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Soul Websites
By: Mary Abi Nader
In a rapid world of commercialism we are tending to lose our own definitions as humans as well as showing those qualities in what we carry out. What’s commonly noticed when we open any website is the lack of human emotional part in it. We immediately feel when we are browsing any site that a robot did it, so structural, rigid, although some sites require this business like look, but everything can have a sense of humanity in it.
Yes, the means are technical but still if we aim at finding the balance between thoughts, design, emotion and function we will deliver sites that can be impressive for years. It just needs taking a keen look at our inner selves and relying on our creative intuitions and knowledge when we deal with the project and the client from the soul human side. Many elements help build out intuitions: choice of colors, words, visuals, shapes and sometimes music.
Soul sites can be created if you focus on these points:
1. Meeting with client:
Upon meeting with the client for the first time, it always helps if the designer pays attention, noticing the details that surround the client and that are within him/her. We should keep in mind the immediate scanning of the whole setting that surrounds us and the client. Clients are humans so the designer may always remember to grab this quality, digging deeper into it to make the flow of work easier, enjoyable and less time consuming. It’s in the favorable interest of the designer to take a look at the way their clients promote themselves, their style, and the items surrounding them, how they are organized or disorganized.
All these can pinpoint their clients’ style or the pace they deal with issues at hand as well as their clients’ likes and dislikes. For example if we as designers meet up with a client who looks stylish, who has not necessarily latest machines but rather those whose style is unique, we can immediately tell what type of person our clients is.
2. Creation of the mood of the website:
Based on the information given by the client and the feelings projected in us about the client, we can start building the concept behind our website. There are several ingredients that we might take into consideration to create the major elements in our websites:” the mood”. By definition a mood is a state of mind or emotion. That’s what we want to create: a state that lasts. We can start by choosing a color that would fit the person and industry we’re working for. We should have a general knowledge about the color codes before starting. For example: blue hues show integrity, professionalism. In one of my websites for a music therapist (www.katyjarjoura.com) the colors I chose were the warm tonalities, taking into consideration the kind, giving personality of the client as well as the subject matter itself which is very humanitarian and needs a warm tone of colors.
The second step is choosing the general concept and setting of our website through completing the colors by choice of words and shapes. For example in one of my client’s websites: www.ghcarchitects.com, my dealing was with an architect whose style was clear, modern, and refined. The words I used were: “it’s all a matter of perspective” plus usage of shapes and lines. Shapes are a major part in architecture and so are lines.
The next step is to see whether the designer wants to use visuals or not. Sometimes it’s better off without them when we have a business site that needs to be quick to download, or when the subject matter itself can be shown in words or shapes, not visuals. As minimalism style in art and architecture states” less is more”.
All these elements if chosen with involvement and feeling can move one or all of the internet users’ senses and make the site enjoyable to them each time they log in to a site.
Music as an element is the best key for creating the mood in our websites. Music is a direct talk to one of our important senses: hearing; however’ silence sometimes is the best music.
Relating a website to anything we do in our daily life will help us always treat it in a personal way. Just like visiting a fancy restaurant, enjoying the food, the paintings, the colors of walls, ceilings, lights, restrooms, the debonair manners of the waiter. Going to that restaurant again is something that appeals to us because of the nice mood it kept us in. We’re hooked.
This is exactly what a website should do.
3. Designer-Client relationship:
Throughout the creation of the website its more feasible to be on good terms with the client. The designer may always address the client with so much involvement, honesty, and respect for deadline. Percentage for risk may be taken into consideration before setting the deadline, in case the designer wasn’t able to finish on time. Building trust and compassion is an asset that a designer should always seek in the relationship with a client. In this way the client will feel that he is being understood and the client-designer relationship will be projected in the creation of the site.
4. Submission of website:
Finally, the designer ends the last details of the project and submits the website to the client. The way its done predicts a lot about future ventures with the client related to updating the website, offering new projects or recommending the designer to other clients.
As it is said: “you don’t have a second chance to make a first impression”, I say: you don’t have a second chance to sustain a first impression. Sustaining it will guarantee more work.
Good luck!
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Mary Abi Nader is a creative consultant and an instructor in BCU University.
Mary has an 8 years experience in the web field. She worked for the European Union on a project basis. She is a freelancer who is currently handling the design of different departments in the American University of Beirut along with its medical center as well as on other different projects.
Mary also works on the corporate identities of many companies in various fields. Of her creations Mary says: “Art is the expression of the soul”.
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