By Benn Rosales on November 13, 2009

What the font?!

Ever wonder why you’re more comfortable on one site more than others?  Ever wonder why it’s so much easier to read one site versus another?  Well, more than likely, it has a lot to do with how the ‘real estate’ on the website is used, namely the copy (copy is the text you’re reading right now).

Color, layout, and organization are all very important, and the freshness of the design overall is what lends credibility and timeliness to the web copy (what your website actually says).  We often take into account these design elements before we ever read the website, (even if the website professed to have the cure to cancer), but one of the things that lends to that credibility is the actual font used within the copy of the website- it all goes hand in hand. So, without further ado:

Top Five Real Estate Web Fonts

1.Verdana

2.Georgia

3.Arial

4.Tahoma

5.Times New Roman

Identify Your Own Font!

The easiest way to identify your website’s font is to use a browser plugin to analyze elements, however, if you’re using WordPress, there is another way! Simply navigate to your WordPress dashboard:

Appearance, Editor, and this should lead you to your style.CSS (stylesheet) that looks like this:

We’ve been trying to tell you!

We’ve been talking for years about how the aesthetics of your online marketing are important, just as you take time to design your flyers, yard signs and business cards, you should tend to the visual appeal of your web marketing and font choice is one of the most basic and high impact choices you have to make.

http://agentgenius.com/real-estate-sales-marketing/top-five-fonts-to-use-in-your-online-real-estate-marketing/

In giro per i vari siti possiamo trovare vari fantastiliardi di font, liberi, proprietari, gratuiti, a pagamento, belli, brutti. Una volta scelti quelli che ci piacciono di piu’ e scaricati, viene pero’ il momento di capire come fare per utilizzarli. Dobbiamo infatti far capire al sistema che abbiamo dei nuovi font e vogliamo poterli scegliere nell’elenco dei vari font che gia’ possediamo. Per farlo ci sono principalmente due metodi, vediamoli.

Premetto che non considerero’ i vari programmi e programmini che automatizzano il tutto, possiamo farne benissimo a meno. Vediamo come.

Andiamo a crearci una directory nascosta nella nostra home che conterra’ i nostri nuovi font:
$ cd /home/UTENTE && mkdir .fonts
e poi aggiorniamo la cache dei font:
$ fc-cache -f -v

L’altro metodo prevede l’utilizzo di un link simbolico:
$ ln -s /home/UTENTE/fonts /usr/share/fonts/
ipotizzando che i nostri nuovi file siano contenuti nella directory fonts nella nostra home, e poi aggiorniamo la cache dei font:
$ fc-cache -f -v

Esiste anche un terzo metodo, possiamo copiare direttamente i nuovi font nella directory /usr/share/fonts/truetype/.

[^] torna su | post<li> | 

This blog will likely involve a mixture of Left-Brain: Free Software talk, operating system stuff (mostly Unix and similar), and general geekery; and Right-Brain: Music, stories, novels, poetry, and above all, philosophy.  There might even be a bit (tiny, tiny bit!) of politics and religion.  So, if you’re one of those people who can’t stand others having different opinions than theirs when it comes to topics like those, you’d better clear out

The one big question is just whether it’ll actually get off the ground!  After all, I’m a notorious slacker

It may eventually be moved onto my own hosting, because while WordPress is the most configurable free blog host I’ve found, it’s still annoyingly restrictive unless you pay gobs of cash.  I mean, come on — I can’t even change the font of my posts without editing CSS, which costs $14.97 per year.  Oh, wait, they also point out (most helpfully) that it’s only $0.04 a day!  Oh, yeah!  Totally awesome, huh?  Maybe for all the consumer drones out there, but not me…  And then there’s the fact that they’re using the Georgia font for editing posts.  Arrgh!  I love Georgia, but it’s really just a header and fancy document font, not much more…  the way numbers line up drives me batty.  And the theme I chose is the only one I really like (dark, but still with contrast and some nice color) is very common, because they offer few good themes.

