What We Can Learn About Web Design From Designer Swimwear

trends, I don't spend hundreds of dollars on my clothes, and I certainly don't get complimented on my sartorial style. As a result, it came as somewhat of a surprise to me when I was contacted by Michelle, the owner of Jolidon Designer Swimwear, to work with her on her website on both the design and marketing aspects of it. Upon further reflection, however, I realized that there are a lot of similarities in the design and marketing of both swimwear and websites.
Simple Color Schemes with High Contrast Ratios
Most swimsuits use no more than four solid colors, which are selected to both complement and contrast with one another. The most common color scheme is black and white, which provides the maximum contrast ratio.
Implementing a high contrast ratio is not only a web design best practice, but it's also one of the criteria required to meet Level 2 (AA) and Level 3 (AAA) web accessibility standards. Juicy Studio has developed a terrific tool called the Luminosity Color Contrast Ratio Analyser, designed to help webmasters select sufficiently contrasting colors for their designs.
Simple, Clear Naming Conventions
In order to understand both Jolidon's competitors and the swimwear marketplace more clearly, I went into several department and swimwear stores and examined their product naming conventions. To my surprise, they were quite simplistic:
· Striped Monokini
· Black Bikini
· Red Tankini
When designing/developing product websites, we as webmasters should use similar naming conventions. They're perfect from an SEO point of view because they concisely describe the products and incorporate generic keywords and phrases without being spammy, and they're perfect from the user point of view because they concisely describe the products and incorporate keywords that users would commonly use to describe the products.
A Variety of Styles
Monokinis, bikinis, tankinis, one-piece swimsuits, summer dresses, bandeaus, deep plunge necklines, thong style, moderate coverage area...there are a myriad of different designer swimwear styles presently available, and as time passes by more styles will make their way into the mainstream. One may also choose from solid colors, stripes, floral patterns, geometric patterns, Swarovski crystals, and non-standard patterns such as spider webs.
When designing websites, we should also be willing and flexible enough to accommodate a variety of styles as well. We have liquid layouts, fixed-width layouts, one-column layouts, two-column layouts, three-column layouts, four-column layouts, header menus, footer menus, left side menus, right side menus, dynamic two-or-three-tiered menus, solid backgrounds, patterned backgrounds, and many more design concepts at our disposal, and we should be prepared to use any or all of them as needed.
Constant Evolution
Designer swimwear is an ever-changing industry. As soon as the swimwear season is over, designers are hard at work coming up with next season's trendy new swimsuits.
As web designers, we need to be aware of the constant evolution of both web design as a whole and of our competitors within our respective industries.
We Can Learn from the Designer Swimwear Industry
Studying the designer swimwear industry can teach us much about best practice when it pertains to web design, and we should make a conscious effort to implement as many of the lessons it teaches us as possible.