tailieunhanh - Taking Your Talent to the Web: A Guide for the Transitioning Designer- P9

Taking Your Talent to the Web: A Guide for the Transitioning Designer- P9:It was a simple solution to a complex problem. On one side, thousands of designers and art directors are eager to take their talents to the Web but aren’t sure how. On the other, web agencies could not find enough good web designers to get their work done. | Taking Your Talent to the Web 141 Using HTML to lay out web pages does not make you a web designer nor does making pretty pictures in Photoshop. A web designer like any other designer is a communications professional who solves problems. Just as a CD cover says something about the music it contains the band that created the music and the likely customer so the site must clearly communicate its structure content and purpose in a way appropriate to a specific audience. Gosh haven t we made this point before Yes we have. And yet many web designers will read these words nod their heads sagely or maybe just nod off and then continue to create sites whose appearance has nothing to do with the product user or brand. Brand identity As a designer or art director you know what this means. But what does it mean on the Web In simplistic terms and on the most basic level it means the same kind of work you ve done all your professional life Make the logo bigger. Use the client s color palette. But on a deeper level the web designer doesn t merely use the client s colors and slap the client s logo on a web page. The web designer uses the site to express and extend the client s brand identity. In Chapter 3 we discussed the way IBM s brand positioning as a solutions company influenced not only the site s look and feel but also the depth and nature of its architecture and the type of enabling technology employed in its construction see Figure . Good web designers are always thinking beyond the surface extending and translating the brand through function as well as form. Web-specific No surprises here. In the case of the IBM site leveraging brand identity in a web-specific manner means designing a site that provides solutions not problems. Clear navigation and a search engine that works help the site support this aspect of the brand. This is an example of using the Web s strength as a searchable database to convey brand attributes. 142 WHO What Is a Web Designer Anyway What We .