Digital design agency, Numiko, visited the college to talk to us about projects they've been working on involving design for web. All of the websites they've created for clients are interactive and easy to navigate, here are a few of their projects:
Design Council
Wahoo for WaterAid
Make things do stuff
I found the talk really interesting as well as helpful, and feel like I've gained an insight into working professionally in a design agency just by listening to a previous student of LCA talk about his journey with the company.
Some key aspects of the talk can be related directly to the third studio brief we're working on at the moment - designing a website. For example, it is a lot easier to design a website once you already know the exact content, so you can design based on what is going to be included rather than coming up with a design first, and having to modify it because it's not suitable for the content. This way you ensure that the website is fulfilling its purpose effectively. The content is also highly influential on the choice of grid. What's the reason for visiting the site? If there are less links or interactive things to do on the website, then there is a wider space available for displaying content.
Another thing to consider is the structure of the page; what's the most important piece of content? Be it photos, headlines, key stories, or something else, the layout design needs to be devised with this in mind. If the website consists of primarily photos on the homepage, then a less complex grid may be used, keeping the photos larger and easier to view.
Mobile websites require modification to the original desktop design, as they often only feature one column so that the text is still readable but the user only needs to scroll down rather than horizontally and diagonally which could make it confusing. Because of this, the website design needs to be responsive, meaning that whichever device the website is viewed on, the structure responds to the frame size, reducing or rearranging components on screen to fit the portrait composition of the mobile rather than the horizontal screen on laptops and desktops.
Numiko talked through their design process when they solve a web design brief, and I noted that they always begin with the desktop design rather than mobile. Both are designed together, i.e. design main parts of desktop, main parts of mobile. More detail on the desktop design, and again with the mobile. This strategy prevents a complete redesign of the desktop when you realise the mobile version doesn't work.
One thing to bear in mind when designing digitally, especially websites, is that things get old really quickly, so design on the web is constantly changing. This might be something to consider when creating a design, as it may need to be adapted at a later stage.
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