Well, I guess now we’ll see if WordPress supports freedom of press based on whether they take down my fledgling blog :p  If it gets any views at all, of course.  Which I doubt.

Off to read more Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei.  Heh…

© 2009 by jeroen peters

The creative team at StockLayouts posted new templates for a Holiday Toy Drive.

StockLayouts template designs, for creating print marketing materials are available for purchase and download online and are fully customizable in a choice of file formats including QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft Word and Apple iWork Pages. Created with high-quality output in mind, the template designs are easy to edit, and suitable for printing in-house on a color printer or on an offset press. The do-it-yourself marketing templates help users promote their business and look more professional with high-impact designs!

http://www.eduardorecife.com/

http://www.misprintedtype.com/

RADO prize 2009 for this promising marriage of art and science.
Read more: http://www.dezeen.com/2009/10/27/symbiosis-by-jelte-van-abbema/

]]> http://sixthroman.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/why-helvetica-is-a-great-font/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:34:18 +0000 sixthroman http://sixthroman.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/why-helvetica-is-a-great-font/

As a graphic designer, I have access to thousands of different typefaces. I will be honest and say at least 80% of them are atrocious and shouldn’t even exist. Not to mention, of those 80%, they can not or barely be used in any sort of professional design. One font that I have found to be incredibly powerful and very simple is Helvetica. Here are a few reasons why this font could very well be my #1 font:

((1)) Keep it Simple// One thing that I loved when I first started using Helvetica was how simple and clean it’s look was. There was nothing too fancy about it and it wasn’t over-designed. Simple. Clean. Perfect.

((2)) Impact// If used correctly, Helvetica can convey a powerful message. I just recently used all Helvetica to design a postcard for my university’s upcoming senior exhibit. Just normal Helvetica didn’t say it enough but when switched to Helvetica Bold, it really set the postcard on fire. My personal motto as a designer is KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

((3)) Customization// With Helvetica, just because of it’s simple and clean look doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. Play with the kerning and/or tracking and you can come up with some great designs with just the type; which if you have fun with that, do more research on typography. My personal favorite thing to do with Helvetica is adjust the kerning to where the letters are connected or barely touching. Doing that, you can even make some neat shapes. For one design I did for a friend, with the layout and kerning adjusted appropriately, the type formed a heart which fit well with the message I was conveying.

Now, these are just a few of the reasons why I like Helvetica. Is it overused in today’s age? Yes. Sometimes, it’s not used correctly and does make things look boring. In the hands of a skilled designer or typographer, it’s like wielding the mighty Excalibur. Now, if there is a more suitable typeface to use in whatever it is you’re designing, definitely use it. Helvetica is a great typeface but it can’t be used for everything. Is it the perfect typeface? At times, it seems like it but as much as I love the font, it’s not the perfect typeface however, I also believe there will be no such thing as a perfect typeface.

Helvetica does come beautifully close though.

HVD Rowdy – By Hannes von Döhren, Benni Busse, 2007

Download

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Caviar Dreams – von Nymphont

Download

200+ commercial fonts
.ttf, .otf, .fon | 84Mb
Download Links:
Download from RapidShare
Download from Depositfiles

ဒီနည္းေလးကေတာ့ Windows 7 မွာ ျမန္မာစာ ေကာင္းေကာင္းေပၚေအာင ္၊ ေရးနိုင္ေအာင္ လုပ္ေပးနိုင္တဲ့နည္းေလးပါခင္ဗ်ား။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ဟိုတခါ
တုန္းက ေရးထားတဲ့ Vista ပံုစံမ်ိဳးပါဘဲ။

ပထမဦးဆံုး ေဇာ္ဂ်ီ Font ကို မရွိေသးရင္ Download လိုက္ပါ။
ဘယ္ ေဇာ္ဂ်ီ Fontကိုမွာသြားျပီးမ Download ပါနဲ့ ေအာက္မွာ
ကၽြန္ေတာ္ေပးထားတဲ့ Link ကေနဘဲ Download လုိက္ပါ။

