From the shape of a building or the style of the phone in your hands, great design is all around us and influences most aspects of our lives. And if we like the aesthetic of the product, we’re more likely to interact with it. The same can be said online. The design of your website plays a vital role in encouraging your reader to interact with your brand.
The average person spends about 3 hours a day consuming online content and according to the Telegraph, LINK: one in five British adults spend up to 40 hours a week online. With over 1 billion websites competing for your attention, your website needs to stand out. And that takes smart, considered graphic design.
Good design process
Your website is your shop window and it’s design should reflect your brand’s values. The first thing to do before starting your design is consider how your audience will engage with you. Will they be visiting your website on a computer or from a phone? Only when you understand your audience’s online habits, can you write, design and build a website that will best serve their requirements.
Understanding the user-journey
Good design starts with a defined hierarchy. By prioritising information through visual cues, website copy and clear call-to-action buttons, busy readers can understand your offering at a quick glance.
Why it takes a graphic designer to build a website
A graphic designer plays a vital role in constructing your website. Sure, the graphic designer may not do the actual coding of the website, but they help inform what the site will look like as well as define the process the reader will follow. To use a simple analogy, imagine you’re building a house. The graphic designer is the architect and the website coder is your builder. You rely on your architect to establish the flow and aesthetic of your home which is then built by the builder according to the established plan. Likewise if you built a home without an architect, it may have a great build, but that vital piece- the flow and aesthetic- would probably be missing.
The vital ingredients in website design
‘Dwell time’ is the average time a user will spend interacting with your website and there are a lot of factors that contribute to how long they will engage with your site. Sites like Uber offer a specific service and keep the dwell-time down to a minimum, while other sites like cars.co.za encourage the reader to linger longer.
A graphic designer will use their knowledge of photography, colour treatments, website fonts, paragraph styles and more to ultimately create a site that offers seamless functionality. At Tozer advertising, we refer to this as your ‘digital ecosystem’. Once we understand your goals, we add the right ingredients to design your website.
In our 20 years, we’ve mastered a few vital design treatments that capture an audience’s attention.
Image is everything
Whether it’s through photographs, illustration or stock footage, we find a way to visually communicate the essence of your brand. We select bold images that have immediate stopping power while visually telling your reader more about what you stand for.
Web copy worth reading
Website copy requires specific fonts called ‘webfonts’. By understanding what fonts will work best for the internet, your information will be displayed correctly and will enhance the overall visual aesthetic of your website. Remember to write for your medium- if your site will feature predominantly on a phone, we keep the copy shorter or have additional links to follow. If an audience will be engaging your site on a computer they will typically have more time to read, so longer copy formats can be utilised.
Clear call to actions
A call to action is what you want your audience to do next. At Tozer advertising, we ensure that your call to action is designed to visually stand out on web page, even at a glance. We turn the call to actions into web buttons that automatically take your reader to a specific page when clicked. The buttons are strategically placed at relevant points throughout your website and are generally written as ‘Buy now’, ‘Apply now’, Contact us’ or ‘Find out more’.
Designing to a brand’s style
Every company has invested time and money into creating their brand identity. We believe the equity that you’ve built up in your brand should be seamlessly translated into the digital space. Our graphic designers understand the importance of maintaining the brand’s visual style. This piece of the puzzle is perhaps the most vital.
When a website design works well, all the puzzle pieces come together to create an engaging online experience. It takes a skilled graphic design team that understands the brand, and the audience, to do this.
Made in your world. Designed to live in your audience’s.
The world is using digital technology more than ever before. In fact, by the time you have read this article, Google would have received over 7 million new searches (they receive 3.8 million searches per minute) currently. The secret weapon in your arsenal that helps you rise above the millions of digital shop fronts competing in your category is your visual aesthetic.
Of course technology and the way we build a website will change as we find new ways to consume media. But the one thing that will always remain a constant, is well-considered graphic design. It creates a seamless picture for your audience to follow. Which will ultimately drive up engagement, and generate further sales.
Would you like to see how Tozer Advertising can help boost your digital presence through beautiful graphic design? Of course you would.
By Jason Kempen
For Tozer Advertising
