Why You Should Get Excited About Emotional Branding

Globalization, low-cost technologies and saturated markets are making products and services interchangeable and barely distinguishable. As a result, today’s brands must go beyond face value and tap into consumers’ deepest subconscious emotions to win the marketplace.

The Role Of Brands Is Changing

In recent decades, the economic base has shifted from production to consumption, from needs to wants, from objective to subjective. We’re moving away from the functional and technical characteristics of the industrial era, into a time when consumers are making buying decisions based on how they feel about a company and its offer.
BusinessWeek captured the evolution of branding back in 2001:

“A strong brand acts as an ambassador when companies enter new markets or offer new products. It also shapes corporate strategy, helping to define which initiatives fit within the brand concept and which do not. That’s why the companies that once measured their worth strictly in terms of tangibles such as factories, inventory and cash have realized that a vibrant brand, with its implicit promise of quality, is an equally important asset.”

I’d take it a step further and suggest that the brand is not just an important part of the business — it is the business. As Dale Carnegie says:

“When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion.”

It’s Time To Get Emotional

In a borderless world where people are increasingly doing their research and purchases online (75% of Americans admit to doing so while on the toilet), companies that don’t take their branding seriously face imminent demise.
Enter emotional branding. It’s a highly effective way to cause reaction, sentiments and moods, ultimately forming experience, connection and loyalty with a company or product on an irrational level. That’s the ironic part: Most people don’t believe they can be emotionally influenced by a brand. Why? Because that’s their rational mind at work. People make decisions emotionally and then rationalize them logically. Therefore, emotional branding affects people at a hidden, subconscious level. And that’s what makes it so incredibly powerful.
Neuroscientists have recently made great strides in understanding how the human mind works. In his book Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things, cognitive scientist Donald Norman explains how emotions guide us:

“Emotions are inseparable from and a necessary part of cognition. Everything we do, everything we think is tinged with emotion, much of it subconscious. In turn, our emotions change the way we think, and serve as constant guides to appropriate behavior, steering us away from the bad, guiding us toward the good.”

Emotions help us to rapidly choose between good and bad and to navigate in a world filled with harsh noise and unlimited options. This concept has been reinforced by multiple studies, including ones conducted by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, who examined people who are healthy in every way except for brain injuries that have impaired their emotional systems. Due to their lack of emotional senses, these subjects could not make basic decisions on where to live, what to eat and what products they need.
Emotions are a necessary part of life, affecting how you feel, how you behave and how you think. Therefore, brands that effectively engage consumers in a personal dialogue on their needs are able to evoke and influence persuasive feelings such as love, attachment and happiness.

Creativity Is Critical

What does that mean to marketers? Good ideas are increasingly vital to businesses. And that’s good news for creative professionals and agencies.
A Wall Street Journal article titled “So Long, Supply and Demand” reports:

“Creativity is overtaking capital as the principal elixir of growth. And creativity, although precious, shares few of the constraints that limit the range and availability of capital and physical goods. In this new business atmosphere, ideas are money. Ideas are, in fact, a new kind of currency altogether — one that is more powerful than money. One single idea — especially if it involves a great brand concept — can change a company’s entire future.”

As Napoleon Hill says:

“First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.”

Emotional Branding In Action

Let’s look at some examples of branding and campaigns that go for the heart and, in some cases, hit the mark.

WestJet Christmas Miracle

WestJet Airlines pulled on heartstrings this past holiday season with a video of Santa distributing Christmas gifts to 250 unsuspecting passengers. The Canadian airline expected around 800,000 views but blew their competitors’ campaigns out of the air with more than 35 million views.

How the WestJetters helped Santa spread some Christmas magic to their guests. (Watch on Youtube)

Coca-Cola Security Cameras

While surveillance cameras are known for catching burglaries and brawls, a Coca-Cola ad released during the latest Super Bowl encourages us to look at life differently by sharing happy, moving moments captured on security cameras. You’ll witness people sneaking kisses, dancing and random acts of kindness.

All the small acts of kindness, bravery and love that take place around us, recorded by security cameras. (Watch on Youtube)

Homeless Veteran Time-Lapse Transformation

Degage Ministries, a charity that works with veterans, launched a video showing a homeless US Army veteran, Jim Wolf, getting a haircut and new clothes as part of an effort to transform his life. Degage Ministries told Webcopyplus that Wolf has completed rehab and is turning his life around, and that the video has so far raised more than $125,000, along with increased awareness of and compassion for veterans across the country.

