I understand that not everybody understands design and how an amazing design should look and feel. I will try to be very polite and show you what bad design and what good design is. There are way to many people who call themselves ‘professional’ designers and business people believe them. The other problem I see with business & marketing people is that they are very romantic about their web presence and branding. I’m not a designer but we have amazing designers here at the agency that always teach me. You don’t need to be a designer to see if something is designed poorly or something is designed great.

I believe there are obvious visual and emotional indicators of good and bad design. Let’s start by comparing and contrasting the visual indicators first.

The Bad 

Here at IQDigital Agency we recognize bad design instantly when we can’t tell what the hell we’re looking at and can’t figure out where to go. When print or online media is jam-packed with information, images and icons, order and comprehension is severely challenged. Brand guru Marty Neumeier says, “A wealth of information leads to a poverty of attention.”

Look at this design:

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What is your opinion about this design?

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No emotion

Bad design feels like an episode of Whatever Film. Being forced to take in tons of conflicting content at once is jarring, confusing and repulsive. Having too many columns in your website will do this. Having too many colors, a ton of animated stuff, a ton of ads on the page will all do this. Having multiple areas of navigation will do this too. Doing all of these at once will make your visitors explode.

Clean Design 

We follow clean design without any questions. We move from point A to point B gracefully and find our way back just as quick. Clean design organizes information logically and gives each piece its own time and space for attention. Clean design often looks attractive and professional.

Clean design creates a sense of understanding, respect and trust. Banks understand this; that’s why they are clean, organized and the tellers are dressed for business. Much like looking for a good place for your money, you want information on your website to be obvious, organized and trustworthy.

So how do you make good design? I love Steve Jobs’ quote on this:

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels, it’s how it works”

Here’s one very simple and elegant design:

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Here’s another simple design:

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Please, please take a step back, be honest with yourself and have a look at your web presence. Think about what your clients and potential clients are thinking of you when they see your branding (offline & online).

Here’s a client that we worked on. This is his web presence before working with us:

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This is what we designed:

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If you are not getting new clients or people don’t buy from you, think about your branding, your marketing messages and your web presence. Don’t complain why people are not buying from you.