Becoming the web design Joneses.

Stuart Horton-Stephens | 15/11/2010

So you’ve met with the client, discussed all possibilities of what their website can do, what they want it to do and why their online audience would want that. During this discussion you may have brought up a few sample sites, more often their competitors, plus the obligatory ‘must haves’ such as the apple website and nike.com.

But the client did emphasis the need to STAND OUT. And lets face it, every other newly produced website is currently looking like the apple site (large crisp imagery as hero shot, three or four boxed content areas underneath, main navigation up top next to top right search function etc etc etc etc etc), plus they want it to use nike’s technology...but can’t afford it.

So what can you do? You feel so constrained now by all the websites looking ‘fresh and new’ with their shiny buttons and drop shadows and jQuery carousels that it feels like there isn’t a way out. Get a grip! You spent years at design school / web dev 101 / virtual street smarts class. And during that time you were given free reign to unleash your creativity only because the general public wouldn’t be seeing it. So you went wild, blasting your screen with hellish designs and ideas...and they were good!

So, why not try that again? Obviously you need to bring that leash in quite a bit so that it meets most expectations of online usability and accessibility, but you still have the ‘freedom’ to try something new. Great ideas have to start somewhere, so there isn’t always a need to rely on what others are doing in the marketplace.

Have a look at some of these samples i found recently. Thinking outside of that template box.

http://www.tearoundapp.com/