For example, with ZARA’s homepage on their website, they are focused on current fashion and future styles. This is obviously shown by making their landing page one image. By having it as one large image, you tend to stay on the page longer as your eyes are wandering over the whole page. This would lead you to click on links that then lead you onto browsing their products (CTA’s!).

This is similar with Apple where they are instantly showing their new product with the full screen effect taking place. We instantly know the intentions and the simple, crisp look gives the home page gives a futuristic feel which is what they would want to emit through their products too.

So, we’ve seen from two website home pages that a large image can work well if you’re an e-commerce website as you have that chance to show off a new product. An Italian restaurant is extremely different to Apple and Zara in terms of the point of their site; but Ask Italian for example, has taken the same approach with a large image obviously placed on their home page. When I look at this, my eyes wander over the image then I get drawn in by the ‘point me in the right direction’ text. Then I want to scroll down to see the ‘right direction’ that they’re advertising. This is a very good way to make a customer want to look around the website as it hints at an incentive. Ask Italian also has a lot of CTAs on their home page to direct visitors to book a table or to view the menu. This is very simple and clear which would increase their profit as they’ve made it to easy for someone to book and eat at their restaurant.

An interesting one here is Google. The websites home page focuses instantly on the search engine as that is what they are most used for. Google has made it extremely simple for literally anyone of any age to use. Google is the most preferred search engine on the internet, and it is down to their minimalistic approach that we like. They do have some CTAs on their home page, but it is very simple as not exactly ‘in your face’ like CTAs usually would be, but this works well in their favour for wat they want.

Something we can find in common with all these sites is the consistency. This includes colour schemes, font, and an obvious brand identity. These points are crucial for all websites as it is what makes it personal to your business and makes the viewer remember your website. The font used in all these examples is very easy to read. There are points with fancier fonts but those are for titles only!!! Having fancy fonts all over the place can make the viewer find it stressful to read and they’ll end up leaving your site without intentions of returning.

Images that convey a feeling:

When choosing an image for your website it must be relevant. If you are taking an image for your site, you must consider the lighting, tones, facial expressions, size, and movement. Another way that you could use images for conveying an emotion would be to use illustrations or gifs as they are more user friendly, I think and can show some sort of skill when it comes to design. Or a very easy way to convey a message within the image is to literally write the message. Make it obvious and worth it if you’re willing to cover parts of a picture with text. Ask Ialitan’s homepage is a great example of text over image working effectively.

Relevant design for target audience:

You need to make sure that you aren’t just putting stock images on your website just because they might look ‘businessy’. This could give people the wrong feeling when they come to your site because if they just see a random image, they will not be impressed with the design of the site! Your viewers will be very impressed if it is an orginal graphic that strongly relates. Take a look at this on Basecamp‘s homepage as their illustration is a great response to the context on the page.