Understanding Website Design Layouts

You may often hear designers and tech heads throwing around terms such as responsive, liquid or fixed design.” What does it mean and why is it going to cost my business more money?” you ask. With the increasing complexity of website development that enables simplistic screening for users, responsive may be the optimal design type for your business’s website.

 

Let us shed some light on these conditions first:

FIXED DESIGN:

Fixed web pages have a set width which won’t change if the browser is resized, regardless of what device the website is being viewed on. On smaller devices, such as tablets or smartphones, content is harder to see and can be annoying for users due to the need to scroll horizontally to view the rest of the content on a page, or continuously”pinch and expand” to zoom in the page’s text. After the browser onto a screen is enlarged or reduced, text and images may visually fall apart on the screen.

 

LIQUID OR FLUID DESIGN:

When resizing the browser, the content on the page spreads itself out to fill the width of the browser once enlarged, hence the term liquid design and will seem enlarged or as though it has shrunk. The columns containing the content on the page are constructed using proportions, rather than fixed columns used in a fixed design, and so the columns increase or decrease in size relative to each other.

 

RESPONSIVE DESIGN:

This approach aims to make website viewing easier by displaying websites on different devices in forms that are easy to read and navigate. This avoids the user from having to resize, scroll or pan through the webpage to read the website’s content. Essentially the website is easily viewable and usable on desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones. When creating a responsive site design, designers do not need to design multiple website formats that have been rearranged for different devices.

Websites created using responsive design are designed to show different content as the browser is enlarged or reduced to predetermined sizes. By way of example, when the browser size is reduced to 70% of its maximum width, the webpage might have been set to display only two columns on the display rather than three. After the browser is expanded past 70% of the display, the next column of content will return to the screen. A video being viewed on a slow internet link will display the lower resolution video that has been uploaded, instead of the high-resolution version of the movie that’s been uploaded. This ensures the user views a video that will download much quicker than the bigger, high-quality version causing the viewer to endure the”streaming display” (loading screen) that we all hate.

 

ILLUSTRATIVE WEB DESIGN:

An illustration is a remarkably versatile tool that can find many different uses in design. When it comes to web design we can find an extremely wide array of implementations.

Illustrations and cartoon drawings can really bring a web design to life. Drawing is a creative task by definition, and incorporating it into a website’s design is one of the most creative techniques of presenting information on the net. In 2016, illustration has become a very important part of a web appearance by its enticing and interesting little components like icons. Plus, the website will be more personal for users and connect users better.

 

MINIMALIST WEB DESIGN:

The purpose of minimalism is to expose the character design by removing all non-essential forms, features, and concepts. In web design, minimalism erases potential distractions and strips off components into their most basic forms.

It is a style that continues to be trendy, being a reaction to the chaos and overflow of information that’s inherent to the Internet. And if your portfolio’s sole purpose is to showcase the best work you have ever created, the biggest favor you can do for yourself is to just escape the way.

 

TYPOGRAPHY WEB DESIGN:

First impressions are lasting impressions. Whether you realize it or not, your typography helps to create an experience for users before they’ve even read a word or click on a button. Typography has the potential to go beyond merely telling a story. It shows the user who is behind the website and what they are about. The therapy of type creates an atmosphere and elicits a response much the same way as a tone of voice does.

As one of the core design principles, typography can really make or break a website design. Despite recent advances in web type technology, we are still quite limited when it comes to innovative typography designs, meaning image replacement techniques are still common, but nowadays we have an enormous choice when it comes to picking fonts for our designs.

However, with the development of mobile usage within recent years, one might assert that typography design is a drawback since it reduces the loading time of the site. You can easily fix this problem by displaying typography based on device resolution.

 

SINGLE PAGE WEB DESIGN:

Single page web designs surely aren’t a new trend. Its continuance suggests that it’s more practical and effective than many. Like most trends, single page sites have their advantages and shortcomings, but in a world where thousands of new websites are created daily, a single page web design might be the best way to cater to the ever-shortening human attention span. It should be noted that the single page web design isn’t perfect for every objective. Having a defined purpose for your design, your content to fit one page, and creating an interesting layout are some of the main focal points to make your single page layout meet its full potential.

 

FLAT WEB DESIGN:

Flat design is a minimalistic design approach that emphasizes usability. It features clean, open space, crisp edges, bright colors, and two-dimensional/flat illustrations. Microsoft was among the first to employ this design style to its interface. Rather than converting a real-life object, such as a calendar, into a tiny realistic illustration, advocates of flat design identify programs with simple, icon-like images. As opposed to bringing aspects of real life to an interface, this illustrates a clear separation between technology and tactile objects.