Background design for web pages is a crucial aspect of creating an engaging user experience. A well-designed background can elevate the overall look and feel of a website.
A good background design should be simple and not distract from the content. As we discussed earlier, using a plain color or a subtle texture can be an effective way to create a clean and minimalist look.
Incorporating a background image can add visual interest to a website, but it's essential to choose an image that complements the content and doesn't overwhelm it.
Design Principles
A professional website background should be chosen and designed with care, as it sets the tone for the entire website. The tips and rules mentioned in the article will guide you in making the right decision.
To create a visually appealing background, consider the following design principles: simplicity and minimalism are key to a clean and uncluttered design.
Professional Tips
To create a professional website background, it's essential to stick to a consistent design with a personal touch. This means choosing a color palette or brand colors from a few hues and using them throughout your website.
A professional website background should match the overall website design, including the visual language. This will help create recognition and a personal touch.
Choose a color composition that's appropriate for your brand, industry, and target audience. This will ensure your website background is relevant and effective.
Use matching images, illustrations, and photographs to add a personal touch to your website background. This will help create a cohesive and professional look.
Combine Original Typography
Combining original typography with fresh design can create a refreshing effect and provide structure to your visual identity. This can be achieved by pairing modern typography with original color accents, illustrations, or geometric elements.
Using a combination of typography and original design elements can help you stand out from the crowd. Abstract background designs and creative effects can add a unique touch to your design.
A combination of typography and design can also provide a clear structure to your visual identity. This is especially important when you want to convey a message or tell a story through your design.
Current Trends and Best Practices
Staying on top of current web design trends is crucial for creating a visually appealing background design for your web page. This will help you identify what works well and what doesn't.
By keeping an eye on successful brands' backgrounds, you can get inspired and learn from their best practices. It's amazing how much you can learn from observing what others do well.
Current web design trends highlight success models, which can guide your design decisions. It's a good idea to take note of these trends and incorporate them into your background design.
You can learn from the backgrounds used by successful brands and apply those lessons to your own design. This will help you create a background that effectively supports your web page's content.
Design for Mobile
Mobile optimization is especially important because many visitors will access your site via mobile devices. This can have a negative impact on search engine rankings and placement in search results.
To optimize your website background for mobile devices, avoid Flash elements altogether. This will help improve the display and loading speed of your mobile website.
Integrate responsive web design by using scalable background images that can adapt to different screen sizes. Compress large images and CSS to reduce file sizes and improve loading speed.
Use appropriate image and font size to ensure a good user experience design on mobile devices. Inform browsers on screen sizes and scaling using the Viewport Meta Tag.
Here are some tools you can use to test your mobile SEO:
- Google Mobile Friendly Test
- W3C Mobile Checker
- IONOS Website Checker
Using a CMS plug-in like WPTouch can also help with mobile website optimization. This will ensure that your background scales appropriately for smaller screens, making your website more user-friendly and accessible on mobile devices.
Design for Readability
A good background image should make your content look great, not distract from it. This means ensuring that your text overlays are readable, even when the image is still loading.
Background images that are too big or not optimized for the web can take a long time to load, which is super annoying for visitors. This can also negatively affect your website's SEO.
To improve readability, try adding a color overlay on top of your background image. This simple trick makes any image instantly more suitable for a text overlay.
Here's how to do it:
- Add a background section to your page and make that section full width
- Add a solid color background layer and insert your background image on top of it
- Add a third background layer with a color overlay, reducing the opacity to make the photo visible again
A light-colored background will also improve the site's readability and highlight the most crucial information. A white background is a classic solution that is always up to date.
A good homepage background doesn't distract from foreground elements such as copy, images, or product photos. The text in the foreground should always be legible and stand out clearly from the background.
Design for Branding
Your website's background design is crucial for branding. It's essential to align your website's background colors with your brand colors to create a consistent look.
Ideally, your website's background colors should match your brand colors, and high-quality images, illustrations, and videos should also match these colors. This will help create a cohesive visual language that resonates with your target audience.
A consistent design with a personal touch is key to building recognition and trust with your audience. Choose a color palette or brand colors from a few hues and stick to those throughout your website.
Using the exact same stock image as your competition can hurt your brand image and make you blend in. Instead, choose an image that closely relates to your business to avoid diluting your message.
The choice of your image plays a big role in the clarity of your message. If you can't find a photo that's closely related to your business, consider using colors, gradients, and patterns rather than images.
Having an unrelated image can be bad for clarity, and counting on the image to do all the talking can hurt your SEO. Search engines can only read code, not images, so it's essential to balance your image with clear and concise text.
A high-quality design with an aesthetic background proves professionalism and encourages visitors to stay on your website. This will quickly translate into building trust in your brand and increasing conversion levels.