Download ေဇာ္ဂ်ီ Font

ေဇာ္ဂ်ီ Font ကို Download ျပီးရင္ Install လိုက္ပါ။ ျပီးရင္ Computer ကို Restart လိုက္ပါ။ ကဲ ေဇာ္ဂ်ီ ကို Install ျပီးသြားရင္ Desktop ေပၚတေနေနရာမွာ Right Click ႏွိပ္ျပီး Personalize ကိုသြားပါ။

ျပီးရင္ Pop Up Window တခုတက္လာပါ့မယ္ခင္ဗ်ား။ အဲ့ဒီ
Pop Up Window ရဲ့ ေအာက္နားေလးမွာ Window Color ဆိုတာ
ရွိပါတယ္။ အဲ့ဒီ Window Color ကိုႏွိပ္လိုက္ပါ။

ျပီးရင္ေနာက္ထက္ Pop Up Windows ထက္ေပၚလာပါ့မယ္
အဲ့ဒီ Pop Up Window မွာ Advanced Appearance Setting…
ဆိုတာရွိပါတယ္။ အဲ့ဒါကိုႏွိပ္လိုက္ပါ။

ဒီတခါၾကေတာ့ ေနာက္ထက္ အဲ့ဒီလိုမ်ိဳး Pop Up Window ထက္ျပီးတက္လာပါ့မယ္
အဲ့ဒီိမွာ Itme: နဲ့ Font ဆိုတဲ့ရွိပါတယ္ခင္ဗ်ား။ Item ထဲကဟာေတြကိုတခုခ်င္း
စီႏွိပ္ျပီး Font: မွာ Zawgyi-One သို့ေျပာင္းျပီး Save လိုက္ပါ။

ကဲကၽြန္ေတာ္စာနဲ့ရွင္းျပတာမရွင္းရင္ေအာက္မွာ Video နဲ့ရွင္းျပ
ထားပါတယ္ခင္ဗ်ား ေသေသခ်ာခ်ာၾကည့္လိုက္ပါ။

Download The Video
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Download The Video

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Q: What’s black, white and red all over?

A: A newspaper.

My dad told me this riddle when I was a little girl. It cracked me up. I appreciated the play on words and I am sure it went some way to starting the fire below my burning passion for typewriters, newspapers and, particularly, the beauty of fonts.

For a little while, I was the sub-editor for a local magazine in Brighton, here in the UK. It’s probably the happiest I have ever been at work.

I got to circle other people’s copy in red pen, I got to play with fonts and buy fonts and introduce other people to fonts… glorious! For a while, I couldn’t read any other magazines, though, as I saw with a creeping sickness the old familiar press releases used word-for-word in place of an actual interview, I saw glaring mistakes that should never have made it past the subs.

Horrid.

Took me years to get over.

I used to proudly reel off all the fonts used in any publication you cared to mention. I couldn’t do that now. I kind of miss being a font nerd!

In praise of font nerds and writers everywhere, then, a selection of goodies I heart:

Direct links to items shown, left-to-right:

1st Row: 1) Barrel of Monkeys, 2) Pop Goes the Print, 3) Tilly Bloom

2nd Row: 1) Whisker Graphics, 2) Plastique, 3) Citrus Tree

3rd Row: 1) Golden Prim Hollow, 2) Cosmo Fashion Slave, 3) Design Sugar

4th Row: 1) Heather Jeany, 2) Creations by Kara, 3) Nan Lawson

Until next time, dear hearts,

Miss Nightingale,

x

Finally, web designers not developing for Chrome, Opera, and other non-latest-Firefox-Safari-IE browsers can scratch their @font-face design itch by linking to a bunch of fonts in the cloud.

