Anyone can create a WordPress website in less than five minutes. However, whether redesigning an existing website or starting from scratch, making design decisions that best suit your plans can be challenging for beginners. Creating a functional, consistent, and visually appealing design leads to more engaged viewers, who are likelier to take action and return to a website.

With the above in mind, this article will cover the significance of an engaging web aesthetic and how to support an aesthetic by choosing quality photos and fonts to bring it all together.

When you first set up WordPress, you naturally begin filling in the blanks right away. However, if you start adding photos and selecting font combinations without having chosen an aesthetic, you’re going to pick things you like, but not necessarily things that go well together. There’s an obvious difference between a well-designed WordPress website and one that isn’t. For example, this:

Or this?

Deciding on an aesthetic beforehand will enable you to make cohesive content choices, creating a more functional and appealing website that will engage viewers. Even if you’ve already created a website with WordPress, that’s okay – you can use these tips to evaluate and tweak what you already have in place.

“Attractive things work better,” Right? This claim was tested in Japan in 1995 when researchers Kurosu and Kashimura conducted a study to see which would be easier to use: an “attractively” designed ATM or an “unattractively” designed one. Guess which won?

Skeptical of their results, Researcher Tranctinsky conducted the exact same experiment in Israel only to come to the same conclusion. Expanding further on their research, Donald Norman went beyond determining that attractive things work better by answering the most important question: Why?

Norman concluded that human emotions affect the decision-making process. Viewing something appealing or well-designed triggers a positive response that “broadens our thought processes and facilitates creative learning.”

Still not entirely convinced, five researchers collaborated on a study in 2003 to determine the connection between perceptions of aesthetics and product functionality. They concluded that a user perceives something as more functional if it is attractive. In coming to this conclusion, they call their own readers to action:

“As users take aesthetically pleasing interfaces as an indication of usable systems, designers must take the two seemingly unrelated phenomena as being equally influential in design to ensure success”.

When you hear (or read) the word “aesthetic,” you may already have something in mind—perhaps a favorite website, logo, or poster that stands out to you.

Or you might be drawing a blank. Either way, it’s clear now that implementing a visually appealing aesthetic is vital to the success of your site. Here are some practical suggestions to help you find an aesthetic:

For example, if I were launching an e-commerce, blog, marketing, or business website, I would spend some time reviewing these Avada websites and ask myself the questions listed above.

Now that you have a clear idea of what you like in other sites choose a few keywords to base your aesthetic around (“minimal, whitespace, black and white,” “vibrant, loud, clear,” etc.).

Now you know that choosing an aesthetic is vital to a visually appealing website. How do you apply it to your site, though? Your aesthetic moves from an idea to the page when you choose the fonts, images, and website layout to express it.

In a 2008 study, The Aesthetics of Reading, Kevin Larson (Microsoft) & Rosalind Picard (MIT) demonstrate how to measure aesthetic differences by examining the cognitive effects produced by elevated mood.

“We examine the benefits of good typography and find that good typography induces a good mood. When participants were asked to read text with either good or poor typography in two studies, the participants who received the good typography performed better on relative subjective duration and on certain cognitive tasks.”.

Just like design affects the perception of usability, fonts elicit subconscious responses from viewers. When you choose a font, you choose how a reader will engage with the text. For example, take a look at the font used for the “Toys R Us” logo.

Now take a look at US Bank’s logo.

What kind of response do these two logos elicit from you? Is your response to US Bank the same as “Toys R Us”?  Of course not. Your responses to each of these logos are very different—and with good reason.

Font choices vary from site to site and will depend significantly on the company you create the site for. If you design a website for a children’s clothing boutique, your font choices will likely be a little more playful. On the other hand, if you run a financial services company, your font choices need to be professional and evoke trust. Head over to Stepto and Son for their top ten great web font combinations. Here’s a little sampler:

Also, check out this article from Tuts+ for advice on what fonts to use for optimal readability and legibility, and head to this Piktochart post to read more about combining fonts!

Images are just as important to implementing an aesthetic as font choice: they both elicit a subconscious response from viewers, affecting how they interact with your site. When it comes to images, quality, and color are all important.

Several studies have been conducted on the effect of colors and color saturation on viewers. In a 2014 study that evaluated the colors present in “most pinned” and “least pinned” photos on Pinterest, researchers noted that “(colors) have remarkable power to move us emotionally.” Some practical advice on choosing quality photos for your site:

When a website is cluttered with too many photos, ads, and text boxes, it can be more challenging to engage with the content. Conversely, content is easier to read when a website has fewer well-organized photos, ads, and text boxes.

