The Evolution of a Website

On the left is a stock image that the designer used to create the final image on the right

Website design is a long process. It starts with the clients, who have some ideas at hand, but more often than not depend on the designer to produce something that resembles their ideas.

The beginning is truly intuitive, starting with ideas, then going onto more concrete things like colours, fonts, graphics, photos, and of course the text or content of the site.

The designer from Thinkvitamin.com had two days to design an events website with simply the briefing: "To design and build a site to promote [the] new Stack Overflow DevDays event that’s happening this October." Stack Overflow is a programming Q & A site.

It doesn't really matter who or what Stack Overflow is, the interesting part is how the designer worked with:

- Stock image of a globe
- Unique way to display event cities on the globe
- Change of direction from pastel-coloured images and icons to a more line and colour design
- Adding photos instead of just graphics
- Borrowing ideas for elongated fonts from another graphic designer
- Changing the colour scheme to bold grays and reds

The designer spends about half the time thinking and experimenting with his ideas. He pools from his own creative resources, as well as using samples and examples from other web and graphic designers.

Finally, he consults with his client to get their feed back.

Go through a simple visual journey of the design process here.

The Stack Overflow DevDays Event website is now up and running.

Job well done.