From now on we shall presume that you simply are using WordPress. If this is often not the case, most of the subsequent advice will apply, but some specifics and details could also be different. Now that you simply have your URL and you’ve installed WordPress, you’re able to start creating. the primary thing to do? believe the planning you would like to use! But that doesn’t mean your web design. This won’t come until later. Instead, you’re getting to specialize in your logo first. Why? Because your logo may be a crucial part of your branding and likelihood is that that you’re getting to want to use an internet design heavily inspired by your logo. Your web design will probably use colors from your logo, it'll probably use certain visual cues, which can help create a uniform design language for your entire site. It’s an excellent start line and it'll make arising together with your design that much easier.
Creating a Logo
So how does one come up together with your logo? the primary stage is to acknowledge what makes an honest logo. Critical criteria here then are:
• Versatility
• Simplicity
• Originality
• Suitability
It must be versatile and straightforward because you’re getting to be using this in various different places throughout your online presence. Your logo will go right at the highest of your website but it’s also getting to go front and center on your Facebook page, it'll be right up top on your Twitter page. And if you build an app then it'll be there too. We’ll see later how important it's to possess a robust presence on social media: and having an excellent logo will really make an enormous difference thereto and can help to make brand visibility and loyalty.
In terms of originality, you would like to avoid obvious clichés that are present in too many logos. Ticks, globes, and lightbulbs are done to death and intrinsically, you ought to really avoid these unless you would like your website to seem sort of a massive cliché.
That said though, don’t choose something so creative that it doesn’t communicate your message within the least. Your logo should entirely on its own tell visitors what your site is about and what kind of site they’re on. this might tell you whether the brand should be fun, whether it should be professional and whether it should be colorful.
The Method
A great process to travel through when creating your logo is to form a mood board. this is often essentially a collage where you'll place everything that you simply simply can consider that you simply like, that relates to your business and niche which you'd possibly consider emulating. These are going to be other logos, they're often photos of color palettes or they're often random sketches you’ve made. Create a huge enough collection and eventually, you need to find that some themes and patterns begin to emerge. during this manner you'll then start sketching some ideas, combining elements, and trying out different approaches. Some you'll like and a couple of you’ll throw out. This spit-balling process though will help to steer you in the right direction.
Likewise, it can help to look at the name of your website and brand and to undertake to figure thereupon. Are there any letters that might be morphed into one of your related items? What should the font look like?
For text, it’s important to use an interesting font that appears professional. Ideally, you’ll also want to use a font that's unique to you. an honest solution here then is to download a custom font from FontSquirrel.com (a great repository of free TTF and OTF files) then to trace over your name, making edits as you're doing to make it originally. This way, your font goes to be unique but at the same time, it'll be supported by something that appears professional.
Finally, take whatever you've designed then simplify it and scale it back. Remove anything superfluous and thus the more you cut away, the upper and more impactful it'll be.
Note that when you create your logo, you need to do so using vector software. This includes the likes of Adobe Illustrator. As opposed to raster software, vector software does not produce images in the PNG or JPG format. While the latter creates a ‘map’ of where all the pixels are becoming to travel, the previous allows you to define the angle, length, and direction of the lines that make the image. this means that vector images are often drawn at any size with no loss in quality which you'll easily make edits to the image once you bought to use the brand during a replacement context. the only choice if you'll afford it, is to use Adobe Illustrator. this might produce an AI file and you will then use that to make new PNGs as they’re needed.
Selecting Your Theme
Now you've got your logo, you ought to have some ideas for your color palette and you ought to be able to start brooding about the artistic direction of your website.
At now, with WordPress installed, you ought to have already got a rather attractive-looking website that utilizes WordPress’s default theme for the year. the present ‘Twenty Fifteen’ theme looks very sleek and modern with light colors and a really ‘picture heavy’ layout.
You'll swap the title for your new logo and directly you’ll see that it's out of place. It’s also important to use a topic as otherwise, your site won’t look very professional – it'll look as if you didn’t skill to make a topic of your own then opted to travel with what was available by default.
Adding a topic means applying a replacement layout and appearance that has been predefined for you. this will then instantly change the visual impact your website makes, also because of the way your visitors will navigate around it.
You can find themes to put in for free of charge throughout WordPress and may preview them through the instrument panel before selecting which one you would like. the matter with free themes though is that they have a tendency to be less professional looking than paid themes and that they tend to possess fewer options. At an equivalent time, there’s always the danger with a free theme that somebody else will have chosen precisely the same theme of you. A diluted brand identity isn't exactly professional.
Instead, then, it'd be better to seem for paid WordPress themes. this will again be done through your WordPress instrument panel, it is often done by depending on other sites like Theme Forest, or it is often done by hiring a team of designers to make a custom theme on your behalf. in fact that latter option is that the best thanks to getting a topic that's perfectly matched to your branding and your requirements.
