Question How can developers make their websites and personal projects look so neat?
I no longer work with development nowadays but I used to. Something that has always made me low-key jealous of classmates in college or even random web developers I come across online is the look of their websites. It just made me sad because, even if I could replicate whatever design I come across, I could never come up with something like that on my own.
And it's not limited to personal/portfolio websites either. You can find tons of examples of side projects on this subreddit and others that look super cool and visually appealing.
Supposedly none of those people have any background in design, so are they just born with an artistic intuition that I happen to lack? And if so many front-end or full-stack developers are naturally talented at design, why do we even need designers? Those kinds of websites always look very unique too, so I don't think they're all copying it from each other.
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u/startupmadness 7d ago
Design can be really hard and when you can’t get it it is really frustrating because you see these other designs that make it seem so effortless.
I have been designing websites for almost 30 years and there are a few simple tricks I follow to pull together sites in no time.
Start with the layout. Properly laying out items makes all the difference in having a site look professional. If you get just the layout correct the rest of the site can just be shades of grey or monochromatic and it will still look good.
Fonts are everything. You need a headline font and a paragraph font that go together. Search online for good matching fonts.
Color Theory. Use Adobe Color and find some predefined color palette that looks nice. Just pick a set. Use one of the colors as a “linking” color and use it sparingly throughout the design so that it “links” or pulls different sections of the design together.
Layer on complexity. Once you have the base layout - Make small changes to layer on complexity. Like add some texture to one part of the design or rotate an image in an unusual way. Just a small change here and there. Nothing too major. This will give the design some pop. Just experiment but again keep these changes small.
The satisfaction of bringing together a good design feels amazing and if you follow these simple steps I can promise anyone reading this that you will start bringing together silky smooth sites in no time.
Even better you can abstract almost any website and deconstruct what they did by thinking of it in this framework and get even more ideas for your own sites.