With the winter holidays being just around the corner, every webmaster should consider prepping up his website for the big days.
Sprinkling a touch of festive beauty is an essential part of boosting the user experience. Creating an appealing website which speaks to the audience through visual elements is a tough job when you’re working with an already overcluttered design. Yet, the new upcoming year is a great time to completely change the layout of your website and try out a new approach towards visitors.
Give Your Website a Festive Look
Source: http://geekculture.co/
The time around the holidays often brings a wave of changes in design and usability, providing an excellent moment for website owners to go ahead and spruce up their website with a new set of elements to match the holiday spirit.
This article will guide you through the four basic steps to decorating your website for the winter holidays and show you some of the best practices in upgrading your design while keeping a clean and user-friendly look.
Vogue up Your Header
The header is the first thing a user sees when he comes to your website. The header of a website can be either an image or a compilation of visual elements which aim at capturing the viewer’s attention. Every header should contain a call-to-action, which main purpose is to give a brief information on what’s the website’s main purpose and educate the user about the perks of choosing a particular company, product or service.
Source: Molamil
Giving your header image a festive look is a fairly easy task. There are many web design resource websites which offer a wide array of header images and graphic elements to choose from. The use of symbolism is in the core of creating a compelling web design with a holiday spirit. Be it a Christmass tree, a wreath, a set of beautiful holiday ornaments, adding up design elements with a strong symbolic meaning is what makes a great festive design.
Decorate Your Logo
Is your logo a character or does it have a cartoonish and a rather playful look? If yes, then it might be an ideal candidate for a quick upgrade.
Source: Resn & Leo Burnett Chicago
While some businesses, such as law firms, military, and medical facilities, can not accept a quirky decoration no matter how stylish it seems, others, such as clothing stores and entertainment media will most probably benefit from an adornment.
Spruce up your logo with a sprinkle of glitter and colors. Add a touch of witty festiveness with various Xmas elements. Invite Rudolf for a ride around your company’s name or put Santa’s hat on your brand’s key character – whatever floats your boat.
Add Color To Your Website
The winter holidays are an explosion of color, emotion and happiness and this is exactly what your website’s design should aim at. If you site has a rather dull look, adding up a pretty festive decoration might be a great way to attract more customers.
Source: Google Santa Tracker
The color is in the core of graphic design and can be infused in each and every visual element of your website. Be it your website menu, its background or an additional decorative touch, you can create a visually appealing and festive website just by applying the right color scheme.
Christmas and New Year are mostly related with the colors red and green. Additional colors which can compliment your website’s new look and add a touch of festivity are gold and yellow. Yet, whichever color palette you decide to use, you can easily recreate the holiday look with the use of the right elements.
Festive Pop-Ups & Promo Bars
An essential part of building the right festive feel in your website’s visitors is recreating the moment of giving through a set of smartly designed visual elements.
You can create an online marketing campaign and require users to participate in games and promotions, and the best way to do so is using visual elements. Notification bars seems to work best in this case and provide webmasters with just enough space to present their product and services without constantly annoying the users. By applying the right color scheme and adding up a set of festive graphic elements, an otherwise plain-looking bar can turn into a striking holiday promo element.
Pop-ups are also a great way to infuse your website with the holiday spirit. They offer website owners the opportunity to present their websites with the right amount of visual and text components. Pop-ups provide enough space for creating a better product presentation, yet, they are often skipped by visitors. In order to create an appealing popup design with a great holiday look, you need to stick to design’s latest trends.