A video of a homeless veteran named Jim, who volunteered to go through a physical transformation in September 2013. (Watch on Youtube)

Creating Emotional Connection

While neuroscientists have only recently made significant strides in understanding how we process information and make decisions, humans have been using a powerful communication tactic for thousands of years: storytelling. It’s a highly effective method to get messages to stick and to get people to care, act and buy.
The stories that truly engage and are shared across the Web are typically personal and contain some aspect of usefulness, sweetness, humor, inspiration or shock. Also, the brand has to be seen as authentic, not manufactured, or else credibility and loyalty will be damaged.
To get the most success in creating an emotional connection with people, stories should explore both brand mystique and brand experience, and the actual product or service should be integrated. A brilliant example is The Lego Movie, released by Warner Bros earlier this year. The Lego brand delivered a masterful story, using its products as the stars. The brand got families and kids around the globe to shovel out well over $200 million for what could be the ultimate toy commercial.
Designers, developers, copywriters and marketers in general should take a page from moviemakers, including the late writer, director and producer Sidney Lumet. He gave the following advice on making movies: “What is the movie about? What did you see? What was your intention? Ideally, if we do this well, what do you hope the audience will feel, think, sense? In what mood do you want them to leave the theater?” The same could be asked when you’re developing a brand story: What do you want the audience to feel?
Even product placement, where everything from sneakers to cars gets flashed on the screen, has evolved into “branded entertainment.” Now, products are worked into scripts, sometimes with actual roles. A well-known example is in the film Cast Away, in which Wilson, a volleyball named after the brand, serves as Tom Hanks’ personified friend and sole companion for four years on a deserted island. When Wilson gets swept away into the ocean and slowly disappears, sad music ensues, and many moviegoers shed tears over… well, a volleyball.

Making Brands Emotional

Connecting people to products and services is not an easy task. It takes careful consideration and planning. US marketing agency JB Chicago found success sparking an emotional connection for Vitalicious, its client in the pizza industry. Its VitaPizza product had fewer calories than any competitor’s, however, its message was getting lost among millions of other messages. Explains Steve Gaither, President of JB Chicago:

We needed to bring that differentiation front and center, letting the target audience, women 25-plus interested in healthy living, know they can eat the pizza they love and miss without consuming tons of calories.

A relationship concept was formed, and a campaign was soon launched with the following key messages: “You used to love pizza. And then the love affair ended. You’ve changed. And, thankfully, pizza has too! Now you and your pizza can be together again.” The agency then tested different ads, each centered on one of the following themes:

• sweepstakes,
• 190 calories,
• gluten-free/natural,
• “You and pizza. Reunited. Reunited and it tastes so good.”

The brand idea outperformed the other ads by a margin of three to one. Bringing a story into the equation resonated with the target audience.
Gaither also shared insight on a current story-building project for StudyStars, an online tutoring company whose brand wasn’t gaining traction. JB Chicago overhauled the brand and created a story to demonstrate that StudyStars is a skills-based tutoring system with a deep, fundamental approach to learning, one that ultimately delivers better outcomes.

“We needed to find and build camp at a place where skills-based tutoring intersects with the unmet needs of the buyer. We needed a powerful brand idea that enables us to claim and defend that space. And we needed to express that idea in a manner that is believable and differentiated.”

Seeking a concept that would look, feel, speak and behave differently, JB Chicago crafted the brand idea “Master the Fundamentals.” It suggests that learning is like anything else: You have to walk before you can run, or else you will fall. So, the agency is setting up a campaign, including a video, to show that students who fall behind in school due to weak learning of the fundamentals don’t just fall behind in the classroom — their struggles affect every other aspect of their lives.
Here’s a snippet of the drafted script:

Title: Pauline’s Story

We see a beautiful little girl in a classroom. Pauline. She is 8 years old. We can also see that she’s a little lost.
A quick shot of the teacher at the chalkboard, teaching simple multiplication, like 9 × 6. Back to Pauline. She’s not getting it.
We see Pauline again at age 12, again in class. She is looking at a math quiz. It’s been graded. She got a D.
There’s a sign hanging from her neck. The sign says “I never learned multiplication.”
We see Pauline again, now at 15. She is home. Her parents are screaming at each other about her poor academic performance. The sign around her neck is still there. “I never learned multiplication.”
We see a young waitress in a dreary coffee shop. It takes us a few seconds to realize that it’s Pauline, age 18. She is tallying a customer’s check.
A close shot of the check. Pauline is trying to calculate the tax. She can’t do it, so she consults a cheat sheet posted nearby. She’s still wearing the sign. “I never learned multiplication.”
She figures the tax out and brings the check over to an attractive collegiate-looking couple, who thank her and head for the door. She watches them leave.
Their life is everything hers is not. Their future is everything hers will never be. Slate (text) states StudyStars’ case, and the video ends with an invitation to visit studystars.com.

