Bump up your web design with these 7 tips

Are you responsible for maintaining the website for your company or for a group? Here’s some tips to make your task easier:

• Use headlines and subheads to help readers focus on your content, while contributing to search engine optimization.
• Use no more than three font familiesthat pair well together, links should be distinctively different from regular text.
• Pay attention to color. Color in images should coordinate or complement each other and with your logo.
• Limit navigation lists to seven links or under and keep them consistent throughout pages.
• Keep the length of text columns short, trying to have no more than 12 words per line.
• Design for web as carefully as you would for print. Consider fundamental design principles such as: balance, proximity, alignment, repetition, contrast and space.
• White space in your design gives room to breathe. You do not need to fill every blank area of the screen. Be particularly careful to add enough space around blocks of text.

Expand your career opportunities

Perhaps you are considering a New Year’s Resolution to expand your skills to advance or start a career in the expanding, well-paid field of Web Design?

Web designers have great job prospects. According to the US Department of Labor, Web Design is an expanding field, and they predict a 20% increase in jobs in this field that has not only above average salaries, but opportunities for starting your own business.

Get started with a PCA&D Web Design Certificate

Pennsylvania College of Art & Design’s digital design certificate in web will teach you the principles of design and composition essential to effective design for the web. This series of design courses trains students on the software programs used to create websites for businesses, family, friends, or themselves.

You can begin with Design Principles/Typography, laying the foundation for all future computer design work. Adobe Photoshop is introduced so that you learn to scan and enhance images. You will learn the basics of hypertext markup language (HTML) and cascading style sheets (CSS), which are critical to all web design projects. You can then choose to explore the fundamentals of interaction and responsive design, which is critical in a changing mobile web landscape or immerse yourself in WordPress, the world’s leading content management system.

Contact PCA&D’s Continuing Education Department at ce@pcad.edu or 717-396-7833 x 1019 to find out more.