As you might already know, good web design - in most cases - should contain basic elements such as easily used (yet beautiful) navigation menus, attracting headers, well written content, and for last, footers. In this post I would like to talk more about the last element that is becoming a very fascinating issue these days - the kinds and styles of footers.
In a lot of sites, footers are no longer a single line copyright text and/or a simple secondary navigation; nowadays they are more complex than that. They count as a factor every web designer needs to pay attention to when designing, just like to any other element.
The new trend is the Web 2.0 style. Now let's face it, we see them quite a lot and we can't disagree with the fact that they are simply awesome! Here is where footers play the role of accessibility and usability and becomes one of the most important elements in an overall website design. Web 2.0 footers attract readers and make them involved in the site's content - which also contributes a lot to a website. Let's think about it a bit, a reader finishes reading a post and at the end awaits him footer with lots of other content he can't avoid not to look at. Most cases the reader doesn't fly away after a five second look, instead he ends up reading more and more by this same exact process - it's genius!
We also see quite often online applications used in the footer's space, such as the famous photo management and sharing application, Flicker. Libraries such as Amazon and iTunes are used as well. And of course, a place for ads and validation links (such as valid CSS and XHTML).
Today there are quite a big variety of types of footers, from single line footers and sitemaps going all the way to contact forms, artistic designs and blog growths. Each footer is unique and has its own role of the site. I have collected a few footers from around the web, each with different style and content. While seen them, look at the variety of ways they are used in each site. Navigations, sitemaps, site's information, links, applications use, blog growth, advertisements, validation links, copyrights, RSS feeds, newsletter registrations, search fields, creativity and lot more!
So let's take a look!
The popular.
1. Web Designer Wall
The simple
14. Simply Fired
The creative
24. Snook
The field
31. dennisbloete
I hope you fellow readers enjoyed this post as well as I did writing it. Let me know your thoughts: are there more styles you see but not mentioned? Do you think different about footers than I do? Do you like the Web 2.0 style? Got more good example of footers? Post them all here!
Source:thuiven.com
Technorati Tags: website footer designs