JB Chicago created a story that draws us in and links to emotions — possibly hope, fear, promise, hope, security and other feelings — according to the person’s mindset, experience, circumstance and other factors. The key is that it gets to our hearts.

Emotional Triggers

Different visitors connect to and invest in products and services for different reasons. To help you strike an emotional chord with your audience, veteran marketer Barry Feig has carved out 16 hot buttons in Hot Button Marketing: Push the Emotional Buttons That Get People to Buy:

• Desire for control
• I’m better than you
• Excitement of discovery
• Revaluing
• Family values
• Desire to belong
• Fun is its own reward
• Poverty of time
• Desire to get the best
• Self-achievement
• Sex, love, romance
• Nurturing response
• Reinventing oneself
• Make me smarter
• Power, dominance and influence
• Wish-fulfillment

How Does It Make You Feel?

As emotional aspects of brands increasingly become major drivers of choice, it would be wise for designers, content writers and other marketers to peel back customers’ deep emotional layers to identify and understand the motivations behind their behavior.
So, the next time you ask someone to review your design or content, maybe don’t ask, “What do you think?” Instead, the smarter question might be:
“How does it make you feel?”

How to design for the multi-device future

Designing for the vast array of phones and tablets that have emerged over the last few years has proved challenging enough, but now there’s a new category of device to consider.
Over the last 18 months we’ve seen an explosion in the number and variety of connected devices, such as wearable technology like the Fitbit, which tracks physical activity, home control like the Nest thermostat and smoke alarm, and even toys that read messages from you to your children.
These new types of devices bring new design challenges that require fresh thinking, so the Global Society for Digital Marketing Innovators (SoDA) has arranged to get some of the best minds in the business together to discuss the opportunities that this new age of connectedness presents.

Audience participation

Confirmed speakers so far include Michael Lebowitz, Founder and CEO of Big Spaceship, Adobe Systems engineering manager Christian Cantrell and Harley Block of Rokkan. In a session that encourages audience participation and includes a panel discussion, the group will explore how these new technologies can be used to create meaningful experiences that will improve our lives.
The purpose of wearable technologies has so far been focussed mainly around the realm health and fitness, but there are other promising uses for these devices that will be discussed. The most recent SoDA report, which is one of the most widely read trend publications, will also be unveiled during the event
You can sign up for this SoDA session here. It takes place at the Art Directors Club in New York, starting at 9.30am on 24 April.

Introducing Jelly Navigation Menu: When Canvas Meets PaperJS

It’s our great pleasure to support active members of the Web design and development community. Today, we’re proud to present the Jelly Navigation Menu that shows the power of PaperJS and TweenJS when used together. This article is yet another golden nugget of our series of various tools, libraries and techniques.
There is no doubt that the Web helps designers and developers find the best inspiration and resources for their projects. Even though there are a bunch of different tutorials and tips available online, I feel that HTML5 canvas techniques are missing the most. Good news: I had the chance to fulfill this wide gap. In this article, I would like to share my experience and story of how I brought the “Jelly Navigation Menu” to life. Credits go to Capptivate.co and Ashleigh Brennan’s icons — they were my inspiration for this project.

Before We Start

The source code for this project was originally written in CoffeeScript — I believe it’s a better way to express and share JavaScript code that way. I will refer to CoffeScript’s source in code sections within this post and you’ll also notice links to CodePens that have been rewritten in JavaScript and represent local parts of code as well. I recommend downloading the source code on GitHub so you can easily follow me while I explain the necessary code in detail.
I used PaperJS for the canvas graphics and TweenJS for the animations. Both of them tend to freak out some folks, but don’t worry, they are really intuitive and easy to understand. If you’d like to learn how to set up PaperJS and TweenJS environments, you can fork this cool bootstrap pen for online fun or this git repo if you want to experiment locally.

A preview of the Jelly Navigation Menu.

