The world of web design is changing in a big way, spurred forward by a new platform being offered by Froont, an innovative young company that is striving to take information sharing to the next level. On the whole, the Internet has revolutionized the way that information changes hands, whether this means peer-to-peer sharing, cloud computing, or related technologies. However, web design remained mired in the past; mockups of sites, crafted in Photoshop, were nearly the extent of the information-sharing effort, at least from a visual perspective. While these mockups could give people an idea of how a site would look and function, they were far from the real thing.
The next step in the process, the next logical evolution of this information sharing, was for code to change hands. This could be done with systems like Github. Using it, raw source code can be shared quickly and easily, but this requires a level of technical expertise – the ability to write code – that not all web designers possess. The modern world of web design is founded in visual creation, and many brilliant designers are more skilled with visual components than typing endless lines of code. They were left with the non-functional Photoshop creations, which could not be tested, manipulated, or edited without first being recreated.
That is where Froont comes into the picture. Their new platform allows for instant sharing of fully-functional websites that have been built from the ground up. Designing is actually done in HTML/CSS, the sites are uploaded, and they can then change hands with all of the components – and the code – intact. Designers who download the projects can use them as they are, adjust them to their liking, or simply use them as the ground-level foundations for their own projects. The beta system hit the public eye in 2013.
Using Froont’s system, which is based mostly around simple drag-and-drop manipulation, web designers can make sites their own with far less work than before, bringing those beautiful aesthetic designs together with the code needed to make them work on all levels. This type of web design could have a drastic impact on any industry, opening doors to faster, better design, but one area where it can be expected to have a dramatic impact is in advertising. An advertising agency in the modern era has to focus as much on online advertising – from Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – as anything else.
With a sharing system like this, it will be easier than ever for an advertising agency to show their clients fully-usable website templates and then to design and launch those sites when the client agrees. Froont will give all agencies the power to compete in the age of online marketing in a highly-professional fashion, in any industry. At Convergent1, we have web designers on staff who stay up to date with the best tools for their trade, allowing us to give clients the strong online presence they want. Take a look at some of our own web designs in our Portfoilo.