Typekit Launches its Cloud-Based Web Font Service

Typekit takes a cloud-based approach to fonts on the web, serving up an extensive library of designer fonts that be incorporated into a site simply by dropping in a line of code. We first wrote about it back in May when the project was first announced, and now the service is live.

What that means is web designers can get easy access to creative fonts without having to spend the time preparing images or Flash files to render them, ideally resulting in time and cost savings in the design stage. It should also provide a more lightweight experience for your web server, because it won’t have to serve up the comparatively heavyweight image or Flash files to render a variety of design-quality fonts.

Desde naran_ho design management nos gusta anunciar noticias y contenidos relacionadas al mundo del diseño, esta vez traemos del  mismo creador de Helvetica; el documental que explora la tipografía, el diseño gráfico y la cultura visual global, su nuevo trabajo llamado “Objectified” un nuevo trabajo que  genera una perspectiva, tal como el anterior, del diseño  industrial, a través de sus propios autores y productos.

Segun sus autores – “Es un largometraje documental sobre nuestra compleja relación con los objetos manufacturados y, por extensión, las personas que los diseñan. Es una mirada a la creatividad en el trabajo detrás de todo desde cepillos de dientes a los gadgets de alta tecnología. Se trata de los diseñadores que re - examinan, vuelven a evaluar y re-inventan nuestro entorno diariamente. Se trata de la expresión personal, la identidad, el consumismo, y la sostenibilidad.

A través de secuencias de vérité y en conversaciones a fondo, la película documenta  los procesos creativos de algunos de los productos más influyentes del mundo los diseñadores, y analiza cómo las cosas que hacen impactan en nuestras vidas. Qué
podemos aprender acerca de quienes somos y que queremos ser, de los objetos con que nos rodeamos?”.

Featuring:
Paola Antonelli (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Chris Bangle (BMW Group, Munich)
Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (Paris)
Andrew Blauvelt (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis)
Tim Brown (IDEO)
Anthony Dunne (London)
Dan Formosa (Smart Design)
Naoto Fukasawa (Tokyo)
Jonathan Ive (Apple, California)
Hella Jongerius (Rotterdam)
David Kelley (IDEO)
Bill Moggridge (IDEO)
Marc Newson (London/Paris)
Fiona Raby (London)
Dieter Rams (Kronberg, Germany)
Karim Rashid (New York)
Alice Rawsthorn (International Herald Tribune)
Davin Stowell (Smart Design)
Jane Fulton Suri (IDEO)
Rob Walker (New York Times Magazine)
,etc.

..have actually figured out what I want to do for a career.
After months and months of lurking ffffound.com, I think
I finally know what I want to specialise in (assuming that
I do get into) visual communications.
logotypography.

Logotypography has fascinated me for years.
When I first got to messing around with free
graphics design programs (read: low-end)
- my starting off points were free fonts and
dingbats, manipulating shape sets to create
pastiche, ‘new’ designs. I quickly realised the
futility of working in this manner, as I was
never truly creating. In Aristotle’s terms;
creating Eidos from Eidos, not Morphe.

There was nothing to be proud of from the shit
that I had created. I was wallowing,
so I decided to find a new way to create.
Since I lacked the skills to even create a visually
pleasing 180° line, I swore on my future children’s
lives, that I would become an image deconstructionalist.
I started pulling images from any where I could
find the appropriate part – Scanning, Sketching,
Tracing, Google Images, Anywhere.
After I had all of the parts required I could begin
assembling my original idea. This system has
continued to be put to use with any design work
I have completed since. It is the only
way I know so far.

Which brings me back to my original point of finally
knowing what I want to specialise in.
After discovering iconwerk.de tonight.
I am absolutely convinced that logotypography
is exactly what I want to do with myself.
Just watching this made it so much clearer.

