After creating a style tile for Chef Jaqueline’s webpage, I designed two possible versions of a webpage:
The things I liked about the first one are:
- It’s very colorful and playful
- The thick outlines on the red writing resemble a buttercream frosting (my goal was to make myself feel hungry when looking at this)
- The photos at the bottom are a nice showcase of different decorating styles
- It has a lot of texture
The reasons I decided to change it:
- The overlapping elements would be difficult to program in Bootstrap, and it’s not a technique I’m familiar with using
- It might or might not translate well from something reactive and scalable
- Because it’s not necessarily designed for scaling– just for desktops– it feels a bit “Y2K” or pre-smartphone. I like that style for nostalgic reasons (I first got online in 1996), but I don’t like the idea of a business that’s currently growing looking too dated. I think the reason why I tend to do it sometimes is just because I prefer to use a computer rather than a phone myself. I have some eye sensitivity issues, which is also why I tend to use off-white colors in my designs instead of bright whites. Off-whites tend to look a bit like the Flux filter, which cuts down on unnatural blue light tones at night. However, the vast majority of people use smart phones, and it’s even arguable that phones are more commonly used than computers are now! In fact, the internet shifted from being a niche social space for people with specific hobbies and interests before 2007 to being more for everyone after the late 2000s.
The second design:
This version of the mockup retained the things I liked the most about the first mockup:
- It has the same color scheme, which reminds me of Neapolitan ice cream or marble cake. It automatically creates an association with sweet flavors. It has a balance of neutrals and brights that I like, it goes with the photos in Chef Jaqueline’s portfolio, and it has that easy-on-the-eyes cream background that I like.
- It has the same fonts, which I like because they’re both playful and upscale. The one I used for headlines is called “Ganache,” which is perfect for the dessert theme! There’s a little bit of a funky retro touch, but Montserrat font ties everything together and looks modern and sleek.
Things I like about this one more than the original:
- It feels more sleek, modern and easy to navigate
- It feels cleaner and more organized
- It’ll be easier to program!
- I can already picture how this one can scale nicely to look good on all screen sizes
- The photos feel like they serve more of a purpose instead of just being there because they “look cool”
Revisions are a really important part of the creative process, because even if something looks good on the first try, there might be another way to do it that’s even better!