In this feature I try to shed some light on the development process and/or elements of a selected design. By deconstructing the design into layout, typeface, colours & use of images we will hopefully develop a better understand of how the final result was achieved. I feel that this degree of awareness is crucial to a graphic designers development; being able to not only identify the design elements but the rationale behind them.

In this edition of Design Deconstructed (DD) I am going to be highlighting and discussing some of the design issues of WP Remix (http://www.wpremix.com/). Then Hopefully offer some adjustments I would make.

Rbhavesh of WP Remix contacted me a few days ago about deconstructing his design. So here it goes.

WP Remix is a theme for Wordpress which allows the client to use the wordpress dashboard as a website as well as a blog. You’ll see what I mean if you view the demo. The design looks functional and the coding seems robust. Ok onto the design of WPRemix.com.

When you load http://wpremix.com/ you see red, black and white. It’s a solid colour palette that works nicely. The main navigation is at the top and the the content is centered; there are plenty of images and works nicely on a range of resolutions. The first thing I noticed is that the red area is a bit large, it’s quite thick perhaps a rearrangement of images and text could adjust this.

I feel there is a little too much going on. A lot of links and images. I wasn’t sure where to click and if by clicking on one would I then miss something on another page. For example if you scroll down to the bottom, you pass a lot of bullet points, underlined text and other lines and ornament. I think it’s a bit overwhelming. It just feels a bit disjointed.

It needs to be filtered, there is a lot to take in. This presents a problem, there is too much information to take on and thus is self-destructive to the communication of the content. A little like my last sentence, too much communication = confusion. Here are a few examples of too much communication.

29 frequently asked questions is long, I am aware that these are being worked on. So it should be interesting to see what happens.

I like the use of icons (above). Strong iconography can be a great addition to a website, or to any form of communication design. It’s a universal language that upon first glance you understand. However I think there are too many icons and it looses it’s communicative message, it just becomes a pretty picture beside some text.

The navigation/title is pretty small. As I said earlier, if the red area was to be made smaller this would allow some more room for the navigation. Right now it’s a bit cramped and I think it needs more room. I’m not sure if there is a logo for this website, but right now the tiny WP Remix text doesn’t cut it for me. It doesn’t look right, a strong logotype would be nicer than plain white serif text.

Overall the site functions but on some levels it is let down. It has potential and there are many possibilities, but with something such as this I don’t want to totally revise it but rather just make a some slight changes. Particularly regarding the main header/homepage.

Before

After (Make sure you full-view it by clicking)

The Navigation is now much more dominant, as is the title of the site/product. The content is more refined and doesn’t saturate the page with links and text. A simple thing to note, line 85 of index code; there’s an extra ‘>’ where there shouldn’t be. This is nothing but I figured I’d bring attention to it, not because it’s a so essential to the design, but rather because it’s a sign that the site is still being developed, it’s still been worked on and improved to make it a better experience for the end user. Hopefully the design will grow and develop.

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To conclude, overall I like the colour choices and some of the layout decisions, but I still think it need to be pushed a little further in the way of simplicity and away from clutter. It’s over-selling the product. It’s a niche product, 9 times out of 10 people know what they are looking for when they buy something like a WP Theme. You don’t buy one spontaneously. They dont need to be bombarded with information, it should be available but only if it’s request. So what I suggest is a ‘Call-Out’ system, by way of a search bar/faq drop down, that allows visitors (which are also potential customers) to select the kind of information they are shown. Over-selling reminds me of NVIZIO 7-pc Sunlight Collection Pen Set. I think you’ll see what I mean when you watch that.

What do you think? What would you change? if anything?
Let me know what you think and hopefully we can get some constructive discussion. Thanks for reading, I’d recommend some of the related posts below.