I love the idea of taking a real world object and
stripping it back to its bare-minimum form,
creating an icon that is a minimalistic ideal
of said object. When it comes to design;
simplicity is my favourite thing (duh! Akzidenz!),
so I am quite inspired to a career, by that of
the iconwerk studio and after falling in love, at first
sight, with Akzidenz-Grotesk – I have decided to
apply for Visual Communications next year at
Newcastle Uni (with great enthusiasm from my
ex – Merran, who is just about to complete the same
course).

Feel free to link me up to any other
minimalist icon/typography inspiration
in the comments.

iconwerk.de

Very interesting An Interview with Erik Spiekermann over at fontfeed.com

Source:

Still speaking a-mile-a-minute and showing no signs of slowing down, > Erik Spiek ermann coyly calls himself an “old guy”. It’s true > that he’s been around for every incar nation of type — metal, > film, and digital — but he’s no fuddy-​duddy when it comes to > new technology and new methods. Spiek ermann embraced the fledgling > world of digital type early on when he founded FontShop 20 years > ago, and he’s just as forward-​thinking now about licensing type > in an era of Web-​embeddable fonts.

http://vimeo.com/7587791

More about Erik Spiekermann here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Spiekermann

Posted via email from Branch Design

Quan diem Montcada i Reixac, o passem per Montcada i Reixac, sabem molt bé on és Montcada, a la sortida nord de Barcelona. Just al costat del riu Besós, travessada per nombroses autopístes, vies fèrries, carreteres i plena de polígons industrials, pedreres i fàbriques. Una població aparentment sense gens d’atractiu. Però i Reixac?. On és Reixac?. Dons Reixac és la cara més amable del municipi. L’entorn rural. L’altra cara de la moneda. Reixac ofereix una possibilitat de sortida matinal, molt propera a Barcelona, senzilla i fàcil. Des de l’esglèsia de Sant Pere de Reixac, (a la foto) que una comunitat s’encarrega de mantenir, teniu una boníssima vista de tot el Vallès, Barcelona i bona part del país, fins Montserrat. Des de Sant Pere podeu fer una sèrie de petites rutes campestres dins el parc natural de la Serra de Marina. Arribareu fins un parell de fonts, primer la dels caçadors, en una mitja hora de bon camí, després la dels Avellaners. Camins fàcils, distàncies curtes, en mig d’un alzinar en plena recuperació i d’una roureda impressionant. Cal seguir un camí ben senyalitzat, a l’entrada de Reixac, tancat amb un cadenat.  També podeu fer un itinerari circular i arribar-vos fins el Torrent de Reixac, passant per la font dels caçadors, la pedrera abandonada i la font dels avellaners. Més llarg serà pujar, per un petit corriol i de valent, fins el turó de les Maleses, amb un poblat ibèric. Encara més dur arribar-se fins el Turó del Pi Candeler, el cim de tota la zona, i dominant ja tota la plana tant del Vallès com de Marina, abocats al mar, sobre Badalona. Però aquesta excursió ja no és per infants. A Sant Pere de Reixac hi arribareu per una pista, en bon estat, que surt del km. 7 de la carretera que uneix Montcada amb Badalona, girant a mà esquerra si pugeu cap a Badalona. Passeu a tocar del restaurant can Piqué, que és l’adreça que cal seguir, sense por i fins la cuina, ja que la pista rodeja completament Can Piqué. O bé desde el Km. 8,9 de la carretera que va de Santa Coloma de Gramanet  a sant Fost de capcentelles i La Roca, seguint el marge del riu Besós. Totes dues opcions ben senyalitzades i per pistes ben conservades aptes per tota mena de vehicles. No us caldrà dinar però hi ha bons restaurants a la zona: Can Piqué, especialitzat en convits i dinars d’empresa, Cal Artillé, bona carn a la brasa, Can Toy, cassolà, Can Devesa, també per noces i convits,… tots a la carretera entre Montcada i Badalona, per la Vallensana. Uns són més estirats, altres més de petacada. Trieu.

