Where Do I Start?

Website design is an art form, just like any other. However, unlike many art forms, it's a step by step process that's fairly simple to go through if you dedicate time and effort. The following are some things to think about when you first consider comissioning a website. If you have trouble, don't worry! These are merely ideas to help you along- if you don't have a preference I can definitely help you workshop. These are simply meant to help you gather your thoughts.

Website Styling

What do you want your website's general design to be? A website's style can speak to your customer. Do you want homey, or modern? Elegant, or fun? A website's design is a combination of its layout, colors, pictures, and fonts. Think of websites you see around the web that you like the appearance of; what do you like about them?

Below is a bar of buttons that change the style of the website so you can get some ideas.

The Written Word

Fonts hugely impact your user's impression of a site. Do you have a specific font you would like? If you don't have a specific one in mind, you can think about more general outlines- do you want a serif or sans serif font? Legibility is important, so make sure your font of choice is easy to read even on a small screen.

CSS has some fonts included, but not all of them are supported on all browsers. In addition, you can add your own fonts to a given website, a service I offer. The drop down below lists many of the included fonts in order to give you a starting point. Not all fonts will work in all browsers.

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog.

The Wonderful World of Color

Colors also communicate a great deal about your website to your end user. I reccomend you pick one to two main colors, and up to three accent colors, depending on the style you want your website to be. Minimalist style sites, for example, generally only have one or two colors (other than black and white). Often, picking colors off of your logo works very well. If you don't have a logo yet, or you want different colors than exist in your logo, check out the color picker below!

Base Color:

Color Result:

RGB:

R: G: B:

HSL:

H: S: L:

Hex:

Complementary Colors:

Logos and Images

Do you have a logo that you want to use on your site? What photos would you like to add, if any? Are there any other promotional materials you would want to include? Having all these documents in one place can greatly help with comissioning a website. Please note that it's very important that you have permission to use the materials for your website: if you are using stock photos, you need to make sure they're open source or commerically licensed.

Hosting and Domain Name

Once your website is created, where do you want to host it? There are many different hosting companies, such as GoDaddy and Squarespace, with many smaller competitors. When researching hosting costs, you should look into both the cost for hosting an HTML website and the cost to obtain an SSL. While there are many hosting providers who do offer discounted services, you do get what you pay for.

In addition, you should think about what URL you want. If you already have one, great! If not, here are some tips to help your choice. You want your URL to be related to your business, ideally very close to or the same as your business name, and memorable.