Get the Look Chic Simplicity

Chic simplicity. What exactly is “chic simplicity,” you ask? It is somewhat of an oxymoron: simple yet sophisticated. The design exudes simplicity through its forms, fonts, and layout, and sophistication through its textures, details, and tastefulness. It’s a fantastic “look” that can be used for almost every genre of websites: a professional, yet hip, corporate site; a stylish, yet clean, commercial site; or just a fun and colorful personal site. Whichever style you’re going for, this “look” will fit.

Download the Guides

Download Chic Simplicity Part 1 / Colors and Fonts / 47 kb
Download Chic Simplicity Part 2 / Techniques and Wrap-up / 113 kb

Colors

Colors that will give you the “chic simplicity” look are usually very bright, lively, and fun. To tone down the high values, meaning high brightness, of the colors, use tints and shades of gray, especially a dark gray to anchor the design and a light gray to give the design a clean and airy feeling. The grays will suit the vivid colors perfectly. Think of this principle in terms of an outfit. If you are going to wear an orange shirt, you want to wear a pair of dark pants to complement the brightness of the shirt.

Now it’s time to decide on a color scheme. Here’s the equation that will give you a perfect color combination every time:

   dark gray
+ light gray
+ color #1
+ color #2: tint or shade of color #1
+ color #3: complementary color of color #1
= the perfect color scheme!

Therefore, going by the numbered “Colors to Consider” in the guide, combining colors one, two, five, six, and eight will give you the chic and simple look that you’re aiming for. I’m telling you, this will work every time! Just use the colors in the guide to help you.

Fonts

When trying to obtain chic simplicity, you obviously want to keep things clean and simple. So, when choosing a font it is usually good to shy away from serif fonts. Serifs are very decorative and normally will not reflect the look that we’re trying to achieve, therefore I have chosen sans-serif fonts such as Century Gothic, Futura, and Gill Sans. They’re all very slick, clean, and stylish.

Well, now that you know the rule, we can go ahead break it. You’ll notice that there are a couple serif fonts in the list, namely Apple Garamond and Gloucester. Although they have serifs, they exude a certain tailored look that works well with the chic and simple look we are going for.

Another rule of thumb I discovered is that condensed fonts will usually be better at helping you achieve this look than their normal (i.e. not condensed) counterparts. When you condense a font, it’s almost like it loses weight, resulting in an overall sleeker look.

Techniques

1. Simple, Sectioned, Block Layouts

A great way to lay out your page is to use color. Now that you have chosen a color scheme, simply use those colors to section off blocks of content, and note what content will go in each block. Some basic sections to think about are the background, top or side navigation bars, a header, and the main content area, where white usually works best. Doing this will make it easier to come up with a final layout and will guarantee a clean result.

2. One Crisp, Large, Central Photograph

Using one, large photograph is the perfect way to add a punch of color to your webpage. Choose vibrant photographs that work well with your color scheme by having either similar hues or complementary hues.

If you are having trouble finding a photograph that works well with your design, ask yourself the following questions: What color from my color scheme do I want my photograph to represent? What is something, anything, that is that color? So, say your answer to the first question was red. Then, your answer to the second question might be strawberries, raspberries, or big red balloons. Now you know exactly what to look for. When using this method, close-ups and extreme close-ups (macros) are great, such as the example photograph of a basket of raspberries, because you can concentrate on one or two colors and they will give your design texture and vibrance.

3. Simple, Readable Navigation

We’re going for chic simplicity, so simple navigation is the way to go. It is extremely usable, very clean, and allows for an easy change if you ever find yourself wanting to redesign. Check out Dan Cederholm’s CSS tabs, CSS mini-tabs, and CSS mini-tab shapes for more!

4. Transparency and Layers

Overlapping objects that have been made slightly transparent is an easy way to add color and texture to your site. First, draw a shape, fill it with a color from your color scheme, and change its opacity, which is usually possible in some sort of “Layers” window, to somewhere around 50%. Repeat this step with a different shape, but the color the opacity should remain the same.

