Things that make up a good layout

Nobody is perfect when it comes to making layouts. Everyone has different skills and styles. These are my opinions on what it takes to make a good layout. :)

Background

Having a good background on a layout is really important. You can’t just pick a random colour. You background has to match and it has to look good with the layout. I strongly advice you to stay away from bright coloured backgrounds like neon. Neon = tragedy. People won’t even spend 1 minute on your site. Some other colours to stay away from are:

  • Yellow – Blinding much?
  • Pink – This is just wrong in so many ways
  • Orange – Seriously??
  • White – White isn’t too bad. It’s just plain and boring.
  • Green – No comment
  • Red – Tragedy

A good colour for a background can be:

  • Black – You can never go wrong with a dark layout
  • Grayish – Might look tacky but if you add some presets it will look good.
  • Bright Grey – It’s not white and it’s not plain.

Content

Having a text effect on some sort is great on a layout but sometimes it just needs that extra oomp. Some pizzas!. Something that makes the text really pop out.You can never go wrong with brushes. Be careful picking the right brush though. You cannot just use any brush. You need something that will go perfectly with layout.

If you choose not to use brushes, you can never go wrong with illustrations. You can make those anywhere. You can make them on PSP, Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator. They are all really amazing tools. You can also check some tutorials online if you need some help. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. :)

Headers Colour

Those are really important because your visitors have to read them. They are your titles. For h1 you cannot go too wrong with text-shadows. You can check owltastic for some good tutorials. That’s where I learned. You can also add some designs like border bottom or images. You can also use @font-face. With that you can use whatever font you want as long as it’s readable.

Fonts

Fonts are a big thing too. For my body font like blogs and sidebars, I use Tahoma. It’s readable and it’s perfect. Some layout fonts I would recommend are:

  • Georgia – A huge favourite of mine. Especially in italic form
  • Arial Rounded MT Bold - My newest favourite.
  • Calibri – Goes perfectly with text-shadow.

You do not always need to use fancy fonts. Normal fonts works just fine. You just need to learn how to use them in a way that will satisfy you.

Font Colours

The colours that I listed to not be used for backgrounds will make an amazing bold/italic font colour. Bold and Italic makes your site looks so colourful and pretty. It makes it pop out.

  • Yellow
  • Pink
  • Orange
  • White
  • Green
  • Red

Do pick a colour that fits your layout though. As for normal colour for your blogs, i usually go for a gray colour most of the time. I NEVER use black as a font colour. It’s never my thing at all.

Well that’s all I got for now. If you have questions or you need some things, do feel free to ask me.

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