The Order Lepidoptera, of which butterflies are a part of, are distinguished by their coloration and the life stages they go through in becoming a fully fledged adults. Butterflies get their name from their resemblance to a pat of butter (see the featured image).
A “What if Wednesday” Butterfly Post
Known for their attractive coloration and patterns, either as caterpillar or adult, they can be used as an inspiration for the design of a website. In this post, the first in the series, I go over in general what a website inspired by a butterfly in general may look like. Later in the series, I plan to get more specific as to various species and groups of butterflies.
The Basics of a Butterfly Website
A website inspired by butterflies would have a blend of visual appeal and user-friendly features. The tone would one of elegance, transformation, and lightness as they fly through the air. The butterfly website would capture the users attention, but not be overwhelming, and have easy navigation, similar to some of the modernists, such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Jorn Utzon, but with actual nature as the inspiration. Below is a summary of how to create a beautiful and functional website inspired by butterflies.
- Website Visuals:
- Color Scheme: The color scheme would be light and airy, with blues, green, and purples with accents of yellows, oranges, and blacks showing the great diversity of butterfly colors.
- Backgrounds: Soft gradients or patterns that resemble butterfly wing textures, adding depth and intrique.
- Animations: Subtle animations based on butterfly behaviors could be added such as hovering effects on menus or elements that unfurl like butterfly wings on hover.
- Website Layout:
- Symmetrical Balance: A symmetrical layout that mirrors the bilateral symmetry of the butterfly’s body would create a sense of harmony and order.
- Navigation: The navigation bar could mimic the butterfly and have branching menus that move radiate outwards like wings. This would create visual interest and would be intuitive to navigate.
- Content Sections: Sections of content could be separated by butterfly wing shapes or by subtle lines resembling butterfly veins.
- Website Features:
- Transformative Content: Information could be revealed in a way that mimics a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. Accordion menus or content that expands with a click could be designed with this transformation in mind.
- Interactive Elements: Butterfly-inspired micro-animations could be used. Things such as clicking a button could trigger a subtle flower effect, or hovering over an image could make it appear to gently moves its wings.
- Mobile Responsiveness: Just like a butterfly adapts to its environment, the website would be responsive and adapt seamlessly to different screen sizes.
Color Scheme for a Butterfly Inspired Website
Colors used in a butterfly inspired website would come from the elaborate and complex wing and caterpillar colors. These colors in mind, we then want to look at how these colors affect the overall psychology of the website.
Bear in mind, that some butterflies have very vibrant colors that indicate to predators a message of “do mess with me.” However, when using a vibrant species, you do not want to overwhelm your users. As such, try to use a dominant light color for the background and accent it with pops of brighter colors. As always, make sure that there is enough contrast between the chosen colors to meet accessibility requirements.
Mimicking Butterfly Wing Colors
In looking at colors to use, it is helpful to determine what species or family of butterflies we want to use for inspiration. Some examples are below:
- Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus): Perhaps one of the best known butterflies in North America and known for its dependence on milkweed (Asclepias spp.) for its survival. Colors for this website would include black, orange, and white and it would have a bold and striking look. If you want to add a Hawaiian version, you could emphasize the white a little more since is it has a white variant of this species.
- Azure Butterflies (Celastrina spp.): This genus of butterflies look either white or blue, but are generally an iridescent blue when looked at laterally. A website based on this genus of butterflies would feature shades of blue with ample whitespace.
- Swallowtail Butterflies (Family Papillionidae): This family of butterflies includes some of the largest and most common in North America. A website inspired by these butterflies would feature yellow, white and black and have cheerful and energetic vibe to it, to represent the strong flyers.
- Glasswing Butterfly: The glasswing butterfly is found in tropical America and has transparent wings. A website featuring this butterfly would feature overlaying colors and colored accents. A delicate and ethereal look would dominate the website.
- Sulphur Butterflies (Subfamily Coliadinae): This subfamily of butterflies in the Pieridae Family would feature muted oranges, yellows, and white with some iridescent accents.