Cuando hablamos de Montcada i Reixac, o pasamos por Montcada i Reixac, sabemos muy bien dónde está Montcada, a la salida norte de Barcelona. Justo al lado del río Besós, atravesada por numerosas autopistas, vías férreas, carreteras y llena de polígonos industriales, canteras y fábricas. Una población aparentemente sin nada de atractivo. Pero, ¿y Reixac?. ¿Dónde está Reixac?. Pues Reixac es la cara más amable del municipio. El entorno rural. La otra cara de la moneda. Reixac ofrece una posibilidad de una buena salida matinal, muy cercana a Barcelona, sencilla y fácil. Desde la iglesia de Sant Pere de Reixac, (en la foto) que una comunidad se encarga de mantener, tienen una buenísima vista de todo el Vallès, Barcelona y buena parte del país, hasta Montserrat. Desde allí se pueden hacer una serie de pequeñas rutas campestres dentro del parque natural de la Sierra de Marina. Llegareis hasta un par de fuentes, primero la de los cazadores, en una media hora de buen camino, después la de Avellaners. Caminos fáciles, distancias cortas, en medio de un encinar en plena recuperación y de un robledal impresionante. Hay que seguir un camino bien señalizado, a la entrada de Reixac, cerrado con un candado. También podeis hacer un itinerario circular y acercaros hasta el Torrent de Reixac, pasando por la fuente de los cazadores, la cantera abandonada y la fuente de los avellanos. Más largo será subir, por un pequeño sendero y duramente, hasta el cerro de las Maleses, con un poblado ibérico  en su cima. Aún más duro será llegar hasta el Cerro del Pino Candelero, la cima de toda la zona, y dominando ya toda la llanura tanto del Vallès como la de Marina, vista al mar, hacia Badalona. Pero esta excursión ya no es para niños. Hasta Sant Pere de Reixac se llega por una pista, en buen estado, que sale del km. 7 de la carretera que une Montcada con Badalona, girando a mano izquierda si estais subiendo hacia Badalona. Pasareis junto al restaurante Can Piqué, que es la dirección a seguir, sin miedo y hasta la cocina, ya que la pista rodea completamente Can Piqué. O bien desde el Km.. 8,9 de la carretera que va de Santa Coloma de Gramanet a San Fost de Capcentelles y La Roca, siguiendo el margen del río Besós. Ambas opciones bien señalizadas y se va por pistas bien conservadas, aptas para todo tipo de vehículos. No necesitareis comer, pero hay buenos restaurantes en la zona: Can Piqué, especializado en bodas y comidas de empresa, Cal Artillé, con buena carne a la brasa, Can Toy, casero, Can Devesa, también para bodas y banquetes, .. . todos en la carretera entre Montcada y Badalona, por la Vallensana. Unos son más estirados, otros más del montón. Elijan Vds.

Hola, para los que utilizan este programa de intercambio de archivos, ahora llego a su versión “Ares 2.1.2“ , esta nueva actualización tiene algunas correcciones importantes dentro de las que destacan “Se conecta mas rápido” sin errores y mas seguro que las versiones anteriores. Además se ha mejorado la compatibilidad con Windows 7 y se han solucionado algunos problemas con la compatibilidad de archivos para “BitTorrent”, la última actualización fue hace diez días.

Compatible con Windows 98/XP/Windows 7

Aquí les dejo el enlace a su web oficial…

Hola, hace tiempo publique una lista de herramientas para todos aquellos que se dedican al “Diseño Grafico”, en la misma lista no especifique de que se trataban estas herramientas, en verdad son muy útiles y facilitan el trabajo para todos. Ahora lo que quiero hacer es ir explicando una por una, su uso y para que sirven dichas herramientas.

