Wireframes for Websites

Posted: Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Once your web design firm completes the information architecture step in the creative design process, you may move on to the next key step: developing wireframes.  A wireframe is helpful is defining what types of technology will be used and which messaging with be displayed on what pages. Although the wireframe doesn’t show creative, colors or and imagery or graphics, it does depict and lay out where content and photographs will be.

 

This step in the process is sometimes called the skeleton. Since there isn’t any colors or images displayed in this step of the web design, the creative design process is still taken place. The wireframes outline content placement areas and core features of the website, such as the masthead, core messaging, content, footer, call-to-actions, side bars utility links, information above and below the fold and more.

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A Minimalist Approach to Designing Websites

Posted: Sunday, April 17th, 2011 by | Filed under: , , ,

At Premiere Creative, we work with our clients to design and build websites that reflect the real-world needs of both our clients and the visitors to the sites. As such, there are conventions that we know work so we continue to use them in our web design. Having a logo at the top center or top left of the page, horizontal main navigation, left-side sub-navigation on interior pages, search near the upper right corner, main contact information at the top of the page, utility links in the footer, a text line length of 50 to 80 characters, and prominent social media sharing links are all important website design features and should be used in the creation of your website.

Once the important features are secured in the web design, we may propose alternatives, often our clients choose large images on their home pages that give visitors an initial impression for their business. Further, clients often choose a sequence of images so that visitors can see various aspects of their businesses. If the client needs to sell products, we will feature those as well on the homepage and also offer promotions if available.

Our websites are designed with best practice for search engine optimization (SEO) and user interface (UI). What this means is that we use a standard page width that can be viewed on the minimum common monitor size (17 inch). In adhering to this format, over 95% of the visitors to our sites are able to view primary information and navigation (everything above “the fold”), without having to scroll. At Premiere, we design all the pages within your website with SEO in mind from the start. We continue to build those pages with read content so that people looking for our clients’ services can search for and find what we’ve created. Read more …