Interviewing a graphic designer on ’’How to design a website’’
If you want your company to be successful in the modern marketplace, you must have a professional website. Your website is the backbone of your business, supporting all of your digital marketing efforts. Let’s take a look at our design expert thoughts about the modern business website designing process.
• What are the first steps that need to be taken in the graphic website design process for modern websites?
– First things first. The most important thing is be prepared for the new project. It is of the great interest for the designer to direct her/his focus to one task in the moment when she/he is starting with the new task. This means that projects and tasks should be addressed at the relevant time and as soon as possible, so that designer can focus on something new. Then, the process can begin with good research that involves gathering all the information about the client and her/his company/organization.
• What is the important information that you need to gather in order to create a successful business website?
– Designer needs to have the essentials – mission, vision and core values of the company. This helps to define the ideal customer of the services offered by the new client, and then it is advisable to give the same customer an identity and summarize all the information about her/him on paper that should be printed and should stands on the desktop until the end of the project.
• How important is UI perspective from designer point of view?
– For me, this brings me some guidelines and standards that define roughly what should be on the website, in whichform the content should be arranged and structured, and to bring some order and discipline to the layout of the page itself.
• Which tools and software do you use the most during the process of website design?
– Mainly, I use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to prepare photos and banner which would be used in the during process. And then I need to choose between Figma or Adobe XD. I choose Adobe XD if my team is creating more customizable website for our dearest clients, but Figma is easier to use, has better and more functionalities and a smoothly flowing process to sync and update changes to shared assets between team members, so I choose it for easier projects that should be completed quickly.
The art of coloring
• How do you find inspiration for various projects and design?
– I am really trying a lot to use my free time atypically and unpredictably. Sometimes my day off is meditative and sometimes spontaneous, adventurous and far from my hometown. I think this is the most important thing to keep your mind out of the box and constantly creative. In a mindset like this, inspiration comes by itself.
• How important is the client’s feedback and active communication in process of designing valuable business website?
– Think of a project without feedback as making a cake without a recipe.Sometimes it can turn out to be very impressive but you have to be a master at your job and a very good empath in human psychology to know what the other side wants to get in the end.
Long story short, good and active communication means everything, and I will just stop here.
• On what ways a new marketing trends affect design and your approach to designing a quality site?
– Well, this is a tricky question. When doing a project, you need to ask your client if she/he wants something that is unique and infinite, or something that is modern and interchangeable over the next few years. In first case, the designer needs to follow some trends to give the big project some sparks and only in the second case the designer really has to stick to the trends and bring the client something new and the most modern that is currently on the market. So, it is very important to follow trends because the trend itself has become that websites change and modernize after a certain time so this is something that should be expected from customers in the first place.
Innovative digital marketing trends for business owners in 2021
• Do you prefer any personal style that you express in website design?
– No. It is very important to me not to confuse my private preferences when doing my job. My team knows how much I like to follow the latest trends and suggest using some new ones for graphics that should be prepared in the near future. The design should be experimental and free. Only in the case when a company prepares and defines a brand, then that procedure significantly narrows the choice in design and the designer should adhere to internal standards. This, in turn, is only used in terms of the use of logos, colours, typography and the brand voice in general when addressing the idealcustomer of the client’s company/organization – everything else is and should be interchangeable.
• Is there a specific way for you on howto manage the project designing from the beginning till the end?
– You need to be a team player and rely on your companions. We as a team start with a big and comprehensive research whose hints the design team then uses to define the brand instructions. The web design team then in collaboration with the developing team finds itself in the middle. They offer a solution for website development and then get feedback on the complexity of the ideas themselves. It is necessary to take time into the very formula of making a project, because clients usually want their things for the shortest possible time, and it is necessary to respect this factor of production efficiency. So, I as a designer approach from three sides – as a graphic designer when creating brand book and promo material for a client in the beginning of the process, then – as a web designer when creating website prototype options to choose from, and then again – when creating ideal banners, infographics and icons in the end. The basic thing for a designer to organize and manage is to be open to design changes and make her/his time for at least 30% flexible time for corrections and additions during the process.
• What are the most important things to watch out during the whole process?
– Observe mistakes and make sure they do not recur!
That was our dear Graphic Designer, miss. Berina Mujcic. A wise word indeed. Thank you very much for taking your time and opening the doors to your professional knowledge. I am sure that our respected readers are going to enjoy it as much as we do.
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