Web design contrast is more than just about colors and black or white, but also involves contrasting shapes, sizes and even textures.

Know your audience very well. It is imperative that you know who the potential visitors of the site are and for whom the website is to be made for. Know your client’s target audience and their characteristics or behaviors.

Remember though that print provides stability and permanence, and these two are not present in the Web. Realistically speaking though and speaking from experience if I may add, it is rather easy to forget this.

Discordant. Web sites that are off-balance suggest action or motion, so you can create a discordant design on purpose. This type of designs make viewers uncomfortable or uneasy, so they are best used for sites that are intended to make people think.

You can take full advantage of contrast by changing font size, weight and family to provide textual contrast and varying sizes of images and elements. However, be careful not to blast your readers or scare them off with contrasting colors which are way too loud. The links on your content should be contrasted well to draw most attention.

Web design emphasis involves the main points where the eye is drawn into in a design. One of the mistakes that your web design company may warn you not to make is to have everything in the design stand out.

The basic elements and principles involved in web design are true for all other types of design. These principles will show you the most effective way to put together the various design elements to come up with a good and effective site.

You can use semantic markup to provide emphasis even without the use of styles; change the font size of image size in order to emphasis or lessen emphasis on them; or you can use contrast in colors for added emphasis.

When you do show them a portfolio, make sure that you also carefully explain to them the differences that they should expect on the final output web page. Make sure that you are upfront with them. If they set specifications for a graphical page and want specific layout, font and other web design elements, make sure that you also mention the possible trade-offs such as in the download speed and maintenance requirements.

For instance, you can repeat your headline a few times for more emphasis, repeat the same image across the page, create a background that is tiled and patterned with repetitive elements, or repeat a particular style to provide site design consistency. It is also a good idea to repeat the navigation elements in your site design across the pages of your web site.

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