Just take a look at the subtle differences in these two layouts. It’s evident that it is easier to read and more visually pleasing to engage with.

One rule of clean, readable layout: Space it out. Allow for some white space between your headline, images, and body text.

Designing a website with Avada Layouts can significantly enhance its aesthetic appeal and accessibility, directly addressing the points raised in this article. Avada’s pre-designed content and websites provide a strong foundation for creating visually appealing and well-organized sites. These layouts are crafted with a focus on balance and spacing, making it easier to achieve an uncluttered look that prioritizes content readability.

Website designers have the flexibility to customize layouts extensively. This means you can easily adjust the number and arrangement of photos, ads, and text boxes on your website, ensuring that each element serves a purpose and contributes to a coherent and engaging user experience addressing the challenges of clutter and disorganization.

Memorable design is an absolute necessity for a successful website today. By creating a visually appealing site, you ensure that your viewers will be more engaged with your content, making them more likely to return to your site and purchase your products or services.

The quickest way to get started is to choose cohesive fonts, photos, and a layout that works well together, which Avada has built in from the beginning with sleek and modern design schemes.

As a business, you likely want users to share your brand with others and get excited about using your products. However, managing a brand can be tough, especially online. This can be because web content can be easily captured, altered, and re-shared. This is where style guides come in! A style guide serves as protection for all the brand elements you’ve worked hard to establish for business and online presence. Essentially, style guides create a set of rules that endeavor to keep anyone using your branding in line with your standards.

In this article, we’ll take a look at how style guides can benefit your brand. We’ll also discuss what to include in a guide and how to create one. Additionally, we’ll share resources like a logo generator and explore how they can help with your style guide. Let’s get started!

Typically, style guides are designed to serve two purposes. Companies create these guides to not only help train internal staff but also to establish the rules for using their brand in the public sphere. These guides provide specific standards for how logos and images representing the company can be used. This might include fonts and other styles, along with clear statements of when to never do something.

Let’s take a look at an example to get a better feel for the public face of a style guide. Spotify has a self-explanatory and in-depth online guide:

Rather than being punitive about misuse, Spotify’s style guide actually invites users to share their brand and gives them the tools with which to do it correctly. This includes downloadable logos.

Another example that shows how style guides can be as unique as the business they represent is Urban Outfitters. The trendy clothing brand has a style guide that fits the exact look and feel of their clothing:

While this guide may look quite different from Spotify’s, they have some commonalities. Both guides include universally essential topics in their content. To create a comprehensive and functional document, you might want to consider including the following:

This may seem a lot – and it can be – but the more you include, the better others can use your brand assets to spread the word.

Now that you have a good idea of what a style guide might contain, let’s examine four steps to create one. We’ll begin by reviewing what you already do to assert your stylistic requirements.

Auditing your content can be helpful if you already have an established brand. This means reviewing your existing content and documenting your existing practices. You might want to start with document structures. Check whether you’re consistently using heading sizes and fonts throughout your content, although it’s up to you whether you make changes now or in a specific design session in the future.

When it comes to your ‘base,’ you can either begin curating a list of existing practices and using them to develop your style guide or establish some changes that will be codified in the style guide.

You can tackle this step in several ways. Most guides include a mission statement or vision at the start of the guide. Ultimately, you can define the brand’s voice by telling your company’s story. For example, let’s look at Urban Outfitter’s guide again. Right off the bat, they provide a section called ‘Our Story’ that sets the tone for their style:

This is where you want to establish what the brand represents, so it’s best not to leave it to chance. Aside from explicitly stating it, you can link to examples showcasing your brand’s voice.

One of the best ways to establish consistency immediately is to ensure your guide is created by following the same guidelines within. This is a great way to demonstrate your style in context. For example, Spotify explicitly shares its color palette, which contains only three colors:

If Spotify used colors to create its style guide that did not match the green, white, and black required by the guide, it might be confusing.

Ultimately, the decisions you make for your style guide are at your discretion. However, you might be able to create a more productive and functional document if you gather input from others who are impacted by it. This is an excellent time to share the style guide solely to get some feedback. You can then iterate until you’re happy.

Once you have reviewed and approved your guide, you’ll want to decide where to publish it. Many larger entities, like Twitter, have their brand resources easily located on their site:

If you’re using a Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress, you can leverage the platform to create a dynamic and engaging presentation of the content by utilizing the advanced design flexibility Avada WordPress theme!

Creating a style guide for your website can have a significant Return on Investment (ROI) for your brand. The time it takes to create a guide means anyone working on your website will have a transparent approach, and a well-defined set of rules to follow.

To get started on your website style guide, keep these four steps in mind: