See also: Why you should care about the images on social media

Use contrast

It counts for everything: shapes, fonts colors. Make sure that the most important details would stand out. As well, contrast is beneficial to make your website easy to use. Don’t miss such easy details like if using a light-colored background to use a dark font and so on.

Choose your font palette

There is nothing more necessary in building brand outlook as consistency. Have you got your standard brand font? If not, it’s the number one thing to apply. It’s not only a good way of ensuring a visual pleasure and comfort for the customer, but as well a brand uniqueness which will help it to be noticed and recognized.

Let your heading be bolder and choose the lighter more subtle fonts for subtitles and body.

Pick a color scheme

As well as with fonts your brand has to have its color. It also is the perfect way to ensure website consistency. So look at your brand carefully. What qualities it do have. Is it fresh and fun or sophisticated and glamorous? Look at the color descriptions in the internet and pick up three main ones. Just be sure they get along together.

Prepare your images

How to enhance the professional look to your website? The one point you shouldn’t miss is grids and frames. If you add those to your pictures, they will always look better and will give you a professional edge.

Simplicity is sophistication

Seeing so many great design examples no wonder there will be a moments you will want to put apply them all. The trick is here you should do otherwise. Keep it as simple as you can. Use only the details that a really necessary for your design. Don’t forget you are here to message something and it also will combine some graphical details. So keep it simple at design so that you can stand-out in your message!

See also: How to raise your Instagram followers

So now you know. And it didn’t seem so difficult, right? You just need to apply those simple things to your website and enjoy the benefits.

With major companies like Apple, with the launch of the iOS 7 or Microsoft with Metro, changing their design aesthetic to that of flat design, this trend has recently become very popular.

Above: Apple IOS 7

Above: Microsoft Metro

But where did flat design come from? And why is it important? As with anything, knowing where a style or technique came from and the history behind it can help you make more educated decisions when it comes to the use of it.

What is Flat Design?

“Flat design” is mainly the term given to the style of design in which elements lose any type of stylistic characters that make them appear as though they lift off the page.

This means removing stylistic characters such as drop shadows, gradients, textures, and any other type of design that is meant to make the element feel three-dimensional.

Flat Design can create sort of a timeless design because by removing design styles that can easily cause their design to become outdated, designers are “future-proofing” their work so that they become relevant for longer periods of time.

Above: Differences between IOS 6 and IOS 7

Flat design reverts back to the basics of design as a functional tool. A website is designed and judged by how well it works, as opposed to what it looks like.

So where did flat design come from originally?

It’s difficult to determine the exact start of flat design or where its origins started, but there are a few periods of design and art in which flat design takes inspiration from.

Swiss style

The Swiss style of design can be traced as far back as the 1920’s in Germany, but it was the Swiss who made it explode in popularity and earned the namesake.

Swiss style embraces simplicity and typography over anything else. Some of it’s fundamentals are the use of a grid system for aligning content, and of course sans serif typefaces.

Speaking of sans serif typefaces, did you know Helvetica font was also invented in Switzerland during the same era (1957), and “Helvetica” means Switzerland in Latin?

Minimalist Design

Minimalism is known for the act of removing everything in a piece, leaving just the necessary and needed elements. Geometric shapes, few elements, bright colors, and clean lines dominate most minimalism style design.

Meanwhile, the principle of readability comes in together with the minimalist style. With more ‘white-spaces’ (or empty spaces), the text is seen well. Also, the absence of drop shadows, strokes and gradients will ensure the readability of the texts placed within a page.

Facebook is one of the first to adapt the design format. In the past weeks, Facebook has evidently changed their design schemes, allowing users to see simple icons, designs and more eye-friendly visuals. Google has also followed the lead by changing its icons to colorful yet flat images.

Flat Design in the Web

To design an effective flat site, all design elements must be centered on this idea of simplicity. Everything should be designed with the same goal in mind to create a cohesive visual and functional web design that enriches the content over everything else.

There are many benefits to flat design, such as simplicity and minimalism that makes for a certain ease of use but taking minimalism too far can have serious consequences on usability. Basically, the flat design style is rooted on two principles: simplicity and readability.

Users have come to rely on a lot of subtle clues to make their way through an interface: buttons have slight gradients and rounded corners, form fields have a soft inner shadow, and navigation bars “float” over the rest of the content.

Remove all these clues, and you end up with a flat world where every element is suddenly placed at the same level, potentially leading to confusion: Is this really a button?

Above: Examples of colors used in Flat Design

It is responsibility of designers and web designers to don’t take this design aesthetic too far and exaggerate its use complicating the experience of the user.

Websites play an important and vital role in companies. The Internet has completely changed the way we live. Now we are able to connect across the globe retrieve information and interact immediately through different devices.

I´ll talk about some reasons why is an Website so important and the online presence is an opportunity to grow business increase opportunities and revenue.

Helps to Build your brand. A Website its an extension and a projection of your Brand Worlwide, it should transmit the values and image of the Brand it represents. The attention to your Website look and feel is as important as the image of your company, it should transmit the right message to your stakeholders. If the message isn´t right for your stakeholders your Website will deliver the opposite of his purpose and it will leave your possible costumers away from your company and products creating a negative image.

Cost-effective Websites are the most cost-effective tools available, it will show and inform about your company and products worldwide with little costs, with no limitations of business hours, working days or holydays, it will represent you and your company anytime and anywhere. It increases exposure and visibility on the Web, It will improve your costumer service because costumers will have immediate access to information of your products or services without restrictions of waiting for an e-mail reply or a call from the sales team. It can display your catalogues, brochures and technical information without investing in printed material.

Trust An Website will build trust to your business. If a company isn´t online nowadays consumers will find it suspicious, it will create doubt of the products or services that you provide. If they find your company online and get more information of what you´re providing them they´ll feel secure and ultimately they´ll establish a relation to your company. Although many consumers don´t buy online they´ll search more information about the products or services they´re interested in, in this period your company need to pop up in the consumer browser, it has to offer and answer all the question and doubts and help to create the need and desire to buy the product.

Share Word to mouth was always the best way of advertising across times. With the increase of social networks a simple click, referral, review or share with other people should establish credibility. You´ll have you´re stakeholders promoting your products or services to their networks increasing brand awareness and generating quality leads and ultimately increase by a large number your sales.

The question nowadays isn´t if a company needs an Website but how good is your Website and how´s it reaching to your stakeholders maximizing business opportunities and Brand Awareness positioning your business on TOP of your competitors.