First Step: Changing The Section Shape

Our first aim is to change the menu section shape by manipulating the curves. Every object is made up of anchor points. These points are connected with each other by curves. So each point has “In” and “Out” handles to define the location and direction of specific curves. Folks who work with vector editors should feel comfortable with this step.

In Paper.js, paths are represented by a sequence of segments that are connected by curves. A segment consists of a point and two handles, defining the location and direction of the curves. See the handles in action.
All we need to do is to change the handleOut position of the top-left and bottom-right points. To achieve this, I wrote simple so-called “toppie” and “bottie” functions:

toppie:(amount)->
  @base.segments[1].handleOut.y = amount
  @base.segments[1].handleOut.x = (@wh/2)

bottie:(amount)->
  @base.segments[3].handleOut.y = amount
  @base.segments[3].handleOut.x = - @wh/2

# @wh/2 is section center.
# @base variable holds section's rectangle path.

It’s important to set the handle’s X position to exactly the middle of the section, so that the curve will turn out to be symmetrical.

Second Step: Calculating The Scrolling Speed

So the next thing that needs to be done is to calculate the scrolling speed and direction, and then pass this data to the bottie and toppie functions. We can listen to the container’s scrolling event and determine the current scrolling position (in my case the “container” is a #wrapper element whereas it is a window object in the pen examples).

# get current scroll value
window.PaperSections.next = window.PaperSections.$container.scrollTop()

# and calculate the difference with previous scroll position
window.PaperSections.scrollSpeed = (window.PaperSections.next - window.PaperSections.prev)

# to make it all work, all we have left to do is to save current scroll position to prev variable
window.PaperSections.prev = window.PaperSections.next

This is repeated for every scrolling event. In this code snippet, window.PaperSections is just a global variable. I also made a few minor additions in my implementation:

• A silly coefficient to increase scroll speed by multiplying it by 1.2 (just played around with it),
• I sliced the scroll speed result by its maximum so that it is not larger than sectionHeight/2,
• I also added a direction coefficient (it could be 1 or -1, you can change it in dat.gui on the top right of the page). This way you can control the reaction direction of sections.

Here is the final code:

if window.PaperSections.i % 4 is 0
  direction = if window.PaperSections.invertScroll then -1 else 1
  window.PaperSections.next = window.PaperSections.$container.scrollTop()
  window.PaperSections.scrollSpeed = direction*window.PaperSections.slice 1.2*(window.PaperSections.next - window.PaperSections.prev), window.PaperSections.data.sectionheight/2
  window.PaperSections.prev = window.PaperSections.next
  window.PaperSections.i++

In this example, if window.PaperSections.i % 4 is 0 helps us react on every fourth scroll event — similar to a filter. That function lives in window.PaperSections.scrollControl.
That’s it! We’re almost done! It couldn’t be any easier, right? Try out the scrolling here.

Step Three: Make It Jelly!

In this final step, we need to animate the toppie and bottie functions to 0 with TweenJS’ elastic easing everytime the scrolling stops.

3.1 Determine When Scrolling Stops

To do this, let’s add the setTimeout function to our window.PaperSections.scrollControl function (or scroll) with 50ms delay. Each time when the scrolling event fires up, the Timeout is cleared except for the last one, i.e. once scrolling stops, the code in our timeout will execute.

clearTimeout window.PaperSections.timeOut
window.PaperSections.timeOut = setTimeout ->
  window.PaperSections.$container.trigger 'stopScroll'
  window.PaperSections.i = 0
  window.PaperSections.prev = window.PaperSections.$container.scrollTop()
    , 50

The main focus here is the window.PaperSections.$container.trigger stopScroll event. We can subscribe to it and launch the animation appropriately. The other two lines of code are simply being used to reset helper variables for later scrollSpeed calculations.

3.2 Animate Point’s handleOut To “0”

Next, we’ll write the translatePointY function to bring our jelly animation to life. This function will take the object as a parameter with the following key-value sets:

{
  // point to move (our handleOut point)
  point: @base.segments[1].handleOut,

  // destination point
  to: 0,

  // duration of animation
  duration: duration
}

The function body is made up of the following:

translatePointY:(o)->
  # create new tween(from point position) to (options.to position, with duration)
  mTW = new TWEEN.Tween(new Point(o.point)).to(new Point(o.to), o.duration)