Your website's background is one of the first elements that catch users' eyes, and it takes just 17 milliseconds for a user to form an opinion about a website. A background gives the website the right tone and increases its aesthetic level, creating a positive first impression.
Design for User Experience
Designing a website background is crucial for creating a good user experience. A well-designed background can be a reason for site visitors to stay, representing your brand, product, or company, and emphasizing important elements on your website.
A professional website background has marketing potential and creative opportunities for emotional branding and corporate design. By investing time and effort in its design, you'll benefit from these advantages.
A properly selected background affects the usability of the website, making it user-friendly. It highlights the site's essential elements, such as the header or Call-To-Action button, keeping visitors aware while browsing.
A light-colored background, especially white, improves the site's readability and highlights crucial information. This classic solution is always up to date and adds an aesthetic and modern look to your website.
Here are some website background design ideas to consider:
- Web design inspiration
- Website ideas
- Website types
- Coming Soon page
- Create a website style guide
- Website information architecture
- Website creation mistakes
- Online reading behavior
14 Stunning Ideas
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If you're not very experienced in website development, choosing a website background can be a daunting task. Fortunately, there are many design options to consider.
You can choose from three main options for your website background: background image, background video, and background color/pattern/texture.
A background image can be a high-quality photograph or a drawing that generates emotional impact and personalizes your website. Consider using a photo of a product, landscape, or object that matches your website's theme.
A background video can be a modern and original way to convey content in a short time. Just make sure the video is professional, suited to your website, and doesn't automatically play with sound.
A background color, pattern, or texture can be a simple yet effective option. You can choose a single color, a color gradient, or a creative pattern to elevate your copy and make it stand out.
Some popular background design trends include using a black background with minimalist graphic elements, which can add elegance and originality to your website.
Design Techniques
Designing a background for a web page can be a fun and creative process.
To create a visually appealing background, use a subtle texture or pattern that complements the content. This can be a photograph, a repeating pattern, or even a simple gradient.
A good background should not compete with the content for attention, so choose a design that is calm and unobtrusive.
Using a background image is a great way to add depth and interest to a web page, but be sure to use a high-quality image that is optimized for web use.
Avoid using bright or bold colors for the background, as they can be overwhelming and distracting. Instead, opt for muted tones or pastels that create a soothing atmosphere.
Remember, the background should enhance the content, not overpower it.
Design for Storytelling
You can bring storytelling into your background with meaningful images that illustrate your brand's story at a glance. Landscape images, portraits, or illustrations can be used to embed text into your background.
Using a photo slideshow can deepen the message and emphasize your product or service range. This can be a great storytelling tool.
To build real audience engagement, design a background that conveys the story of your brand. This can be done using background graphics that create an engaging story.
Following web design trends and staying up to date with the latest news can give you inspiration for interesting effects that will diversify the background and add attractiveness to your website.
Design for Visual Hierarchy
Design for Visual Hierarchy is crucial for creating a clear and effective background design for your web page. A well-designed visual hierarchy guides the user's attention and helps them navigate the content easily.
Using a combination of size, color, and placement, you can create a clear hierarchy of elements on your web page. For example, a large hero image can draw attention to the main message or offer.
A good visual hierarchy should start with the most important elements, such as the main message or call-to-action, and then gradually decrease in importance. This can be achieved by using larger font sizes, brighter colors, and more prominent placement for the main elements.
The use of white space, or negative space, is also essential in creating a clear visual hierarchy. By leaving enough space between elements, you can create a clean and uncluttered design that guides the user's attention.
In the example of the "Minimalist" design, a simple and clean layout is used to create a clear visual hierarchy. The main message is displayed prominently in a large font size, with a clear call-to-action below it.
Design for Nature
Landscape illustrations are a soothing trend in website background design. They can fit a website's theme, brand mission, voice, and tone.
Many bloggers and businesses find landscape backgrounds suitable for their websites. This includes travel bloggers, environmental causes, nature tourism sites, and more.
A vector background of rolling hills is a great example of a landscape illustration. It comes in a few color variations to fit different color schemes.
This type of background adds realism with rolling hills, evergreen trees, blue skies, and appealing topography. It's still visible even when website content covers the middle of the page.
City skylines can also be used as landscape backgrounds. A moody but appealing abstract take can bring a unique feel to a website.
Sources
- https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/websites/website-creation/choosing-a-website-background/
- https://thrivethemes.com/create-background-image-website/
- https://99designs.com/blog/web-digital/website-backgrounds/
- https://bowwe.com/blog/how-to-choose-website-background
- https://www.istockphoto.com/blog/best-practices/design/background-ideas
Featured Images: pexels.com