At the beginning of my career I almost exclusively worked on flash based microsites complete with a ton of video and 3D. But the tides have changed. For the last few years, I’ve designed more heavy content sites than ever before. True, it was a bit of an adjustment, but along the way I’ve learned a few tips and tricks.
Wireframes & Your Grid
A good set of wireframes can go a long way when you are powering through pages. A tip from our ACD Catherine Baird is to establish the grid at the wireframe level. This is extremely helpful as it makes the transition from wires into comps so easy. This was probably one of the best pieces of advice I have received for undertaking sites of this nature.
Consistency & Styling
With a large amount of text on the page it’s important to keep your styling simple and not to get overly design crazy. Pick your fonts, colour and simple iconography wisely. Keep it clean so the content can be seen.
Hierarchy
Establish a good scannable layout for the user so they can easily recognize important items on the page. Having a well thought out grid will also assist in establishing hierarchy the page as it should be easily divided into multiple size buckets of content.
Breathing room
Allow for your content and type to breathe, often times on a heavy content site there is a large amount of type on a single page. It is important to let your type breathe; create some separation between pieces of content and various sizes of type on a page.
My last piece of advice is to look at reference. There are some great sites out there to gain inspiration from, as well as some non-digital sources such as printed publications. Here are a few of my favourites:
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