When we look at something we try to determine what is important and needs our focus, figure, and what is not important and we can ignore, background. Another way to say this is foreground (figure) and background (ground). If you’ve done art you might have also heard of positive space (figure) and negative space (ground). … Continue reading Gestalt Principle: Figure / Ground
Category: Design
Gestalt Principle: Proximity
The basic way to use this principle is to pay attention to the spacing around your elements. If a few elements are all in a group and related to each other then the spacing between them should be less than the spacing between the group and the rest of the elements on the page. Here… Continue reading Gestalt Principle: Proximity
Gestalt Principles and Web Design
A big part of graphic design in general and the web design we do in this class is communicating a message to a particular group of people (audience). The Gestalt Principles were created to help explain how people make sense of what they see. They are particularly useful for web design where we’re using a… Continue reading Gestalt Principles and Web Design
Typography Basics
This post presents the basics of typography through a set of rules to follow. Like all rules they are made to be broken, but you should learn them first before you start breaking them. If you follow these rules your web typography won’t suck. It will most likely be pretty good. The simplicity of the… Continue reading Typography Basics
Typographic Hierarchy
Most of the web is text so much of what you have to design is text. A typographic hierarchy helps the user to quickly scan a page and find information. Also, done right, it will make the page more visually attractive. Typographic Hierarchy tells the reader two basic things: what text is more or less important, what kinds of… Continue reading Typographic Hierarchy
Responsive Images and Video
Images are by default inline elements that are a certain size and will take up that space on your web site. For responsive web design we need our images to be able to shrink in size if the container they are in is smaller than the image. For example: The following needs to be in… Continue reading Responsive Images and Video
CSS Grid
CSS Grid is relatively simple to get started but it is also deep with a lot to learn. This page has resources about CSS Grid for those just getting started to exploring more complex layouts. In class we looked at My Examples: https://profstein.github.io/css-grid-basic-examples/ Reference Guides and Cheatsheets These help show all of the grid properties,… Continue reading CSS Grid
Media Queries
In order to have a fully responsive web page you need three things: We have already covered Fluid Layout. When you use FR units (grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; ) you are creating a fluid layout. This post outlines the third item, Media Queries. Media Queries are CSS rules that allow you to apply CSS styles only… Continue reading Media Queries
Creating HTML from Wireframes
When making your web site you need to create HTML that matches your wireframe diagrams. Perhaps the biggest lesson here is to make sure to that you have set up Page Structure elements (see HTML 5 Periodic Table) to match the page areas that you have outlined in your wireframes. Remember that for both CSS… Continue reading Creating HTML from Wireframes
One-Line Layouts
10 modern layouts in 1 line of CSS by Una Kravets In this article and related resources Una shows how to create modern layouts with just a small amount of CSS. The layouts mostly use CSS Grid and Flexbox. Article (written and video): https://web.dev/one-line-layouts/ Editable Demo Examples on Glitch: https://1linelayouts.glitch.me/ GitHub Repository: https://github.com/una/1linelayouts YouTube Video… Continue reading One-Line Layouts