Once you have all of your shapes drawn, overlap them in a fun pattern. Every time two of the objects overlap, their colors will mix and produce a darker shade. The key here is to experiment! Try using different shapes, colors, and opacities.

5. Tight Text, Using Kerning

Sometimes text, especially when using condensed fonts, just looks too spaced out. The solution? Kerning. Found in the “Character” window in Photoshop and in the “Text Editor” window in Fireworks, kerning will often give your text an even cleaner, slicker look. Want proof? Compare the two columns in the guide and you’ll see that the kerned text looks more polished and refined.

6. White Space

White space is something that is very often overlooked when, in fact, it is one of the most important factors in making a good design look even better. White space can be achieved by increasing the leading or line-height, the space between each line of text, and by padding your blocks of content with anywhere from fifteen to two hundred pixels of blank space. Read more about white space in this great article at Design Matters.

7. Pixel Icons

Though very tiny, pixel icons are a fun and noticeable detail that are easy to incorporate and will add some subtle interest. Use them in place of the standard bullet in your lists, or place one at the end of each section of content, like magazines do at the end of each article.

8. All Lowercase or All Uppercase Text

Changing the case of your text is very easy and adds interest because of the simple fact that it is different than the standard capitalize-first-letter-of-each-word method. A great way of doing this is to implement CSS by using the text-transform property, with either uppercase or lowercase as the value.

9. Subtle Drop Shadows

Drop shadows have a bad reputation because they are so often misused, but when used subtly and correctly, they add a nice touch to any design. In the first example, a very faint and soft drop shadow is used to make the text pop off the background. In the second example, a faint, yet crisp, drop shadow adds dimension and interest. As always, experiment!

Putting It All Together

By simply combining many of the techniques explained above, I quickly and easily created this example webpage design. Notice how well the vibrant colors work with the calmer grays, and how the different sections of the page are distinguished using colors. The photograph in the header adds a ton of texture while, at the same time, incorporating a vibrant blue, one of the colors from the color scheme. The navigation is simple, yet stylish, making it easy for one to find their way around the site, and the pixel arrows are much cooler than standard bullets. The abundance of white space makes the page look very refined, not cluttered, and will make browsing the content easier for the viewers. And finally, the all lowercase navigation is extremely subtle, but a nice change from capitalization. In the end, we have a webpage that perfectly defines chic simplicity. Enjoy!

Get the Look UltraHip

Sometimes you want your design to be vibrant… to scream. UltraHip is just the look. It’s very sleek and ultra contemporary. Think posh night clubs in Los Angeles, Paris, or New York City: vivid colors set off by charcoal grays, combining to form atmospheres that encourage dancing, partying, and lots of fun. Use this look to bring a personal site or blog to life, or for a hip corporation whose target audience is of a younger age group. Have fun with this one!

Download the Guides

Download UltraHip Part 1 / Colors and Fonts / 39 kb
Download UltraHip Part 2 / Techniques and Wrap-up / 110 kb

Colors

UltraHip colors are a great deal of fun to work with. Both vibrant and alive, they seem to jump out of your screen. Try using colors that you would normally consider “on the edge” - colors that you would normally be too nervous to choose. When deciding on colors, try this: add the word “hot” or “neon” before the general name of a color, then go searching. For example, hot pink, neon green, hot orange, and so on. To avoid having too many fluorescents, choose some hues that have an almost glassy feel, such as a very pale gray with a hint of magenta or aqua.

When putting together a scheme of UltraHip colors, there are two ways to go. The first is to use colors of the same hue. A good thing about this method is that you can use 4 or 5 colors without overdoing it. Why? Because the colors aren’t competing with each other: they’re complementing each other. The lighter hues are balanced by the darker hues, and the brighter hues are balanced by the less saturated hues.

The second method for choosing an UltraHip color scheme is to take colors that you never thought would look good together and put them to use. You’ll be surprised at how “hip” the result will be. Good colors to work with are beige or brown. Both are often seen as unattractive colors that don’t work well with bright colors, but you’ll get a very modern look if you use them with a flashy color: magenta and beige, aqua and brown, bright blue and beige — they all yell HIP!

