I’m considering the use a Full Background design for a small, custom home builder who’s only been in business for a few years. Because they’re new they don’t have a lot of images of their homes, but the ones they do have are pretty awesome.
The only reason I’m hesitating is because I’ve been keeping an eye on their competition, one of which is Ryan Homes, a national homebuilder. About six months ago Ryan completely re-designed their website and went with a homepage design that incorporated the use of full background images. Quite frankly, I thought it was pretty cool.
Fast forward to today and the original, full background design has been replaced with a more traditional design. Since they likely hired a website design team with a whole lot more combined experience then me, I began to wonder why they may have reverted back to something more traditional. I also noticed that Dewberry recently did the same.
Are there inherent problems or browser compatibility issues with website designs that incorporate large, scalable images?
I began to wonder why they may have reverted back to something more traditional
I think it is perhaps a case of what the expectation is in that market. I did some visual audits a while ago for a roofing company with offices all around Georgia, Virginia and the Carolinas and and it seems that the look and feel of the Ryan site is is what they aspire to in that part of the world.
Maybe its is not a bad idea for your client to go with the big background to set themselves apart as the new kid on the block - it all depends on how they want their brand to be perceived. One of our services, is to do a brand strategy session with our clients to figure how they want to talk about themselves, do they want to be perceived as hip, trendy, modern, conservative etc. Helps a lot in developing the content and look and feel of a website.
Thanks Marcel. Yes, we do the same.We call it a “Discovery Meeting.” In this particular case the owners are friends and trust me implicitly, so I’m pretty much left to do whatever I think is best.
I’m actually glad Ryan stopped using that design style because it allows me to do the same without looking like I ripped somebody off. Still, one has to wonder why they discontinued its use.
