Graphic design

General principles

This website's graphical architecture is inspired by the principles of Brad Frost's Atomic Design. This method distinguishes five levels of graphic organisation:

Page

The “highest” graphical organisation level is the “page”, which corresponds to the conjunction of every other organizational elements to form a whole unit on which user experience can be measured.

Example: In this website, a “page” typically corresponds to an HTML document associated to a specific route.

Note:

At a “higher” organizational level, we could for instance consider the “website”, just as we could talk about the organization of pages inside a book. However, I consider that these organizational levels “above” that of the “page” are not “graphical”, but require other analytical frameworks.

Template

The “template” prescribes how the different elements are composed in each page.

Example: In our case, the “templates” describe principles such as the position of a navbar on top of the viewport, the presence of links in the footer, and so on. Technically, the “templates” are made possible thanks to Twig's concept of blocks, built with the {extends} instruction.

Organism

An “organism” is a graphical unit of the user interface which gathers multiple functional elements into one coherent group.

Example: the navbar on top of the page, the footer, or the “cards” design.

Molecule

A “molecule” corresponds to one functional unit of the graphical interface, which answers one specific use case.

Example: a line of a form, a button, etc.

Atom

Finally, “atoms” correspond to elementary units of the language (ie. made of a sole HTML element with no children, or with only text nodes), which can be articulated together to form “molecules”.

Example: an <input> field, which can form a molecule when combined with a <label> in a form row.

Templates

Every template for this website are divided in at least 4 main parts:

Navbar

The main navigation is fixed on top of the viewport, in order to always be accessible (except for specific clients such as printers).

Header

The page header contains three graphical organisms:

1. a breadcrumb to locate the page in relation to the larger architecture of the site
2. a banner with the title of the page and a short, optional description
3. the outline linking to the main sections of the page.

Main content

The body of the page is made of multiple <article> elements. They must be identified by a <h2>–<h6> element. They can also be <section> elements. The template for each page adapts the form and content of these elements to fit the page's requirements.

Footer

The footer contains useful links and legal obligations.

These elements form a basis, from which the template of each page can be built. Titles of each article composing the page are automatically added to the outline with JavaScript.

Organisms

Banner

A banner displays an image below some content, with a semi-transparent background to give some contrast in order to keep the content legible.

Example:

quae sit fugiat

Non corporis et impedit assumenda perspiciatis similique cumque earum. Odit et quisquam rerum repellendus. Aut temporibus aliquam nihil.

Iusto maxime fuga voluptatem eos ad voluptatem exercitationem. Ut in iusto quibusdam omnis. Rerum voluptatem sed laboriosam reprehenderit voluptas temporibus ea qui. Laudantium eos qui ut non qui quos voluptatem.

Cards

A card is an element with a header, a main content, and sometimes a section listing actions, which takes the form of small cards which can be placed next to each other.

Example:

Debitis non tempora

Repellendus qui quae nihil et. Rem rerum facere qui rem esse. Blanditiis voluptatem voluptatem voluptas ut cum. Cum odit numquam ea. Soluta facilis et placeat.

numquam doloremque voluptatibus in

Illum qui perspiciatis natus ex enim aliquam

Officia aut aliquid soluta expedita commodi nesciunt quo dolores.

Rerum aspernatur deserunt similique ex dolor ipsum. Aut amet quibusdam dolorem accusantium aut temporibus.

Quia nam quis recusandae. Quas nobis dolores facere et numquam perferendis. Qui maxime quaerat suscipit consequatur similique.

Velit ducimus fuga eaque saepe. Quis quod fuga beatae et laboriosam iure. Incidunt alias sequi deserunt voluptas repellat. Qui sit quod et sed ipsam.

consequuntur blanditiis

Molecules

Atoms