limited. Plan for this. Visually emphasize only the most important thing(s) on the page — 2 or 3, maximum. You don’t have to make your hyperlinks use a color from your branding palette. In fact, don’t, as rule of thumb. Make them blue (in your content, at least), and do vary them for :visited.

rbreve 16y ago

Others I have seen - using too many fonts - using too many colors or weird combinations of colors - not using a grid to align elements

alanh 16y ago

Agreed. Allow me to add a few “avoids:” For me, biggest tell-tale of a new designer is overuse of design elements and frills. Adding gradients, shadows, faux 3D, outlines, images, etc. should not be done without a good reason, and sparingly. Your user’s attention is limited. Plan for this. Visually emphasize only the most important thing(s) on the page — 2 or 3, maximum. This often means not using many saturated colors (ever notice how much there is grey in OS X? It stays out of the way. I find Aero Glass unbearably distracting at times.) You don’t have to make your content (as opposed to nav) hyperlinks use a color from your branding palette. In fact, don’t, as rule of thumb. Make them a decent blue (not super saturated like #0000FF), and do vary them for :visited. If it sounds like I am saying “don’t have fun,” I apologize; I tend to be overly minimalist. Do the fun stuff, just use them as demos, not in production (music band sites excepted).

alanh 16y ago

For me, biggest tell-tale of a new designer is overuse of design elements and frills. Adding gradients, shadows, faux 3D, outlines, images, etc. should not be done without a good reason, and sparingly. Your user’s attention is limited. Plan for this. Visually emphasize only the most important thing(s) on the page — 2 or 3, maximum. You don’t have to make your hyperlinks use a color from your branding palette. In fact, don’t, as rule of thumb. Make them blue (in your content, at least), and do vary them for :visited.