Anyone who owns a website wants it to look beautiful and perfect. However, if you have ever tried to achieve that, you will know just how difficult it actually is. Basically, you need to know the universal design rules and stick to them, because they have been tried and tested. Let's take a look at what you need to know.

The Rules of Type Design

Great web design is based on the idea that the Internet is actually nothing but text. Hence, you need to think about typography design. Text design has been perfected slowly but surely over the past 5,000 years or so and they have come up with a number of golden rules that you should stick to. For instance, your headlines should be in bold to make them easy to scan. Additionally, you should always use a sans serif typeface, as these are easy to read in any size. For your body text, you have to make sure people are able to read it. Serif typeface is therefore best, particularly if you have a lot of text. Your font size should be large, preferably at least 16 px. No line should be longer than 50-60 characters either.

Use a Slightly Whimsy Typeface

When you choose your typeface, you have to make sure it is easy to read. At the same time, it has to be graphically appealing and a little bit whimsical. A lot of people used to automatically opt for Helvetica Neue for their sans serif. However, Proxima Nova is becoming far more popular nowadays. It is beautiful and sophisticated and not seen as "same old, same old" just yet. Alternatively, you could choose Merriweather Sans or Montserrat, which are just as beautiful.

Three Color Palette

Another very important point is that you should pick a three-color palette and then don't deviate from this at all, on any of your pages. It is about being consistent in the design of your site. Neutral palettes with bold accent colors are generally best. White backgrounds with a slight hue in the text value and a strong color for the accents is eye catching and beautiful. You do, however, have to think very carefully about your accent color so as to not make it overwhelming.

Use the Right Images

Having great visual elements is incredibly important. However, it is not just about the image itself, but also about its size. The web uses pixels, so if you have a too small image, it will look pixelated on your site. Your photographs must be clear in order to add credibility to your website. Having good looking images is more important than providing your own images (so long as you credit the copyright holder, of course).

Have Enough Space

Finally, your content needs to be able to breathe visually. Have consistent margins to allow people to focus on the content itself. Do not provide your visitors with walls upon walls of text. People don't want to spend all day long reading through information they may not want at all. This is why you also need to use icons, subheadings, paragraphs and more. This means that they are able to quickly browse to the part they are interested in, and skip everything else.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Mark Walker

Founder at Awcode

Mark Walker is a web developer, system administrator and entrepreneur, born in England but calling Thailand home for over a decade.

Latest posts by Mark Walker (see all)

• The Quintessence of Cybersecurity and Stellar IT Support - November 9, 2023
• Choosing the Right Payment Processor for Your Website - March 3, 2022
• Choosing a business management system - June 11, 2020