  # set easing to Elastic Out
  mTW.easing TWEEN.Easing.Elastic.Out
        
  # on each update set point's Y to current animation point
  mTW.onUpdate ->
    o.point.y = @y

  # finally start the tween
  mTW.start()

The TWEEN.update() function also has to be added to every frame of the PaperJS animation loop:

onFrame = ->
  TWEEN.update()

Also, we need to stop all animations on scrolling. I added the following line to the scroll listener function:

TWEEN.removeAll()

Finally, we need to subscribe to the stopScroll event and launch the animations by calling our translatePointY function:

window.PaperSections.$container.on 'stopScroll', =>
  # calculate animation duration
  duration = window.PaperSections.slice(Math.abs(window.PaperSections.scrollSpeed*25), 1400) or 3000

  # launch animation for top left point
  @translatePointY(
    point:      @base.segments[1].handleOut
    to:           0
    duration: duration
  ).then =>
    # clear scroll speed variable after animation has finished
    # without it section will jump a little when new scroll event fires
    window.PaperSections.scrollSpeed = 0
         
  # launch animation for bottom right point
  @translatePointY
    point:      @base.segments[3].handleOut
    to:           0
    duration: duration

Et voilà!

Note: In my source code of the translatePointY function, I added a deferred object for chaining, optional easing and onUpdate function. It is omitted here for the sake of simplicity.

In Conclusion

Last but not least, a class for the sections has to be added. Of course, you can make as many instances of it as you like; you just need to define initial Y offset and colors. Also, you will need to make sure that the section in your layout has the same height as the section in canvas. Then we can just apply translated3d to both on the scroll event and animations. This will cause HTML sections to move properly, just like the canvas sections, and hence produce a realistic animation.

The reason why we need to use translate3d instead of translateY is to make sure that Webkit rendering engines use hardware acceleration while rendering them, so we do not drop out of the 60fps animation budget. But keep your eyes wide open if your sections contain any text. 3D transforms will drop anti-aliasing from subpixel to grayscale, so it may look a bit blurry!

How & When to Build Website Content using Tables

Back in time over a decade ago, web development was still living through its infancy. Developers would commonly build website layouts constructed with HTML4 tables, and this was standard practice most of the time. When CSS finally grew into popularity precedents began to change. It was now easier for developers to use div elements and position everything with CSS stylesheets.

But even following modern practices of HTML5/CSS3 we can still find a use for tables. The specifications haven’t changed much since HTML4 and with good reasoning. In this article I’d like to share a few techniques and ideas for when you should be using tables in your webpages. We can also look into where tables will be going in the future of content on the Internet.

Historical Origins

Tables were originally the best solution for website layouts because of their flexibility. Developers wanted to support all screen resolutions and tables could handle these additional attributes. These include the width attr which was specified in a percentage value. This means your table rows would adjust naturally based on a percentage of the browser window.
Fluid-width layouts were very popular since design aesthetics have not always been as influential. As CSS became more prevalent it didn’t make sense to style webpages using table attributes anymore. Each row of data had to be split by <tr> tags which would eventually feel bulky and abnormal.

But this formatting has continued to this day with modern HTML5 tables. You can read a bit more about the HTML table element from W3Schools excellent resources page. There is also a list of related tags and optional attributes correlated with formatting tables.

How To Display Tabular Data

By far the most common useage of modern tables is when formatting tabular data. This may seem like a no-brainer but I have run into countless developers who simply loathe tables. It’s like an all-or-nothing relationship where you either use them or you don’t. This is a horrible attitude since you’re fighting against the natural order!
HTML tables are great for data listings, catalogs, image galleries, products, or anything with a similar block-style layout. You’ll be able to create these pages using CSS but it’s going to require a litany of additional properties. So why even go with that route if it requires additional work?
Tables can naturally be split into core sections with a header, body, and footer. This schematic follows any traditional layout where you’ll have some header rows to define the datatypes, followed by a long list of data rows. Adding a footer is completely optional but it can be used for some type of legend or table key index.

Formatted Table Captions

Another newer addition with HTML5 are table captions which hover towards the top of the page. These fields are often inside the table element yet right before you open any new content rows. It’s almost like a header to define the content found inside your table listing.
To scale this out even further you can add a whole descriptive block of text defining your table output. The newer HTML5 tags for details and summary are ultimately optional but very useful. I can think of various corporate environments where you need to describe various bits of data and share it onto a public webpage.

This extra content is beneficial not just for the end user, but also for search engine crawlers. Captions are considered much like table headers and the summary description is a good way to load up related keywords. Again these are completely optional tags, but they can exert a large effort towards keeping your webpage organized.

