3 Things I Would Never Do As a Web Designer
As an avid TikTok user, maybe sometimes too much, there is a trend of people in different professions telling people what they would never do because of the things they know about in their industry.
I wanted to jump on the bandwagon too since there are so many things people might not know about web design and the design process. Here are 3 things I would never do as a web designer.
Focus on only the logo
This applies to everyone building a website from scratch or finding a web designer to build a website for them but your logo should not be the main focus.
A better use of your energy or time is thinking about the overall strategy of your brand and website. This will be much more impactful even though it’s not as fun or exciting as designing a custom logo.
A custom logo is nice to have but not necessary.
I get the allure of having a well-designed, custom logo. It’s the reason so many people flock to sites like Upwork or Fiverr to pay someone $20 for a logo. The problem is unless you have a company logo that everyone knows and recognizes like Nike, McDonalds or Starbucks your logo can have your brand name attached and be simple.
Think about the last time you saw a cool logo. Unless you’re a designer or just enjoy staring at logos all the time it probably didn’t convince you to try the product or service. It might leave a good impression but a logo by itself is usually scanned and then forgotten.
This is why I recommend for anyone starting out to make your logo simple or just not do one at all! It can just be the name of your brand or company in a nice font. Done.
When you want to make it more complex and custom you can. But other things are more important on your website, mainly the graphics and words, and these will keep people scrolling and engaging with your content. A logo won’t be able to do all that.
Not creating a mood board or brand board
Imagine staring at a blank page with no idea how to fill it. You know what your vision is but can’t seem to translate that to the page.
The same thing can happen in web design when you’re starting from scratch and don’t know where to start. So before you try to fill the page or website map out the vision you have in your head and narrow your focus.
I should have known since I love creating collages and mood boards from old magazines and catalogs that I loved design. The same goes for anyone trying to design or redesign their brand or website.
Putting restrictions in place for your branding makes picking out your brand colors, graphics, pictures and more makes it easier instead of harder.
Having a focused vision makes branding easier.
For example if you wanted to create a fun candy company aimed at teens would you use a serious, dark color scheme like navy blue, black and white? That doesn’t make sense for the brand you’re building.
A mood board for this imaginary company could have bright, neon colors, fun, contrasting color combinations and colorful, wacky product photos.
Creating a mood board to focus down on the essential elements of your brand makes choosing design elements to fit with this brand and build the website so much easier.
Focusing on design over strategy
Design is important but if your website is just a bunch of pretty pictures you aren’t going to get the results you want like email subscribers, conversions, website traffic and online sales.
This is why the strategy behind your brand and website is equally as important. Strategy helps guide your website visitors through a journey to take action. This way they won’t get bored, confused and then leave quickly.
The first website I created was a blog and I didn’t really have a strategy behind it. I just posted whatever I wanted like blog posts, graphic design projects and portfolio pieces and didn’t worry about traffic.
If I was trying to get people to do something and engage with my website I would have been disappointed.
How do you make your website engaging?
The simple explanation is through every part of the website which is words and graphics.
Writing copy that resonates with your ideal audience, what they are worried about right now and how you can help them. If you want to know 3 free ways to refresh your copy I talked about this in a previous blog post.
Another important component is having a CTA or call to action on every page of your website. This way you can help your audience know the next steps of taking action and following along with you and your content.
Now that you know the 3 things I would never do as a web designer let me know in the comments if you’ve made any of these mistakes on your website.
