Look and Feel
The Look and Feel of a website refers to the general appearance of a website.
Clean, colorful, happy, professional, emotive, vibrant, interactive, on-brand are all words that could be used to describe the “look and feel” of a website.
Is the look organic or pre-defined?
If the client has a creative brief or a specific brand then this will dictate the look, otherwise the look grows organically.
Also, there are projects that do require a certain look. Charities sites need to be “emotional”- so thought and effort needs to be given towards this goal.
Photos, color schemes, layout ideas, fonts all contribute to the look.
Sticking to Starfish design principles
If you stick to principles of simplicity and consistancy, the overall look and feel will take care of itself.
Defining a look and feel
Some projects require a specific look and feel to be defined. This can be done though a “mood board area”, where an area of the board is dedicated to defining the look.
Usually, however, groups of photos selections are good enough to define the mood.
We also have templates and graphics, icons and styling.
Choice of approach
The order in which you tackle content planning vs creative planning, whether the website is visual driven or content driven, affects the look and feel. See Understanding the approach.
Photos
Your choice of photos, the emotion, quantity, and size play a big part in defining the feel of a website. See Photo Gathering.
Templates
Templates can play a big or small part in the look. Learn about template choice and see our library.
Styling, fonts, graphics, icons.
You can play around with fonts, colors and icons. These can influence the feel but not as much.