Designing a site using LEAP™5
Making a LEAP™5 site gives you (or your clients) multiple options in terms of display, function and visual results.
To make the most of the options, there is a minimum set of design styles needed so that all the base level modules can function with a consistent look and feel. Setting these styles, regardless of whether the client plans to use all features right from the start, allows the client the option to become more adventurous with content over time without downplaying a great design and branding.
A LEAP™5 Design needs:
- A front page Skin
- +/- One or more inner page skins (if different then the front page skin)
- Main Menu style (primary, secondary, tertiary, up to 6 levels if required, generally no more then 3 recommended before browsers lose themselves!)
- +/- Side and or footer menus (if required)
- Header styles
- Body copy and special font styles (think about quote style, hints style, feature box, site-themed colour fonts)
- Section break style(s): to differentiate sections on a page (a.k.a. Horizontal rule)
- Image border style(s): to finish the presentation of images or content boxes
- News/Article/Blog list feed styles: dates, titles, authors, description, next item
- +/- News/Article/Blog style for long text areas
- +/- Recent pages (dynamic content area that lists recently viewed pages and provides a link back to that page)
- Search box style: customizable to the client
- Search result box (or page) style: dates, titles, authors, and description
- +/- Tag Page Directory (dynamic content list and brief description that shows links to all pages with the same Tag so provides a faster way to similar content)
- +/- Social media designs for Twitter Pull, Facebook, LinkedIn
- +/- Custom button design to link within content
- Although you can create a CSS style to specify your bulleted (un-ordered) list or numbered (ordered) list, you may want to design a custom bullet if it involves an unusual graphic before the site is programmed. Likewise, designing a custom numbered list can save you time at the content insertion stage.
- Again, the text link styling can be specified by a CSS style, but this can also be designed before programming to save time and to avoid a default 'blue' style that may or maynot work with your design colour palette.
Note: LEAP™5 gives the end user the ability to place content in columns, however if you want to have a design style to those columns, sections or components of the site you may want to design a columns look into the skin.