Coming up with an attractive design for a website is not easy! If you want the individual design elements to blend into a harmonious whole, you must choose colors, fonts, and images that complement each other. The trouble, though, is that not everyone has the artistic eye necessary to achieve that harmony. Thankfully, Office Live Small Business comes with pre-built color palettes, design layouts, styles, and design options that are preconfigured by professional graphic designers. You can use these design configurations to build a professional-looking website with just a few mouse clicks.
In this chapter, you'll:
- Choose a theme for your website
- Choose a layout for the design elements in page headers
- Decide where the navigation links will appear on your web pages
- Choose a color scheme for your website
- Choose a font for the text on all your web pages
A website's theme sets its tone. It gives you some sense of what the site is about, even if you haven't read the text. When you see pictures of people in dark suits sitting before computer monitors, for example, you associate the website with some kind of a professional outfit. But if you see pictures of butterflies, playhouses, and bright color schemes, a children's organization of some sort comes to mind.
Office Live Small Business sets the tone of your website by displaying a picture in the site's header. The picture and its physical setting constitute a Theme. The Site Designer offers a large selection of themes that are good for projecting just about any kind of organization. Offer plumbing services? You're covered. Own a garage? No problem! No matter what kind of business you own, you're likely to find a theme that will set the right ambience for your website.
Now that you understand what a theme is, let's go and choose one for your website.