Stock In Action

Most clients seem to have a pretty clear idea of what they want you to design. Other clients come to you with nothing more than a business name and high expectations. Coming up with a design idea can be the most difficult step in the process, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the client’s industry. I recently had a forex trader ask me to build him a website. He didn’t have any input, he just wanted “something cool.”

A very common mistake among designers is being more concerned with making the website itself cool rather than making the website fit the product. Emmanuel Rouzic’s photography portfolio is a great example of what should be done. The subject is photography and 99% of the interface is photography. They made the content the interface and did a good enough job of it to win an fwa award (another great source of inspiration by the way)! Your design must fit your content.

Unfortunately, not everything is as visually obvious as photography. Thinking of a visual way to express non-visual concepts is a bit tougher. That’s where stock photography websites come into play. First, I like to get a whole series of keywords associated with the design I’m creating and then plug them into a stock website’s search. I could only think of two or three ways to visually represent currency trading, but istock came up with hundreds. They have enough authors that at least a few of them will be familiar with the industry you’re designing for. I didn’t end up using any of the images I found, but it was an integral step in my design process.  The final product was a direct result of inspiration I received from my searches.