Quiero comenzar por el sitio web de “WhatTheFont”, este sitio es muy útil porque nos ofrece la posibilidad de decirnos que fuente es por medio de una imagen. Como ustedes saben, y mas los que se dedican al “Diseño” hay veces que los clientes envían sus archivos y no tenemos ni idea de la fuente que tienen sus diseños, pero gracias a este servicio que es gratuito, nos da la posibilidad de ofrecernos varios resultados muy exactos informándonos sobre la fuente que queremos saber su nombre o familia. Es muy sencillo el proceso solo debemos entrar al sitio y subir la imagen donde dice “Upload” y en ese momento comienza el análisis para que nos muestre los resultados que por cierto son muy acertados.

En la web tienen un foro de ayuda donde nos ofrecen consejos para un mejor resultado y aquí se los quiero mostrar para cuando quieran subir su imagen y que les muestre el resultado de la misma con buenos resultados.

Estos son los consejos principales:

1.-Intentar que el texto esté lo mas horizontal posible

2.-Las letras deben de tener 100 píxeles de alto

3.-Es recomendable que las letras no se toquen entre si

4.-El Mejor formato una extensión TIFF en escala de grises a 300 dpi.

Bueno, ahora solo basta que ustedes mismos prueben el servicio y si tienen alguna duda, no dejen de comunicarse conmigo y yo haré lo posible para ayudarlos. Como consejo les quiero decir que funciona muy bien cuando la imagen es nítida y está invertida con fondo negro y la letra blanca.

Aquí les dejo el enlace que por cierto ya cambio de diseño…

Enlace: WahtTheFont

The latest installment in my timewasters series is, conveniently, yet another font game. Cheese or Font asks players, “Is it a cheese? Is it a font? You decide.” Who knew there were so many different varieties of cheeses?  You can play the game here, or alternatively, you can follow their Twitter here. (Exactly why they have one, I’m not exactly sure. But apparently 241 people in the world do!)

What is most important to you when viewing a website?  Is it the design (i.e. pictures, fonts, layout, etc.), or is it the information found on the site?  Is functionality and ease of navigation important to you? 

To have a successful and effective, repeat-visited website, all of these elements must be taken into consideration.  I’m not a motorcycle enthusiast, but one of my favorite websites to look at is Harley-Davidson.  Their site has everything a web surfer is looking for.  First, let’s take a look at their design. 

The design is what captures the attention of the site visitor first.  One picture will “speak” to a viewer in less than a second.  When you visit Harley-Davidson’s site, what’s the first thing you see?  A motorcycle . . . of course.  The graphics of a site can be inviting or distracting.  They can either draw the visitor in encouraging them to look deeper into the site, or it can cause the viewer to go elsewhere. HD has done a wonderful job using pictures to capture the audiences’ attention and encourage them to look further into the site. 

The design elements must also have flow, or visual easiness.  If a site has flow, the viewer will feel comfortable while looking at it.  Harley-Davidson uses the curvature of the motorcycles in their design to make the site flow and visually appealing. 

Other elements important to the design of the website is color, type and font.  The color and font must correspond with the company.  Harley-Davidson uses a lot of black and dark colors in the background of their site.  In the screenshot above, the bright red of the motorcycle is the first thing to catch your attention. The white and blue of the sky behind the motorcycle gives the viewer the feeling of riding on the open road.  The use of bold, uppercase letters makes the question, “WHY HARLEY?” stand out.  The type of font used adds to the flow of the entire graphic.

Finally, in regards to design, there’s a little more than just the look of the site, but the feel.  The design must evoke an emotion; it must deliver a message in a way that words can’t accomplish.  An effectively designed website stirs the soul of a person.  It tells you what the company is about, what their mission is.

Harley-Davidson is more than a motorcycle manufacturer. They do more than just sell motorcycles.  They instill attitude, confidence, and the sense of freedom.  They accomplish this through their website, cleverly crafted and designed to interact with the consumer, start them on an adventure and live a dream.

I will revisit the Harley-Davidson site for the next few posts to show you how HD has utilized several effective website tactics and strategies.  Design is only the first of many steps.