Fonts

As I was putting together a collection of UltraHip fonts, I began to realize that it was really just a bunch of fonts from different design styles. For example, “Magneto” and “Deftone Stylus” are both very retro fonts, but they are so in a hip way. In short: don’t limit yourself to simple, modern fonts. Vintage styles are beginning to show up all over the place nowadays, and the look has slowly transgressed into “hip.” It’s cool to be old. Also make use of cool script fonts, tiny pixel fonts, and graphical fonts like “Ravie” and “Grotto.”

Techniques

1. Monochromatic Design

I touched on this in the color section, and here’s an example. Notice that I’ve used 4 different hues of a magenta-ish color, but the design doesn’t scream “Four colors, too many!” This is because the different hues each play their own role, and together provide a good balance between light and dark. Try this technique with any UltraHip color, adjusting only the luminosity until you’re happy with the resulting hue. When you’re done, you’ll even have room to throw in a completely new, complementary hue. In this case I migh choose a teal color.

2. Variation in Font Size and Layered Text

This is not only a great technique, but also extremely easy to accomplish. Begin with a phrase - a good example would be your company’s tagline. Take the phrase and split it up into small sections of one or two words. Keep important words by themselves, but combine less meaningful words such as “and” or “the.” To put emphasis on the more important words, make the font size larger, shrink the unimportant words, or make some words smaller and others larger — just experiment!

It also works well to use variations of the same hue, such as a pale teal and a dark blue-green. To finish, put the words in the correct order, playing around with their positioning until you’re satisfied. This technique is based on contrast — big and small, dark and light. Try overlapping the words and adding some transparency to get a nice layered effect.

3. 1-pixel Border, Slightly Darker than Fill

No explanation needed: just do what it says! It’s a subtle technique, but it will have a noticeable impact on the final design.

4. Use of Color to Distinguish Sections

You’ve just taken the time to decide on an awesome, UltraHip color scheme, and you want to put it to more use than just your logo? Well, don’t be afraid — go for it! Take each color and use it to distinguish a certain section of your page. For example, one color could be the theme of your navigation, another could be the focus of your header, and the last could be used for the news section. Then just throw in a pale gray behind the content and you’re set!

This technique will not only look good — it’ll heighten the usability of your site by allowing visitors to more easily make their way around your page. Note the 1px border coming into play with this technique.

5. Dashed/Dotted Lines and Borders

Is it just me or has this technique showed up quite a bit? Apparently quite a versatile technique, it can easily add yet another modern tinge to your site. With CSS, you’ll have dashed or dotted border in no time.

6. Photographs: Monotone and/or High Contrast

This technique takes only a few seconds in Photoshop, but will leave a powerful impact on the overall look of your site. Just use your favorite graphic program to colorize your photos and increase the contrast. With this technique, you can make almost any image appear to be cutting-edge. Don’t forget your color scheme when colorizing the photo! It’s a great way to catch a visitor’s interest, without adding hundreds of new colors to your precious combination of hues.

7. Simple Logo - Less is more!

One of the biggest mistakes in logo design is to make things too complicated. Keep - it - simple! Less is very often more, especially when trying to achieve the UltraHip look. Again, try using variations of the same hue to maintain a minimalistic look. Pixel fonts are a great way to add texture or a small message. In the “AP Records” logo I created, I used just one hue and simple effects to create a logo with a bold message — music!

Putting It All Together

Here I created a sample webpage using only the colors, fonts, and techniques mentioned above. Notice how easy it is to distinguish each section from the others, making it very easy to find your way around. The 1-pixel, slightly darker borders are subtle, but they scream UltraHip. A number of different colors come together here, yet they’re not overpowering — balance is key. Take a look at the custom buttons. By using a lighter hue of the original color on which the buttons appear, they pop without taking over the section. By combining a number of simple techniques with a few tips on color, we’ve achieved one very hip design!