Archive for Hoverblog: January 2006 | Main >
Home Page or Secondary Page?
| 1.31.2006
Almost every designer I know, when designing a website, starts with the home page first. I think this happens for a few reasons. The first is that it's usually the easiest page to design. After all, it is a home page and the first page people see when they hit a site. It needs to quickly and elegantly (at least the good sites) articulate the brand voice and personality. Ideally, a home page shouldn't have too much information on it. The few staples include a larger picture, navigation and a mission statement or tagline. Add some news and a free offer and you're half way home. It's there to set the tone and funnel you to the content you came looking for in the first place. Any good designer can bang out a 2-3 home pages in a day. The second reason is that it's usually the page that the client wants to see during a first round review. It's exciting for them to see the brand come alive within an online touch point in all its glory. I don't think they would have the same level of excitement if they were shown a tertiary level page with a feedback form. Once a client picks a particular direction, that style is applied to lower level pages.
From a creative point of view, it's the lower level pages that are the hardest to design. Designing a template that can house tons of content, buttons, pictures and forms in an elegant and intuitive way, is a hard working template and not an easy one to create. Usually, we're trying to imagine how what we're creating for the home page, will work on the lower level pages. Sometimes it never works and the design is quickly changed or abandoned. On the next few project, I'm going to try and get the time to design the lower level pages first and work my way up to the home page. It's going to be interesting to see how the design changes when going the opposite way.
On Silver Sky, an assisted living community, the home page came together relativly quickly. As mentioned above, it's mostly brand area with some quick calls to action. Believe it or not, the lower level pages were a bit more challenging. Even when I look back on them, they look suspiciously simple, but that's one the hardest challenges of good design - making boring or overly complicated pages look approachable, easy to navigate and simple.
I showed this site to my parents the other day and they thought I was hinting at putting them away. I think I'm out of their will at this point, but I'll work on them at the super bowl party.
posted at 9:15 PM
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2 comments
I'm Having the Buffet.
| 1.14.2006
I was having lunch the other day at Marino's Italian restaurant in Cambridge. Wed-Fri, they have an Italian buffet. I don't know about you, but I've never heard of an Italian buffet. Chinese, dessert, brunch or even the buffet at the Radisson are all buffets I'm accustomed to. On the walk over, I'm thinking...what does one put in an Italian lunch buffet. I won't bore you with the details, but lets just say that the meatballs drowned in red sauce was the only warm highlight besides my water.
The best buffet I've had in a while (besides the one at the Blueroom) is iconbuffet. That's right. A full, fresh, free, yummy buffet of icons that will keep your designs and presentations looking great. It's pretty neat. You sign up and once a month, iconbuffet will deliver a collection of royalty-free icons to your account. You get to do anything with them except resell them. Another neat thing is that with each monthly delivery, you can forward on to 5 friends. The only caveat is that you don't get to pick what set you'll be receiving. It's sort of a grab bag based service.
Oh. By the way. Marinos is moving to Stoughton soon. It's a good move for their buffet and our appetites.
posted at 9:10 AM
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1 comments
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