This zine is written, designed and developed by Núria Gispert.
Images from RawPixel and Unsplash. Free Icons from Streamline.
Creating a digital home is a very personal process that is different for everyone, because of different technical skills, different content & different styles. Every person will create their home differently, which means every digital home is unique!
This guide aims to offer suggestions and advice, but you’re free and encouraged to explore and shape your own process of creation.
The steps in this guide
Before jumping into designing and building, take time to reflect. Set a clear intention by understanding what you want this space to be for you. This first step will help you understand your why.
It’s also helpful to think about your current internet presence. What do you have out there already, and what parts of that could you have in your digital home?
Look inward
What is at the core of who you are?
How am I, as a human?
What do I enjoy creating/learning about/sharing/doing?
What inspires me?
Look outward
The digital world
Experimental websites, internet art, design platforms, portfolios…
The real world
Nature, architecture, editorial design, interior design, posters, zines…
The imaginative world
Abstract ideas, dreams, thoughts, spiritual or mystical ideas, metaphors…
Build a visual moodboard or collect references that inspire you.
Then notice what you’re drawn to; which colors, layouts, fonts, vibes… Anything.
What patterns do you notice? What visual metaphors excite you? What vibe? Do you lean towards quirky and wild, or do you prefer minimalist and straightforward? How much do you want to experiment?
Reminder: you make the rules. You shape the universe of your digital home.
Reminder: you make the rules. You shape the universe of your digital home.
Reminder: you make the rules. You shape the universe of your digital home.
You’ve clarified your goals and gathered inspiration, but before jumping into design, you should decide what you want to share and how people will explore it.
Get creative with the structure and navigation of your digital home. Think of the areas you want to include and how they connect to eachother.
You can start by looking at your interests, your ideas and current, past and future projects, and decide which you’d like to share in your digital home.
From there, think about how you’ll organize them and present them. You can get creative and explore metaphors: Will your website be a house with rooms? An open garden full of pathways? A maze to get lost in? A computer with folders? A tree with its branches?
Your structure and navigation can be as straightforward or as intricate as you like, but take into account those who will explore your website.
A map, even in the most experimental website structures, will most likely be appreciated by guests.
It can take the shape of a navigation menu, or a commonplace page with the links to all other pages.
Now that you have a sense of your structure and ideas, you can start experimenting with how your first few pages will look.
Take from the inspiration you gathered and explore different layouts to present your art in.
Don’t worry about perfection in this stage, just take pen and paper and start experimenting.
Homepage
This is the entrance to your home, giving a hint of what your space is about.
About page
Where your visitors can find out who you are and what your digital home holds (or will hold).
Once you arrange the furniture in a home, the fun part comes next: decorating and styling it! You can also style your digital home to reflect your personality through colors, typefaces and visual elements.
Draw from your inspiration and notice the styles you loved. Are they bold and colorful, elegant and slick, or simple and clean? What particular elements do you like?
You can also explore metaphors and themes here. There are digital homes and websites that stylistically mimic completely different things: an office archive, a literal home, a book, a museum, etc.
A color palette that feels right
1–2 typefaces that you like and think would work
Once the base is covered — structure, navigation, layout & style — the most fun and exciting phase is actually designing the website. In this step your vision starts taking a real shape.
This phase can be scary and paralyzing if you get too caught up in details and perfectionism, so remember that this is just the start of your website and it will change and grow with time.
The practical steps to take in this stage are:
2. Set a deadline
This way you can focus on creating and getting it done, not perfect.
3. Get building
Take your inspiration, your sketches and the style you chose and start building your digital home based on them. Remember that a digital home is never really finished, so you can always add and refine things later.
Time to get creative!
When you publish your digital home, be sure to submit it to the neighbourhood!