Dynamic JS Effects

Tables can be even cooler if you pair JavaScript libraries into your layout. It’s possible to allow users functionality such as drag-and-drop, inline editing, and so much more. Think of all the different pricing tables or member lists you’ve ever seen. All those layouts can be created custom from scratch and even optimized using tables.

One of my favorite scripts is named Tablecloth which is a completely dynamic open source solution based on JavaScript. By including a copy of the CSS/JS files you can add hover functionality to any table element in your webpage. As you mouse over table cells you’ll see a highlighted row and column effect matching your current position.
The extensibility of these scripts only adds to the growing collection of open source solutions perfectly formatted to be used by more advanced frontend web developers.

How to Determine Proper Situations?

It can be difficult figuring out which situations require a table in your layout. I very rarely use them except for content which is often formatted into rows. One reason this works well is because you don’t need to adjust floating divs and create “artificial” rows in your markup.
Tabular data can be found in almost every website so it’s not cheating to use divs or other markup instead. Tables are beneficial to developers who understand why they’re using that markup and how you can format rows & columns together. Tabular layouts are perfect for galleries with smaller thumbnails linking to full images, videos, whatever.

I would argue the largest reason to not use tables is when formatting your overall website layout. The newer HTML5 header, footer, nav, and section elements fit the roles much better. But understand there is no “wrong” area to use tables in your content. It ultimately boils down to personal preferences and what you feel comfortable designing into your markup.

Conclusion

Tables are still just as relevant in web design today as they have ever been over the years. Developers have evolved and found better tools for creating entire website layouts. But this has also guided new semantics which follow content as the primary motivator in web development.
I hope this article can provide some deeper insight for newer web developers. It’s true that almost nobody suggests building an entire website with tables anymore. But it’s also true that nobody is ruling out tables as a deprecated element. There is a purpose for every bit of website markup and following these standards will get you more experience as a skilled web developer.

Do not make your website header scary – Tips to make it beautiful

Since header of a website takes up a significant portion of the above the fold section, it makes perfect sense to make it look as simple and beautiful as possible. Failing to do so may result in drastic increase in bounce rate. So, quite obviously, it is the header that can make or break the whole thing. An interesting and engaging header will go a long way to ensure a better web presence and happy users ‘s experience, whereas a dull header image can kill the whole thing and even in some worse cases, make the visitors hate your website. You certainly do not want this right? Of course, you do not. So make your task easy, here we are going to share some tips that can help you have a great, if not jaw dropping header image for your website:

Try Something New

The same old and boring rectangular header image is not going to help your website getting cozy with the targeted audience. You need to go extra mile with the header and come up with something that makes your website look out of the box. Visit some popular sites like CSS mania, CSS award and try to get some inspirations from the websites that are featured there. Once you are filled with creative juice and confident, you should go for something new, something that people have never experienced before. However, if you are still clueless where to start, here we are going to share some tips that you can give it a go:

Submerge

This is a unique way to make your website header looks irresistibly beautiful and awesome. Rather than going for the same rectangular header image that does not fit with the rest of the other elements of the website, you can simply blend the header with the background color of the website. All you have to do is to make the header look a part of the entire design by merging it, as far as possible, with the rest of the web design. This can be done by making it look less complicated or by using background color gradient. However, you are free to add your own creativity in the process.

Break The Rules

jQuery and flash are both good to add interactivity in the website header and there is no denying of the fact that they are quite popular among website designers. But the fact is that, jQuery and flash are now being used by almost all website designers and therefore, they do not have the element of surprise that can hook on the attention of visitors. So, it makes sense to use a combination of both dynamic and static header to make the whole experience unique and interesting to the targeted visitors. However, I am not asking you to remove Flash and jQuery from you designing toolbox. Rather what I am saying is that you should try other verticals so the outcome looks impressive.

Huge Header

Large header is now in the vogue as it gives ample opportunities to designer to come up with something awesome and to give wings to his creativity. However, it has a risk associated with it. Yeah, it will take up almost 90% of above the fold section and that means, if anything goes wrong, your website will suffer badly. But do not feel despondent because there are some glorious examples available to inspire you.

Use Illustrated Character

Use of illustrated character is another great way to break free from the prevalent web design trend. However, it has its share of shortcoming. You have to work hard to your bone to make the illustrated character look good, otherwise the whole effort will go wasted.