Affordable Web Design: Common Mistakes a Web Designer makes
What is affordable web design?
Design is not just an art in itself. Design, graphic and communication, these days, serve to sell. It is business and a good affordable web design helps a business to make more money. It is important to understand that design = business, if you want to succeed as a freelance designer. Because customers always pay for things that interest them. They are interested in how much you can help improve their business and help them make more money.
What are some of the mistakes a web designer can make?
Not understanding the brief:
A good designer needs to get as much detail about what the client wants and needs. This should be done as early on as possible. If a designer does not have a clear idea of what the client wants, he can end up making matters complicated for him. It is essential to understand the needs of the client so that the designer can save on time, which would otherwise be wasted procrastinating, or working up design ideas that may not be relevant to the client’s needs. So, read and understand the brief carefully from the start, make notes and brainstorm. Also, try to keep in contact with the client to ensure that what you are working on is headed in the right direction.
Using the wrong typography in affordable web design:
There are many places from where one can download free fonts, but one should be aware of the potential pitfalls in terms of legalities and usage rights. This can leave you having to restart your work with a whole new font. If you are a professional designer, do not shy away from the idea of paying for professional fonts. Along with deciding where to get your fonts from, your typography choices are equally important as well.
Font overload:
Excess of typefaces can look cluttered and confusing. Hence it is important to have a clear and formatted design. So that one does not use many different fonts within a piece. Your type should look consistent; hence it is vital not to confuse the viewer by layering your page with different typefaces. As a rule, just stick to two different fonts and use different font weights to differentiate and highlight different areas.
Using too many stock images:
Stock imagery can prove to be very helpful to a designer, especially when you cannot afford a professional photographer. However, there are certain stock photographs that seem to do the design circuit within digital art, and can become overly familiar. Hence, keep in mind to avoid using stock model images as a central focus for your work. If you think it is a good photograph, it is very likely that others might find it good as well. It would be a shame if you produced a great design only to find someone else using the same image in another design. This can take the shine and originality off your work.
Not saving your affordable web design correctly:
It is vitally important to know how to set up your files correctly from the start. As a rule, save your designs as CMYK for print and RGB for web. Also, consider formats, outlining fonts and color profiles before sending the file to print. All these processes will save you time in the long run. This will also ensure that your work is reproduced correctly and will keep your client happy.
Failing to proofread:
Spellchecker is a great tool for finding misspelled words within your work. However, spellchecker will not catch correctly spelt words in the wrong context. Hence, one must proofread every piece of your work and also get others to check it too.
Working destructively:
This means making permanent changes to the pixels within your projects. Working destructively means you will not be able to go back and re-edit things later. To avoid such a situation, work in a way where you can edit individual elements later if necessary. Use layer marks instead of the eraser tool. Try to ignore standard adjustments from the image drop down menu in the toolbar.
Failing to checklist:
After finishing your design, it is a good practice to run through a checklist. Get someone else to look over your work. They will be able to spot something you may have missed.
Not considering to context:
While designing an icon, logo or any other design element, make sure it is transferable across both analogue and digital medium. Make sure the colors, size and overall design will work well on printed materials like signs and T-shirts. Along with various technology touch points like computers, mobiles and more.
Copying other people’s affordable web design:
Originality is a key element for a designer and plagiarism usually does not go unnoticed. One can gather influences and take inspiration from other people’s work. But, straight up copying others is not alright. With the recent social media growth, one can usually risk their design crime being made embarrassingly public.
Baseless following of logo trends:
Designing your logo based on current trends will not only make you look slightly amateur. But will most likely leave your logo looking outdated and out-of-touch as soon as the trend dies out. Rather than slavishly following logo trends, think about what’s more likely to have longevity for your brand.
Failing to use shortcuts:
The biggest challenge that designers face is meeting deadlines. Designers have to endure a lot of repetitive work. So it is important to learn shortcuts to save time and energy. It might sound like a lot of work, but learning these will increase your workflow exponentially.
Missing the point of design:
The biggest mistake a designer can make is to miss the entire point of affordable web design itself. Design is often confused with decoration, but it is actually about responding to problems.
Why GrayCyan for affordable web design?
Defining brand intentions is a priority for us. We spend quality time with our clients to uncover what their brand really stands for. We then, articulate the clients’ purpose, positions and personality. And then create digital platforms and branded experiences that will connect your brand with your customers. At GrayCyan, best Web design toronto, we use the best talents in the industry and merge design and digital innovation. We apply affordable web design fundamentals of elegance, simplicity, craft and attention for detail to create user centred experiences.
GrayCyan, best website design Toronto offers both web design and development services. Our team is passionate about creating unique and functional design for small, medium and large businesses. We combine our technical and affordable web design oriented expertise to offer a wide array of services to our clients. We help to develop, integrate or revitalize your brand. Our vast experience within the industry allows us to develop a concise strategy that will help your business grow.
We will work closely with you every step of the way of your project to complete and establish your vision. Web design and development is a constantly evolving and challenging industry. Hence, we make a point to adapt, learn and grow with changing technologies and best practices with design and development. We, at GrayCyan, best website design toronto aim to ensure that the web design and development process is as efficient, stringent, viable and prudent as possible. Our team is constantly striving to use bleeding edge technologies and methodologies. Our web designers are highly skilled and experienced to provide you with the best service possible.