At first glance, you might not think that the worlds of fashion and website design have a lot in common. The fashion industry is all about flamboyance and creativity, while the technology sector is often associated with programming, logic and mathematics.
Where fashion meets website design
The similarities between the fashion world and the website design sector are more far reaching than you might think, and both involve many of the same elements.
Research
For instance, a fashion designer will research what is currently fashionable and try to predict what colours, designs, fabrics and patterns will be in fashion ahead of time. Website designers will also have to keep up to date with what is happening in the industry and be alert to new design trends.
Synthesis
Fashion designers often begin the process of creating a new line by setting up a mood board to pull together all the ideas, themes, colours and styles they are considering. This is mirrored in the world of website design where designers will bring together their ideas and try to map out the site, analysing which features, colours and arrangements will work well together.
Constraints
Another similarity between the two sectors is the fact that both must work within the constraints of what is possible when attempting to develop a new design. In the world of fashion, no matter how outlandish and extraordinary the idea, there are constraints in terms of material costs and availability. There are similar restraints in web design, where the factors of budget, time and technical limitations must all be considered before a design can be delivered.
The impact of colour
Colour is perhaps the ultimate example of website design choice following the world of fashion. Each year, the famous Pantone Colour Institute reveals its Colour of the Year, and this plays a big part in influencing fashion design choices, leading designers to craft palettes that reflect colour trends, and website designers often follow suit.
This year’s Colour of the Year is Peach Fuzz (13-2023), which is described by Pantone as representing a variety of qualities, including compassion, warmth and elegance. It is already cropping up in fashion collections and in turn, will be inspiring website designers.
Typographical trends
Many fashion brands focus on the typography used in their branding and logos, which is a key part of their attempt to convey a particular aesthetic. We frequently see high-end fashion brands using elegant Serif fonts, while streetwear fashion companies will tend to use bolder fonts.
When it comes to website design, the choice of font and the overall approach to text and its presentation is obviously crucial. Website designers will mirror the way that the fashion industry uses typography to represent certain qualities, depending on the themes and ideas that the client wants to convey to their customers and potential customers.
The power of pattern
Along with colour, pattern and texture are the most significant factors that shape fashion design, and the influence of these factors can also be found in the world of website creation.
Fashion designers will take great care in selecting the best possible pattern and texture to realize their vision, and the big designers will often set trends throughout the industry with their choices, whether that is a bold geometric theme or gentle floral motifs.
Website designers follow similar trends. Sometimes they incorporate fashionable patterns into existing clients’ brands, while other times they may change the pattern palette, along with colours and other elements of design every season, mirroring the way that fashion evolves throughout the year.
Minimalism in fashion and design
Behind many of the colour, typography and pattern choices in fashion there is often an underlying design principle that informs the particular details. Some of these guiding principles have also had a major impact on the way that modern websites are developed.
Perhaps the most influential fashion design idea is the concept of minimalism. Minimalism has always been around, but it became a major factor in popular culture during the 1980s and frequently recurs in the fashion world. Minimalism is all about simplicity and freedom from clutter, and it has been used across multiple lifestyle sectors from home management to interior design.
In fashion, minimalism often translates into the use of just a few colours or a small range of neutral tones, with simple lines and unfussy design features, often creating a clean and distinctive image.
In web design, the principle of minimalism has been particularly important, and not just due to it informing the way that websites can be presented aesthetically. An uncluttered site design is essential, particularly in an era where most people access the internet through mobile devices. Achieving an uncluttered, functional and clean user interface has been the aim of many web designers for several years now.
A good place to see instances of this is review websites. They convey large amounts of information without overwhelming the reader. If we look at an example of a sportsbook review site (WSN.com), you’ll see It conveys a lot of information about bonuses, promotions and codes in New York. The designers have chosen to go with a minimalistic approach, with small splashes of colour to draw the eye toward rankings, and key information in bold such as the “Best New York Sportsbook Promos” title.
The risk of minimalism in web design, as with fashion, is that the finished product may look plain or even boring, but the best minimalist websites are dynamic and bright, with unnecessary features removed, enabling the best possible user experience while reinforcing the client brand.
The downside of fashion
The fashion industry has a big influence across many sectors, and in the case of web design, that influence isn’t always ideal. While chasing after the latest fashion ideas can help to keep web designs fresh and interesting, there is sometimes a risk that usability and user experience can be harmed through the use of fashionable but ultimately short-lived design quirks.
The top fashion designers are free to allow their imaginations to run wild in designing the fantastic creations seen at the major fashion shows. For website creators, however, the design process is closer to that of high street clothing designers in that practicality and useability must take precedence over pure aesthetics and the pursuit of trends.
The history of website design is littered with abandoned features that were once briefly considered to be at the cutting edge but were swiftly discarded, from splash pages and carousel adverts to floating elements and sidebars. Following fashion blindly can often lead to a poorer user experience, and disappointed clients.
Fashion and website design futures
The pace of technological change in the 21st century makes predictions difficult, but one thing we can be fairly sure of is that AI will have an increasingly significant role to play in both fashion and website design, given the extent to which it has spread through other sectors of the global economy. Can AI ever fully replace the creative skills of fashion and website designers?
Perhaps, but that may be a long way off and however sophisticated the technology becomes, there will always be the need for a creative mind, which is sensitive to colour, pattern, typography and trends, to oversee the design process.
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