The Tagline Revisited

Posted by Andrew Faulkner on June 17th, 2006.

Andrew Faulkner is the admin at fadtastic. Andrew prides himself on standards-based, accessible web design in the city of Nottingham, UK. He believes in aesthetically pleasing accessible design and that 'standards compliant does not equal boring.'

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Today, I felt inspired by Matt’s recent USP/Tagline post. Coupling that with an old article covering big header/banner areas and I have an “old-skool” fadtastic post - examining a very niche graphical trend for both mine and your interest. The trend in question? Big Header Areas With Taglines.

What Are They?

After such a catchy trend classification I owe it to you to describe what I mean. Learn by example:

Vantageous, Navy Blue and faqqly all have a large header area. Nothing new considering the ‘Big Header’ article was written a couple of months ago. But now take a second look - the sites in question (and there are more) all have some kind of tagline in their header area with what I believe is a focus on their unique selling point.

Simple. Effective. Message Delivered.

Going Back In Time

We’re not Doctor Who. (There you go, I said it.) We can’t actually go back in time. Sorry for the big let down. But we can remember only a couple of years back when pretty much all sites consisted of:

logo -> slogan -> h1 (or similar) -> loadsa copy

So What’s Changed? Why Now?

I think the placement (and size) of the tagline has changed due to the following factors:

People now have more screen estate. It’s true. So designers use this fact to help deliver the message. Put a nice header in with a direct message where the user expects to see copy (and therefore focuses) and you’ve got your point across. Bam! The user is subconsciously thinking of this message and when they come to the copy it will get backed up (if well written, of course.)

Web teams are more marketing savvy. And this is only my opinion but I think it is more evident nowadays that when building a new website the team calls on the efforts of the marketer more.

A Little Extra Food For Thought

Two of the examples have a nice highlight on some of the words in the text. What’s your take on this, dear reader?

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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.

Naomi
June 18th, 2006
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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.

Andrew W
June 19th, 2006
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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…

j0sh
June 20th, 2006
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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?

Fran Ramodolc
June 23rd, 2006
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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

j0sh
June 23rd, 2006
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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.

Erica
June 23rd, 2006
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