How to Develop Creative Concepts for a Modern Web Design Project

It can be difficult to develop creative concepts for your website, but this is an essential part of modern web design. The amount of competition online is staggering. Chances are, if you don’t have a great website, a rival already does.

If your online presence isn’t all that it could be, there are many ways to engage and surprise your website visitors.

The changes in modern web design trends are hard to keep up with, and harder to define. Good modern web design pushes the boundaries while remaining functional and easy-to-use. This is what you want your site to do.

Here are some things you can think about and questions you can ask yourself to help you develop creative concepts for a modern web design project:

• What is your message? Make sure your customers know the exact purpose of your website. This should be immediately apparent. Taglines are a great way to achieve this. Think about what you want to say, and how to best communicate that to your website’s visitors.
• Use hover effects. Hover effects can add a new level of functionality to your site, and they have many applications. Whether a link is highlighted when it is hovered over, or the object changes completely (offering more information about the product, for example). Hover effects are an exciting and creative concept for modern web design. Think about the information and images you could present in this way.
• Employ repetitive design. Using repetitive design motifs and layouts for your site is a great way to maintain cohesion. Whether it’s a repeated image, color, or style, repetitive elements are a modern web design trend that will make your site feel much more intentional. What repeated elements can you use on your website to keep up with modern web design?
• Keep a focused message. What is your website broadcasting? A website for a skateboard company is obviously going to need a different look-and-feel than a web site for a bank. If your product or industry is fun, your website should reflect it, just as you would want to convey a professional image for a more serious business.
• Find great images. Text alone is not enough to keep your visitors interested in your site. Gather images that positively and accurately reflect your brand. What is it you do best? Show your customers with great images.
• Don’t overdo it. Even though it is important to stay current with modern web design, innovation for innovation’s sake is usually a bad idea. Use too many abstract ideas, and you run the risk of alienating or confusing your customers.
• Try out a variety of layouts. Using a dummy text like lorem ipsum will allow you to test out the feel of various layouts without spending the time to fill in your information. It should be instantly apparent what will and won’t work for your site.

If You’re Stuck

Look at a list of innovative websites. What modern web design trends are they following? While you don’t want to copy their material, it is important to see what other sites are doing right. You can emulate the general feel of these websites.

Equally important, you can see what you don’t like about these sites and avoid these modern web design pitfalls. Much like showing a barber a picture of the haircut you’d like, it’s not going to be the exact same thing, but it’s an idea of a direction you can go.

A Few Other Things To Consider

• What features does your website offer? What are you offering visitors that other websites aren’t?
• Are there new features that would benefit your site? A forum or live-chat option will allow your customers to communicate directly to you about their experience on your website.
• What about mobile users? It’s important not to forget mobile users. How will your site look and function on a smartphone?
• How long do your pages take to load? While animations and videos are appealing, it’s important to keep in mind that you should optimize your pages to make them load as quickly as possible.