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Web Design in a Nutshell, eMatter EditionChapter 3Web Design PrinciplesCHAPTER 3
Web Design Principles
for Print Designers
If you are accustomed to designing for print, the Web introduces a number of new
concepts and new ways of doing things. Part of what makes web design unique is
that the pages are displayed on a computer monitor, not paper, requiring famil-
iarity with new color models. In addition, you need to work within the unique
environment of the web browser. The HTML markup language brings its own limi-
tations to the mix.
This chapter discusses some basic web design concepts, which may be new for
print designers or for anyone who is just getting started in web design. It provides
necessary background information about the web environment, including how the
browsers deal with color, graphics, and typography, so that you can make design
decisions that are appropriate to the medium.
Color on the Web
The Web requires designers to think about color in new ways. In part, it means
understanding color in a more technical manner—the appearance of a page can
benefit greatly if a designer knows what’s going on “under the hood.” The pecu-
liarities of working with color in web design are functions of the following simple
principles:
- Monitors.Web pages are displayed on computer monitors, therefore the basic
rules of how computers and monitors handle color apply to web pages as
well. - Browsers.Because browsers have built-in resources for rendering color when
running on systems with limited color display capacity, they can alter the
appearance of the colors in your pages. - HTML.Colors on a web page that are not part of a graphic (for example,
background and text colors) need to be properly identified in the HTML tags