Trends and Examples in Recent Web Design: Big, Informative and Creative Footers

3 Jan 2010

The bottom of the page, the ending for your web design job, the final section. This is footer. The part of the site that, in a classic interpretation, is only for copyright and some links.
We are in the “Internet Era” and a site is no longer a quick presentation for farsighted companies or strange nerds and geeks. Nowadays a web site must work; it should be interactive, it should communicate ideas, it should present in a unique way products and service, it should involve the users. In modern web design, fortunately, designers and user experience developers are saying “NO” to boring and standard footers.

It’s a crime to neglect the natural conclusion of a web site using only a line and some links. A solid, well-designed and promising web site need the perfect header, readable body, great contents, but also an impressive “interactive” footer.

How Visitors Interact with the Footer

It’s really important to understand how visitors interact with the footer and why they go to the bottom of the page.
Users who are looking for more informations about site’s designer and developer, disclaimers, copyright or contact details indeed would find these informations in the footer. Visitors who want to know more about the backstage of the project could scroll to the bottom of the page for learn more about the people and ideas behind the the site and its purpose. As you know, there also some users that scroll and scan without a real objective and they don’t read everything on the page.

It’s clear that we have two main categories of visitors to catch with an impressive footer.

Active Users
They need additional informations. It’s important to collect all the necessary links (about us, contact, licenses, etc…) and data (developer, copyright, CMS, etc… ) to inform these interested readers
Passive Users
They scroll and scan, they are distracted and you need to capture their attention

An amazing, creative, big and informative footer can impress your visitors.

Why You Should Consider a Big and Interactive Footer

There are three essential tips that designer should be consider when it’s the moment of planning how to build the bottom of the web pages.

First of all it should follow the general concept of the design to preserve rithm and to boost the general idea behind the design; separate the footer from the content (using different colors or other techniques) it’s a rule to follow, but the general graphic theme should be homogeneous (in rare cases a drastic change rocks). A big and usable footer layout doesn’t mean a new layout design.
Awesome Footer Design

It’s absolutely necessesary provide additional information about the project, contacts details and quick links to learn more about the site in a clear and clean way. Some users are interested in a deep knowledge and the designer should make accessible and easy-to-find some details that often the common visitors do not find interesting. The perfect place to show these “side-notes”? The footer!
Awesome Footer Design

The real hard work is to make curious distracted and occasional users. We know that the top of the page (first impression) must be perfect and many web sites have stunning headers. Main body with important contents should be readable and usable and well-done web sites display articles, posts and informations in a clean and unique way. So, why not use the footer to put into your web design the “WOW” factor? Be creative, provide interesting links and emphasize your good stuff building a brilliant, big, creative and informative footer layout!
Awesome Footer Design

I think this solution can be really useful to make a constructive and communicative site in modern web design. There are many informations that we can include in the footer, it all depends on the type of web site that you are building. Below a list with some examples that could offer useful cues (don’t forget ordinary informations like copyright and credits).

Sitemap with important pages
Quick “About Us” presentation
Contact details
Simple contact form
Links to useful resources
Breadcrumb
A list with parnters and friends’ websites
Search form
Recent news or posts
Last comments
Relevant categories and tags
Last tweets from Twitter
Links to your social profiles
Back to top button

A good style and a clean layout is essential to any web site design, and if you want to make an usable footer you should build a clever multi-column layout. Use a good typography to highlight hierarchy; make perfect your lists of links with an opportune style and adding icons; improve readability make use of white spaces to separate different blocks and elements. Some benefits of creating a beautiful and usable footer for a site?

Simplify navigation and encourage users to visit new pages
Enhance look and feel and layout design
Promote important pages of your website or other good stuff
Highlight additional informations to learn more about authors, purposes and project
Improve usability
Allow you to free your fantasy and creativity

Don’t forget to stay focused on your purpose, a big and solid footer works if the web site need this solution to achieve its goal. In some cases a huge footer could burden the page irritating the users and deteriorating usability and legibility.
As you can see for PV.M Garage I’ve designed a huge footer. It’s a challenge for me, but I’m sure that it can work to engage user click and visit duration.

Now a showcase of stunning and unique footers. Enjoy it!

Showcase of Creative, Big and Informative Footers

In this inspirational showcase you’ll find great examples of footers. They are big, creative and informative, but in some cases, like The Pixel and Ligne13, they display only credits in the bottom of the page; I’ve decided to present them because however they are big and definitely creative.