When I started out as a designer colour was something I really struggled with when designing a site. I found it really hard to find nice palettes that worked, and colour tones that gave the impression that I wanted. The ColourLovers site was a blessing to me – it was the tool I needed to make my designs work.

As I gained in experience I used the ColourLovers site less and less, but recently I found myself having a new challenge with colour.

I’ve been working on a site that has a strong colour palette of bright greens and blues. The challenge was to redesign the homepage content to make certain components stand out and had two main goals – lead a new customer to the next step of the buying process, and provide a customer call to action area for existing customers.

My first attempts had a few issues with them.

• Strong and dark components in different colours made the page look heavy and hard to read
• Light and soft components didn’t create enough differentiation between components, making the page look fussy
• A variety of lighter and darker components made the page looked busy and complicated

I used different colours and tones to try to get a clean page with clear distinction between components, but kept having the same issues. Eventually, taking a fresh look at it, I realised the following…

I needed to rationalise how I was using the colour

Just considering how these colours should work on the site improved it greatly. Deciding what colours should be consistent through all components and which ones should indicate different types of content made the site visually more cohesive.

I needed to reduce the amount of colours I was using on the page

I reduced the background component colours I was using to 2 strong feature colours, and one neutral light colour. One of the feature colours used had to really stand out, as this was the acquisition piece, but the other also needed a strong stand out on the page. To solve this a unique blue was used on the acquisition component, then a strong green that matched the background colour on the site was used for the secondary component. This allowed me to reduce the colours used, while also creating strong components.

I needed to consider the colour tones

Using a variety of tones of colour on the site also made it look more complicated and harder to scan the components. To deal with this I ensured that I only used two colour tone levels – one strong background colour for the two main sections, then a very light one for secondary components. This helped create a more even page that attracted the customers eye to the right places, without creating too much distraction.

Well, after around 11 versions I am eventually happy with it – let’s hope the client is too!

Okay, that’s quite a bit of an exaggeration, maybe purgatory rather than hell.

Anyway, I don’t really know any javascript so I rely on help from the bountiful internet so I can do things with it. Lucky for me there are a bazillion javascripty jquery type pop ups, however unfortunately there are A BAZILLION javascripty jquery type pop ups. Well again, I’m overreacting slightly. But here are a few of the pop up plugin type things I tried out.

Lightbox

Lightbox is the one everyone has heard of, but it annoys me slightly – although I’m not entirely sure why. Simple to use and install, but unfortunately wasn’t any use for me this time as it can only show images, rather the sections of HTML that I required.

Colourbox

Colorbox is nice. It produces nice looking pop ups. Smooth transitions. It can load up flash, video as well as HTML. However, again I couldn’t use it for the project I wanted as I needed a div to pop up then stay where it was allowing you to interact with the rest of the page. I think you might be able to get Colorbox to do this, but I struggled with the coding.

DOMWindow

DOMWindow was my saviour in the project I was working on. I didn’t want a hover pop up, or one that fills the entire screen, but with one click a little window should appear, then it should close when the user clicks on the close button. Very simple and easy to use.

A few others

Fancybox
Thickbox
Shadowbox

I love arts and crafts in general, but one of my main hobbies is knitting. I love that it is so relaxing, then at the end of it you have something beautiful, original and generally useful that you have made yourself.

Check out all the adorable little knitting things in this smashing magazine post – The Beauty of Knitting. These kinds of things always give me inspiration. Here is a few of the adorable creations.

Eye of the Beast by kathrynivy.com

Daphne and Delilah the Momma and Baby Monster by Rebecca Danger

When designing websites in the past, I’ve tended to be very logical and practical, especially if I get stuck with something. I make logical choices for positioning, colour and layout. This is really quite an important way to think to create functional, user-friendly websites. However, to create something a bit more special and visually appealing you need add something else to the design. I believe this to be the personal and emotional input that a designer imbues into the work they do.

Without actually thinking about it I think most designers make emotional choices, whether it’s colour, styles or shapes. These help create a site that fits the brand and the intended purpose. Understanding what these emotional cues are will not only make it easier to make the correct decisions when creating a new design, but also allow us to be able to explain to the client exactly why the design should look as it does. This should help us communicate better with the client, and end up with a design that everyone is happy with.

When I started out as a designer I found the idea of creating a brand identity to be a mystical and exciting thing. Putting shapes and words together to create something with it’s own personality, to encompass what a company was about, was quite appealing, but as I developed my skills in both print and web design I discovered that it was something I tended to struggle with, and then just neglect. Then, as I found my interests lay more towards web design, with it’s wonderful mix of problem solving, creative design and programming, I just never quite got around to getting any better at it.

So, around ten years later the idea of creating a brand for myself didn’t even cross my mind. When creating this site, I just naturally created a little ident that I was rather fond of, instead of spending hours thinking of what I wanted my logo to say to other people. Hence, I was rather surprised, and flattered, when David Pache contacted me to ask if he could include my website brand in part 3 of his 100 Brands of Interest.

This has gotten me thinking about my original love for brand identity and how I’ve never quite felt comfortable around it. I believe the time is now to re-examine it. I’ve enjoyed developing my illustration skills, and thanks to iStock’s new product, Logos : Logos come to istock, I have a great new avenue to help me rediscover my lost interest in logo design.

I’ll let you know how I get on!

I do. I love gradients and rounded corners, but it’s turning into a sick, sick addiction. Every site I design now is full of gradients and highlights and little rounded corners…but it’s got to stop.

I’m now in the habit of, once I’ve finished designing a page, removing all the rounded corners to decide whether they actually benefit the design or not. However, my gradients and highlights are still a problem. I need to expand my design skills. So, I’m determined that the next site I design will have NO GRADIENTS…just to see if I can actually do it. I’m already a step towards it; the latest illustration that I’m working has no gradients in it at all….um….yet.

Well, while I’m almost fully converted from Elaine Simpson to Elaine McVicar, and now I’m getting converted from Danu Design to Elaine McVicar. You may not have noticed that my domain name has been changed over, with only a few hiccups, from yesterday, but here I am elainemcvicar.com. You know, I really like how that looks.

I’m trying to decide if I believe in the concept of ‘Creative people’.

It’s something I hear all the time at work. Creative people are meant to be a different breed, man. Free spirits, livin’ in chaos, expressing theirselves, yeh!

Now, I love being creative. I love a variety of creative pursuits, from designing to drawing to painting to crafts, but is this something you develop in yourself, rather than something you are innately born with? I’m not denying that there are some amazingly talented people out there, creative geniuses, perhaps, but the rest of us? I mean, I’m a very logical person, very practical. Being creative is something I’ve learned to do better. I know what web design layouts work, what colours look right together, but this is from experience rather than instinct.

I believe that all of us have the ability to be creative, there are just some of us who spend more time developing it. So, pick up a pencil, start sketching or something, then you can call yourself a ‘creative person’ too.