Hacker News Reader

Comment by tiborsaas | Hacker News Reader

How I do it:

0) Start with the content. Always design around the content and the target audience in mind

1) Starting on pen and paper, I sketch 5-10 layouts in a short amount if time then I try to evaluate them based on gut feelings. This is also a good time to experiment with alternatives, new ideas. Google "webdesign patterns" if you need solutions for a given problem

2) Sketch a black and white HTML+CSS version then try to add the appropriate paddings and margins.

3) I look for inspirations in web design galleries, pinterest, dribble, whatever I can find.

4) Pick a good font for display + text, good typography is key

5) Try to make something that approaches the websites you like, grab a color palette from http://coolors.co, images from https://unsplash.com

6) Iterate

This list is incredibly leaky, but more or less this is the process if I have to design something from scratch.

View on HN

> Starting on pen and paper

This is really the secret. Pencil, pen, whiteboard, crayon, whatever. Anything that lets you rattle off half a dozen super low detail sketches in under a minute will work. It doesn't need to be pretty either. Just as long as it's enough to give you a feel for interacting with the page as a whole.

Once you have a good solid idea for how you ultimately want it to come together then you can move to a computer to drill down into the individual details, but for getting from zero to concept there's no substitute for analog tools.

This really sums up on how I design a website from scratch. I get more details when I get to do it by just sketching. Web design is also like an art, you have to draw it first. Plus, you get even more chance of artistic view out of it, in your own way. Then go out and browse some web inspiration about your decided niche this sure saves a lot of time.

Any recommendation of picking a good font for display? System fonts won't be sufficient you think? I guess there's not enough font-weights with system fonts

I highly recommend checking out this recent article from a list apart: https://alistapart.com/article/flexible-typesetting

As well as this continually-updated website: https://betterwebtype.com/web-typography-resources

Both give good high-level overviews of readability in digital typesetting and help with choosing the right fonts for the job

> System fonts won't be sufficient you think?

They are great and battle tested of course, but a good font is something that makes a good design stand out. I feel it's a 'hidden' component that many people can't articulate that they like it in a design. It totally depends on the project though :)

more on this: https://practicaltypography.com/system-fonts.html

The Typewolf blog is great:

https://www.typewolf.com/google-fonts

https://www.typewolf.com/blog/google-fonts-combinations

https://practicaltypography.com/font-recommendations.html

sans-serif, serif and monospace are great! The actual default fonts for the platform will be selected when you use these. And these are pretty good usually and will match the user's chioce and what the user is most accustomed to seeing, which helps readability.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com