Every client I meet with is given a questionnaire beforehand which includes links to galleries like Best Web Gallery or Web Creme (or my own Yahoo Pipes gallery mashup feed) to get them started. During the meeting, we discuss their preferences and analyze their favorite designs on a large screen projector.
For what it’s worth, just because the client likes a design doesn’t mean I agree that it’s the best thing for his audience. Part of the kickoff meeting is to negotiate what’s appropriate for the project.
What was interesting in 2008 was watching clients gravitate to the same designs over and over, even though they had hundreds to choose from. The following were most commonly cited as designs that clients wanted to model themselves after:
Trale
A lot of clients were drawn to Trale’s big, splashy masthead photo. Nearly every client asks for something “clean”, but many appreciated how Trale’s body content managed to be clean and legible yet still overlapping and loose.
A few times, the browns and greens and slab-serifs were favorably compared to the Starbucks identity, the key words being “natural” and “organic”, which definitely reflected a larger trend….
Green Street
Plank
Parc Rittenhouse
Notice the leafy logos in all 3 examples. Obviously the spike in green marketing and branding has a lot of companies reconsidering their identity. From WIPO Magazine:
As consumers rally to the climate change challenge, companies have rapidly learned that being green – and being seen to be green – makes good business sense…Certification marks, labels and logos are increasingly being used by brand owners to signal their green credentials and so boost their market share.
Even clients with no environmental aspirations asked for a softer, more approachable look for their own business after seeing some of these examples. I’ll probably get tired of this design style eventually, but I have to agree that organic-and-friendly trumps cold-and-calculated almost every time from a user’s perspective, even if the “eco/green” implications are not 100% authentic.
The Lippincott
Clients commented a lot on the color and and typography of the Lippincott site, which is what I consider a more “immersive” design: instead of a cold grid of rectangles, the page is stuffed with overlapping design elements that actually capture the sights and smells of the subject matter, which is a recently restored, eco-friendly piece of late-1800s architecture. Viewing the site, you feel like you’re actually there in the neighborhood in Wilmington. That’s a pretty good sign the design is a success. Here again, the “green” angle inspires some great design touches.
Tennessee Vacation
This site has been featured everywhere and not surprisingly gets mentioned on many client questionnaires. It’s another immersive design that looks so much like its subject matter, Tennessee: rivers, mountains, hikes, leather textures, early rock and roll. The homepage feels like a big messy collage, yet is still beautiful and organized.
Traffik
Clients whose main goal was showcasing a specific product or service gravitated to sites like Traffik (also GoodBarry and Campaign Monitor) which uses bold, clear language and screenshots to quickly sell its message. The cool highway photo and the transparent overlay also got attention, but almost no clients requested reversed text (light on dark) and we never make it a point to recommend it, unless body text is minimal.
Judicial Services Record
Not surprisingly, the Judicial Services site was favored by more traditional clients who wanted a strong, sober, masculine design. Across the board, clients I’ve dealt with have panned stock photography, yet no one commented on these photos which suggests they were composed well and didn’t stand out as being too phony (the photos, not the clients).
Dara’s Garden
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Dara’s Garden site appealed to clients with more feminine taste in design. These clients represented organizations like bed-and-breakfasts, churches and arts groups. The scattered, ornate background was also part of a bigger design trend that most likely started with Web Designer Wall and spawned hundreds of imitators in 2008.
Any Site with a Slideshow
Now that alpha-transition slideshows are commonly built with javascript, not Flash, they’re suddenly everywhere. Depending on the subject matter, slideshows can be a really great way to quickly showcase what a website is all about, without relying on paragraphs of copy that no one reads. Even clients who ordinarily shy away from animation loved the effect in 2008 and asked for it specifically.