Color Psychology of the Website
When selecting the species to use for inspiration, make sure that its color matches the overall mood and feeling you want your website to have. For example:
- Blues and Greens: These colors promote feelings of calmness, peace, and nature and are perfect for a website focused on relaxation, wellness, or the environment.
- Purples: Shades of purple give a feeling of creativity, luxury, and wisdom. This color is ideal for websites promoting artists, high-end products, or educational sites.
- Yellows and Oranges: These colors create feelings of happiness, optimism, and energy. Yellows and oranges are desired for websites with a playful or energetic tone, like children’s products or travel agencies.
The Use of Backgrounds in a Butterfly Inspired Website
The colors of the butterfly are often accentuated with iridescent shades and are juxtaposed on foliage, flowers, or the sky. On the website backgrounds you can can replicate these things and produce an experience similar to what is in nature. Remember to utilize negative space effectively to emphasize a focal point for the website. Below are some ways to do this:
- Gradients:
- Soft Gradients: You can include gentle transitions between light colors such as pale blues, greens, and yellows to create a calming and airy atmosphere. Imagine a clear summer day with wispy clouds.
- Iridescent Gradients: Include subtle gradients that replicate the iridescence of the wings of the butterfly. These gradients could be used on websites that have luxurious or artisitic feel.
- Patterns:
- Delicate Wing Textures: Besides the iridescence, the wings of the butterfly have texture. Having a faint background that imitates the wing texture can add a layer of detail with the other colors, particularly using an iridescence overlay. For inspiration, think of subtle veins or barely-there scales.
- Floral Motifs: The larvae or caterpillars of butterflies are dependent on particular species of plants. Once they are adults they go to flowers for nectar. As such, flowers and plants are an essential component to any butterfly inspired website. Try using a floral pattern of the host plant species of the butterfly you are inspired by to add an extra layer of detail, thereby creating a sense of harmony and connection.
- Subtle Overlays:
- Silhouettes: Another background idea is to overlay faint silhouettes of butterflies to add a touch of whimsy without cluttering the overall design.
- Watercolor Washes: Delicate watercolor washes using the colors of your selected species or family can add some artistry and softness to the website.
Animations of Your Butterfly Website
Besides the colors and beauty of the butterflies, people are attracted to them for their ethereal movement through the air. This movement can be replicated through subtle animations. For example:
- Animations should be Subtle: The movement of a butterfly is gentle and does not have flashy movements, except for the strongest of fliers. As such animations, should be subtle and elegant and be considered as graceful flourishes rather than a dramatic event that takes the show.
- Examples of Animations:
- Hover Effects: Menus, buttons, or images could subtly flutter their “wings” when a user hovers over them. This can create a delightful interactive element and reinforces the butterfly theme of the website.
- Content Reveal: Information could be revealed in a way that mimics a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. Think of using accordion menus or having content sections that unfold with a gentle animation mimicking the transformation and emergence of the butterfly.
- Background Movement: Background elements like leaves or flowers could have a gentle swaying animation, giving a sense of a gentle breeze. This can replicate the flitting of butterflies going through a garden in a light wind.
- Animation Techniques:
- CSS Animations: For simple animations like hover effects or subtle background movements, CSS animations can be a lightweight and efficient option.
- JavaScript Libraries: More complex animations, like content and reveal effects, might benefit from using JavaScript libraries, like the GreenSock Animation Platform (GSAP) or Anime.js.
- Considerations in Doing Animation:
- Performance: Make sure that animations do not slow down your website performance or affect your sustainability scores.
- Accessibility: Animations and cutting-edge effects always come with accessibility considerations. Make sure that any information revealed by animation has an alternative way to reach it.
Symmetrical Balance in a Butterfly Website
The body of a butterfly with its two hind wings is bilaterally symmetrical. In your website, this effect can be replicated by having the visual weight evenly distributed on both sides. This creates a sense of order, formality, and stability, and further gives a pleasing and harmonious user experience.
