An effective and visually appealing web design can work wonders to lift the performance of a small business business. When it comes to a good web design, good texture has its own importance. In fact, it has now become an integral to the design. More than just being a trend, effective texture now plays an important role in adding depth to a website. By creating a quality texture for a website, one can easily enhance the visual appeal of a site.
More often than not, it is observed that many people overuse or misuse texture that results in a poorly designed site. But if used in a proper manner, texture can help bring a site together. Here, it is also important to note that textures and patters are two different things. But unfortunately these two terms are used synonymously thus creating a confusion. Patterns are small, tile like and repeating elements. On the other hand, textures are comparatively much larger and do not get repeated.
Let us first talk about the functions of textures. Textures are admired by many for a number of reasons. When it comes to deciding the design, the decision should not solely be based on what appears good to the eye. Rather, design should be such that it helps in serving the purpose for which the website has been created. Therefore, while deciding on textures, one should weigh the pros and cons well. Some of the great benefits of textures are :-
They help in grabbing attention
You would be surprised to know that textures can actually help in highlighting various elements like headings, icons, titles, buttons etc. they draw the visitor’s attention and call to action. In fact, this is the main reason that can be attributed to the growing trend of textures.
By using textures minimally, you can separate the content from the rest of the site. It helps in guiding the visitor to the intended element. Hence, by making effective use of textures, you can easily separate the main brand elements. Textures also help you to grab visitors’ attention in different ways. For instance, a textured logo against a clear background or a clean logo against a textured background work really well.
They improvise and enhance the information architecture
Another important function of texture is that they help in guiding the eye. Textures, like boxes, lines, contrasts can be used to separate the content. It helps in dividing the content into a logical manner. It should be used effectively along with other information architecture methods. By ensuring the right method and technique, it is possible to texture every element for a specific purpose. Right texture enhances the information architecture as it creates logical content areas. This proves very useful for users as it helps them to process the information accurately.
They provide the right atmosphere and boost the identity
In today’s time, everyone wants a web design that displays the content in a simple and user friendly manner. People want such websites that enhance the business’ identity and thereby help users to identify with the brand. And this is exactly what texture helps in achieving. By choosing the right texture technique, it is possible to add that extra zing and USP factor to your website that helps in establishing the brand image.
While working with textures, it is important to ensure that you do not go overboard. It is important to avoid common mistakes and use right techniques to achieve good results. Mentioned below are some of the important tips that should be kept in mind while working with textures.
• It is important to maintain legibility. Legibility is of paramount importance and should not be neglected at any cost while working with textures. There is no point in texturing the site in manner that makes it difficult for users to read the content.
• Texture should not be used in bulk as it can prove to be very distracting resulting in annoyed visitors leaving your website.
• You should experiment with the design and should not hesitate from trying new things. You can try placing texture in place where normally it is not placed. It is only after you try new things that you will find out some better and useful options.
• Whatever does not serve any purpose should be removed from the design. Ensure that your texture is well supported by a good plan. There should be good reason behind everything that you use in your design. Whatever is useless should be removed. Also, ensure that you do not over do the texture. The main purpose of a design is to convey the relevant information. And by overdoing the texture, you will only end up making the content unreadable thereby defeating the purpose of the web design.
• If you are trying to achieve any particular effect, make sure you work hard and in a right manner. This ensures good results. If you are aiming for a subtle background, then you should just do it and move on to the next thing on your list.
• Time matters. Therefore, if you want to save your precious time, then it is best to collect resources. It will save the effort of searching later on. Simply download and archive useful resources. Make sure that all your files are well organized and that you have a good back-up plan in place.
• You should also learn masks. Learning to work with masks will help you to save a lot of time. It also serves as a great tool. The best thing about learning masks is that you can experiment with your design without having the fear of it turning destructive. There are various tutorials available online.
• Quality should not be sacrificed for the sake of loading time. There are various ways of using textures without increasing the loading time. However, the quality of the texture should not be sacrificed. If you do that, your website will end up looking as outdated instead of professional and visually appealing. In order to save the loading times of backgrounds and other large elements, you can use repeating patterns.
Another important thing to be kept in mind is that, textures should be used within limit. By using too much texture, you will increase the loading time to a great degree. To ensure that you get a proper file size, you can use repeating textures. Textures should be chosen logically.
Legibility matters a lot. Therefore, you should select such textures that are logical in relation to your design. Remember that the basic purpose of using textures is to build the identity and not to confuse the visitors. Therefore, usability should be given priority while working on textures of design.
By keeping all these points in mind, you can easily create a good texture for your web design. Try to do something different as unique textures can give a good boost to your style. And if you are looking for some inspiration in order to come up with good textures, then there is no dearth of inspirational sources. Just look around yourself and observe things like buildings, trees etc in the surrounding. You will definitely get a good idea or two.