Some of the slideshow solutions we recommended:
- Simple Controls Gallery
- Google Ajax Slideshow
- s3 Slider
- e2 Interactive Gallery
- NexGen Gallery
- Smooth Gallery
It’ll be interesting to do a similar post in early-2010 to see how much client tastes are influenced by a) by what designers recommend, or b) by what design investigation they do on their own. In 5 years, I think clients will be much more intimately familiar with the web and more equipped to judge good design from bad design. That doesn’t mean all projects will be smoother. A savvy client with a strong vision is often a blessing, but sometimes a nightmare. Sometimes they trust the designer they hire, sometimes they don’t.
On a positive note, very few clients still support the myth of the fold, so there’s progress!
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9:17 pm
Trale has long been at the top of my favorite designs list. I’ve always been drawn to its typography. There’s just something about it that makes me want to read the site even though I’m not in the least bit interested in its content.
2:16 am
The combination of Clarendon and Garamond Italic (?) on Trale’s site is tough to dislike. It’s like blue + beige: seems like almost no client or user objects to that color combination, when all else fails.
9:23 pm
man, what a unique look at 2008’s trends. great article, darren.
11:28 pm
What a great idea to keep an eye on client preference trends in your briefings. Great article! Thanks!
3:18 am
Thanks Darren! I really needed some inspiration! :)
7:51 am
I dont know what to say, i never thought of it seeing best design from the client’s perspective, this article help me a lot in web designing, Thanks! :D
10:18 am
Hey Darren, how can I find you on Yahoo Pipes? I tried searching with your name, but couldn’t find it.
11:57 am
Interesting you linked Stylegala SG, it’s pretty much dead in the water at this point, no clue if anything’s in the works over there, nobody’s told me anything about it though. You might want to revamp which sites you steer clients towards.
An interesting comment elsewhere, is some clients design senses is sometimes detrimental to their own best interest.
That and clients expect the end product to be a little bit too much of a rip-off and don’t quite understand the concept of inspiration and similarity.
Thanks for the post.
12:15 pm
StyleGala was just one of the big ones that crossed my mind, but indeed looks like they haven’t updated in awhile.
7:05 pm
Hi Darren.
I’m really honoured that you linked to our site. Thanks a lot.
Warren
10:51 pm
Sure Warren, you guys do awesome work.
10:26 am
Thanks ~Most of them are very good web design for business company
11:30 pm
Great display of designs there, I only wish I’d know anything about designign, CSS and all that stuff to at least tweak my present theme which I barely can :c or at least have money to get someone do some edits on it.
Just dropping by,
Kevin
8:52 am
I’ve really enjoyed looking at these examples. You do fabulous work!
6:25 am
I also ask prospective clients to list 5 sites they like and 5 competitor sites, but it never occurred to me to include links to decent css galleries – that’s a capital idea!
More often than not clients then proceed to show me 5 of the most godawful sites you’ve ever seen, usually a lot of flash vehicles included :)
1:16 pm
Yea, even though the CSS galleries almost always offer strong sites, there are some clients who always manage to gravitate toward the weak ones, or toward designs which have no relation to what they’re trying to do, design-wise. I usually try to subtlely steer them in another direction ;)
5:49 pm
thank you for this nice information.
4:24 am
the “plank” one is my favorate!
You’re design guru!!!!!
I really want to learn how to do this.
7:58 am
liked The Lippincott and plank – others are also good but the best are these 2 – has to be tried …
3:35 am
Thanks Darren! I really needed some inspiration! :)
11:01 am
Indeed, when looking for a designer, I’ve been using key words such as minimalistic, clean, organic with bold typography and focused on content. It’s really about the user experience.
6:06 am
waoo these are amazing darren..
11:14 am
Something about Lippincott appeals to me.
4:53 pm
Thank You
11:01 pm
LET ME DECIDE……WOULD IT BE A MORE PRODUCTIVE EXPENDITURE OF TIME TO COMMENT ON THIS BLOG OR TO PLAY WITH MY PETZY?…….
……………………………………………………PETZY WINS AGAIN! SHALOM FOR NOW !
4:13 pm
nice design
12:35 pm
Thank you /is goods
3:25 pm
many thanks for this inspiration sites!
Greetings from Germany
11:47 pm
i like The Lippincott…. great design…