How to Implemtent Symmetrical Balance
Below are some ways to incorporate symmetrical balance in your website.
- Mirrored Layout: Here the content on the left is mirrored on the right. A good way to achieve this is to use a grid system with equal-sized columns on either side.
- Central Focus Point: Prominent elements like logos, images, and calls to action should be placed in the center of the layout. These elements serve as visual anchors and reinforce the symmetry.
- Asymmetrical Elements with Symmetry: Adding a few asymmetrical elements can create some visual interest. Examples are an image that breaks the grid slightly or a text block with a different alignment. Ensure that the aymmetrical elements do not detract from the overall balance.
Benefits of Symmetrical Balance
- Clarity and Order: Symmetrical layouts are easy for users to navigate as elements are predictable and organized. This layout is ideal for websites with a lot of information to present.
- Formal and Professional: Symmetry evokes feelings of formality and professionalism making it ideal for websites focused on business, education, and government services.
- Harmony and Beauty: A well-executed symmetrical layout is harminous and has visual balance that is aesthetically pleasing.
Things to Consider in Symmetrical Layouts
When making a symmetrical layout, try to ensure that it does not lead to a static or boring design. Use it as a foundation and then incorporate subtle variations to keep it interesting and quash the boring factor. Also make sure that it is adapted for mobile devices, such as the left and right sides going vertical on a smaller screen.
Using the Butterfly’s Body as a Navigation Bar
On your website, the body of the butterfly can be used as the main navigation bar with the wings branching out from the body to represent the different pages on your website. When using this idea, be sure that the navigation is clear, intuitive, and easy to understand. Below are some tips on how you can accomplish this:
- Main Navigation Bar: Design the navigation bar to look like the body of the butterfly with a horizontal bar positioned at the top and bottom of the page.
- Menu Items as Wings: Each wing would represent a page on your website. The wings could unfold to reveal sub-pages mimicking how a butterfly opens its wings.
Navigation Techniques You Can Use
- Dropdown Menus: When a user clicks on a “wing,” a dropdown menu could unfold to reveal subpages, utilizing a familiar and user-friendly approach.
- Accordions: Accordion menus could be used where clicking on a “wing” reveals sub-pages or content. This type of menu is helpful if you have a lot of content to present.
- Fly-out Menus: When a “wing” is hovered on, a fly-out menu could be triggered. This is a more subtle interation.
Utilizing the Butterfly Theme in Content Sections
In addition to the navigation and animation, content sections can be used to develop and reinforce the butterfly theme. How do you achieve this? Read on to find out.
- Butterfly Wing Shapes: Subtle outlines of butterfly wings can be used to separate different content sections. This can add a visual connection to the theme and add clarity to the sections.
- Vein-like Lines: Dividers that resemble the wing veins of a butterfly can be used between content sections. These lines can be vertical or horizontal depending on the layout symmetry and flow of the website.
Presentation of the Content
While a symmetrical website layout is appropriate for the butterfly theme; content sections are where you can experiment with asymmetry. This can be accomplished through text placement, image sizes, or the use of call-to-action buttons on different sides. Having asymmetrical features in the content sections can create visual interest with disrupting the website balance. Ensure there is plenty of whitespace between the sections to allow the content to breathe.
Interactive Elements in Content
- Accordion Menus: These menus were mentioned in the navigation section, but they can be used for content as well to give the effect of a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. For example, clicking on section title could reveal the content underneath.
- Hover Overlays: Images or text blocks that have overlays can have some iridescence added to give the effect of butterfly wings. This can give visual flair to overall theme and not obscure the content.
Content Types
- Use High-Quality Images: Using high-quality images can reinforce the beauty of butterflies or whatever the subject you are trying to present.
- Engaging Text: Present information in a way that is both informative and captivating, similar to the metamorphosis of a butterfly. For instance, from knowledge, light.
- Content Structure: Include bite size pieces of content similar to how a butterfly moves from one flower to another. It can also make digesting large amounts of data easier for users.
