Give me a day or two, and I am 100% confident I can give you a design or layout for your web project that you will love. The job is easy when I get to start with a blank page that has no limits. It’s even easy when I get to start with a page you already have, and I am just providing a nip/tuck or facelift. But in the past five years of web design, a new question has become part of my design process: “How is this design going to look once I turn it over to the client, and they are controlling the content?”

Many of our clients want to sell products on their websites. Making those products appear in an appealing way in a custom layout is easy when I have ultimate control over the size and shape of each product photo. But what happens when the client is uploading product photos that may or may not follow our guidelines?  This is why now, more than ever, we are designing just as much for what’s not there yet.

This trend has resulted in a page layout that is more open, white and ready to accommodate an array of image styles, shapes, etc. We’ve used these design elements on sites like GiveSimple.com and AllSeasonPlants.com. More white space, a logo on the top of the page and a grid of products to shop – it’s one way to keep an otherwise busy page less hectic.