When choosing a topic, attempt to keep a couple of things in mind. For starters, you would like to select a topic that will be suited to the sort of website you’re getting to create. Some themes are very image-heavy as an example and can feature sliders on the front page also as many large crisp images linking to every one of the posts you upload. this is often an excellent thanks to making your blog look more modern and more visually compelling but at an equivalent time, it’s also important that you simply consider the work that goes into this and therefore the requirements. Does your content lend itself to being image-heavy? Will you've got the means and resources to accumulate many large graphics that you simply have the right to use legally? does one want to spend time reshaping the content?
Certain themes also will be suited to sites with many contents and can have large menus for locating your way around. Other themes on the other hand are going to be better suited to sites that are made from one or a couple of static pages.
You should also search for some specific requirements for your theme, regardless of what sort of blog you’re looking to make. confirm that:
• The theme is responsive, meaning it's good on any sized display
• The theme is optimized for mobile in other ways – as an example, the buttons should be large enough to be pressed with a finger rather than a mouse click
• The theme is quick to load in order that people don’t get bored and leave then that Google doesn’t penalize you
• The theme looks good and professional and is straightforward to navigate.
You’re torn between themes, try taking a glance at a number of the blogs that you simply enjoy and admire. What layouts do they feature? what's good or bad about that? Again – if they’ve shown that that sort of layout can work, it basically verifies the strategy and ensures you won’t be wasting some time working with a doomed web design.
Customizing Your Theme
WordPress is very customizable and this is often another one among its huge advantages. We’ve already picked an internet site theme but now we will go one step further by tweaking that theme to be just the way we would like it.
WordPress allows you to try to do this by default under the ‘Appearance’ tab where you'll change things like your header and footer, your logo, your background, the color scheme, etc. Most themes though also will accompany their own options panel where you'll make additional tweaks and customizations.
One thing you ought to do directly is to match elements of your website to your logo’s precise code. this may create a robust sense of consistency throughout your web design and can make sure that everything matches neatly. It’s not enough to feature ‘almost the same’ blue – it must be 100% identical blue.
Color palette
an equivalent time, believe the opposite colors on your website. a method to try to do this is often by applying a touch ‘color theory’. the color theory basically tells us which colors should look good together and which shouldn’t on a color circle.
When using this approach you've got a variety of options. In color theory, complementary colors are those opposite one another on a color circle. If three colors are spaced evenly apart, like purple and green, this mix looks good, too. A second option would be to settle on 'analogous' colors, meaning that when watching the chart, they're next to every other.
Finally, you'll also pick ‘natural’ color schemes. the colors you decide on for these palettes come from nature photos: watching photos of natural scenery and noticing the colors that are prominent there. As you are doing all this, make certain to stay practical in mind.
It doesn't suggest that a color scheme is acceptable for an internet site simply because it's good. Ask: is it easy to read? To get help with finding your colors, try getting to Pinterest and look for a “color palette”. You’ll find images of colors you'll combine.
Another consideration is your choice of fonts. this is often a comparatively small detail within the wider context of your web design but it’s actually small details like this that make an internet design look professional and provides it that ‘sheen’.
Don’t just work with the fonts that came together with your theme then: believe in adding new typefaces which will be easy to read on a variety of devices that will complement the tone and topic of your blog.
For instance, a ‘serif’ font may be a font with tiny feet at the ends. More often we use ‘sans-serif’ (no feet) fonts online because it’s generally easier to read and it's very crisp, minimal, and modern. But if your blog goes to be reporting news, or if it’s literary in nature then you would possibly want to think about employing a serif font. Why? Because serif fonts are traditionally utilized in print mediums and intrinsically they need to become related to that sort of niche.
Combining fonts also can be wont to good effect. For your headings and titles as an example, you would possibly prefer to pick something bolder and bigger without fear of the maximum amount about legibility.
Choosing a Background
Adding a custom background also can do tons to customize the design of your theme and this is often something you'll update yourself relatively easily. Again, pick something that's on-point as far as your niche goes and which can increase the design and feel of the location.
Adding Widgets
Another thanks to customizing your WordPress theme is by adding widgets to the sidebars. Widgets are small forms, sidebars, and other elements which will provide all types of functions on your site. as an example, many ‘opt-in’ forms for mailing lists will take the shape of widgets, as will many advertising slots, feeds from social media, etc. Using widgets may be a good way to offer your site more features and you'll add additional widgets by installing them as plugins.
Just attend Plugins – then add new plugins to seek out widgets and ‘behind the scenes’ tools which will enhance your site’s performance altogether manner of the way.
Outsourcing
If all this is often sounding rather complicated then there's a neater way – which is to undertake to find a corporation you'll outsource the work to. an excellent thanks to doing that is to go to a freelancing site where freelancers can post their CVs and you'll post your job offers.
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