- Have Before and After Stories: Helps to highlight changes over time and the growth processes of a product.
An Emphasis on Transformative Content
Some of these features have been mentioned on previous sections, but to reiterate, a butterfly website would include a lot of transformative features to replicate its lifecyle.
Concepts for Transformative Content
- Accordion Menus: If your subject can be divided into stages, each content section could be presented in an accordion. Each section can then unfold and represent the egg, larve, pupa, and the mature butterfly.
- Content Tabs with Animations: Content tabs could be designed as butterfly wings. Clicking on a tab would trigger it to have a subtle animation such as a wing “fluttering” slightly before revealing the content. These animations add some interactivity and reinforce the theme.
- Interactive Overlays: Information overlays can be placed on top of images or text blocks. When hovered over they would reveal additional details. Below are some ideas on overlays:
- Fade-in/Fade-out: The overlay fades in smoothly when hovered over and fades out when the user moves away.
- Slide-in/Slide-out: The overlay slides in from the side or bottom when hovered over and slides back out when the user moves away.
- Dissolve: The intial image or block dissolves to reveal the overlay content when hovered over. Once the hover is removed, it dissolves back to the original.
Benefits of Transformative Content
- Engages Users: Transformative content adds a layer of interactivity and surprise making content engaging and users wondering what will happen next.
- Reinforces Theme: Transformative content creates a more cohesive user experience by mimicking the butterfly’s transformation.
- Improves Clarity: Users can chose the level of detail that they want therefore improving clarity for them.
Interactive Content in a Butterfly Inspired Website
Providing interactive content allows for an experience with your website that goes beyond clicking buttons. Below are some examples of interactive content you can add to your site.
- A Quiz on the Material Presented: Create a quiz on the content of your site to test how well users comprehended the information. For example, if the website was about butterflies, users could identify different species of butterflies.
- Have the Users Build Something: Here you could provide various parts of a whole and have users figure out how they fit together.
- Sound Effects: You could have sounds with the animations in your site. However, make sure to keep the sounds unobtrusive and optional for users who prefer a quiet experience (needed for accessibility).
- Cursor Customization: Design a custom cursor resembling the main topic of your website. As the user interacts with the website, the cursor becomes animated. This is a subtle way to enhance the theme.
Mobile Responsiveness in a Butterfly Inspired Website
During its lifetime, a butterfly has to adapt to the particular stage that it is in, such as caterpillar, chrysalis, or a fully grown adult. Your website, like the butterfly, needs to be able to change and adapt to the screen size that your visitor is using. Some principles to keep in mind regarding responsiveness include:
- Using the Fluid Grid System: You can use a fluid grid system that adjusts proportionally to the screen size of the device being used. The fluidity ensures the elements, such as content sections, images, and menus resize and rearrange themselves for optimal viewing on various devices.
- Media Queries: Media queries, a command within CSS, allows you to target specific screen sizes. For example, you could use a media query to hide a certain element on smaller screens or adjust the layout so it is arranged vertically.
- Flexible Images and Videos: Make sure that all images and videos scale appropriately to fit the available screen space. This can keep them from appearing pixelated or distorted.
Adapting Your Butterfly Theme for a Mobile Device
- Transform Your Navigation: Just as a butterfly transforms, transform your menu into a vertical menu or a hamburger menu on mobile devices. The core functionality can remain the same, but the presentation can adapt.
- Simplify the Animations: Use simple animations or disable them entirely for a smoother mobile experience.
- Prioritize the Content: On mobile screens, prioritize the most important content. Ensure that you have clear and concise headlines, easily readable text sizes, and prominent call-to-action buttons.
Be Sure to Test and Optimize Your Responsiveness Efforts
When making your website responsive, be sure to test the features and elements using emulators and real-world testing. This allows you to make sure the site is actually responsive and identify places for improvement.
Conclusion
Using nature, is the ultimate in designs. Butterflies can be a logical starting point for getting design inspiration for your website.
