Comments on: The Tagline Revisited

By: Naomi

Naomi — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 09:20:55 +0000

I agree that the header is a great place to put a good marketing message. When you put something there, you can pretty much be assured that that will be the first thing that site visitors see. The only drawback I see about it is that they stop looking at it after the home page. So, if you have a different important message on every page, that could be an issue.

We used a similar technique on our site. But instead of putting something terribly important, we tried to do it in such a way that seeing it or not would make or break our message alone. What I mean is that I think the header should reinforce your message, but not be something you have to depend upon too much.

By: Andrew W

Andrew W — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:54:28 +0000

A third reason for more large “branding” headers may be that they work so well for boutique businesses. The three sites Andrew F. references–Vantageous, Navy Blue, and faggly–are small, specialized businesses and each have the same communication goal: communicating the special thing they do as a business. That’s all a boutique firm has to do in the first two seconds.

The same thing would work for most blogs and portfolio sites.

But if we start seeing big headers on search engines, commerce sites, or corporate homepages, then we know its being fetishized. Task-based sites like those–sites where a user wants to do something or find detailed information–would be doing a disservice if they used big headers.

By: j0sh

j0sh — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:38:15 +0000

Best part about the big headers - for example the way they used headers on the Vantageous site - not only does it deliver the message, it also contains the core message or even quick summary of the page your on short and simple. Probably if you’re the type of client who doesn’t have much time. It sort of works like a pitch, I think…

By: Fran Ramodolc

Fran Ramodolc — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 15:30:59 +0000

What would be the general size of big headers? What you would call big, might not necessarily be called big by another designer? So what would be the beginning size width and height wise would one judge a header as big? Shouldn’t we take the download time of header graphics into consideration when creating?
I am a beginik and have been since the late 1990’s. Every time I come across a site that seems to push the envelope, I try to imitate it (not copy) and add my own miserable touch. It always comes up looking amateurish, but heck, what’s a graphically challenged designer to do?

By: j0sh

j0sh — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:26:45 +0000

Width isn’t much of a problem as height would be I think. The heights of the example sites given have a neat looking height, prolly around the 200 - 250 px area. In my opinion pushing the height issue would be around 500px heheh

By: Erica

Erica — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:10:21 +0000

Big headers remind me of magazine design, where your lead-in would be a big gorgeous image with a tantalizing summary of what’s to come.