Web Design basics are necessary for anyone looking to make a great website with an even better reach. Here are a few such basic principles:

1. Grid systems

This refers to the manner in which textual content and images are arranged in reading material such as all manner of books, magazines and newspapers. Such systems work with high efficiency and have been in place for a long time since. Most Designers who ignore this essential framework see their websites experience catastrophic failures and end up not being read. This concept of responsive dictates the way content appears on devices of various screen sizes. There is a wide range pre-fabricated grid systems for users to choose from.

2. Visual hierarchy

This deals with reading behaviour of people across various geographies, such as reading from left-to-right or right-to-left and top-down. Since in the current day and age, with the bombardment of information on an exponential scale, people usually scan whole web pages rather than actually read them in detail. This brings up the complex set of patterns that users exhibit while reading web pages.

Great web pages get that way by implementing principles of measured reading patterns such as the logo or prime image, along with a call to action, along the axes that a reader would usually scan. These usually assume the shape of an F or a S shape

Beyond that, visual hierarchy is about signalling to readers what should be read first and what should be read next. After page placement, this may involve strategies like font size, spacing, direction and typeface pairing, as well as the use of color highlights.

3. Web-safe fonts

Another great pointer to follow is to use fonts which can be uploaded easily and the ones that are Web-Friendly. For exclusive fonts and font sizes, they have to be inter-converted for certain languages, or else they will show up as random letters and symbols.

Current day sees most fonts be supported by various browsers, while in some cases they are not. The advent of font-face embedding in modern browsers is beneficial for designers the world over.

Here are general rules governing Web Design:

• Serif fonts are for headlines In web design, serif fonts are always used for headlines, because at smaller sizes they become hard to read. Body text should also be generally being sans-serif.

• Keep fonts minimal To minimize clutter, it is advisable to keep the number of different fonts on a website to a bare minimum with Two or three being more than needed. One also has to remember that font files can be pretty big, slowing down the site.

4. Images and colors

It is advisable to keep the colour palette minimal and make sure colours are discernible to people who are colour blind. Movement between the image and existing elements should also be minimal. And last but not the least, keep the file sizes small and make sure the images are licensed.