The newest trend in etail website design is BIG images. The top retailers online have generally moved away from using lots of white space to accentuate a point to filling our screen with large images, with writing right on top of the image. I think part of this must be because brands want consistency in the look and feel from desktop to mobile and too much white space in mobile just means your site copy is too small. Have a look at apple.com:
![Apple.com](https://whybegee.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-09-at-11-10-02-pm.png?w=474&h=240)
Do you see any large white space? Practically none.
The first site that really got my attention on this was my favorite jeans shop, American Eagle. Though I was not in love with their barrage of email marketing following my last purchase, I did notice the design of the emails. White space was minimal. Image were huge and used as background, with cutting edge fonts on top of the images. This shot is from their homepage as of this writing.
Again, there is almost no white space.
Compare that to this:
Which of those images looks like it was designed 2 or 3 years ago and which looks like 2014? Sorry Walgreens, but your site expresses an old model. There are a lot of CTAs, which is fine, but there just are not too much dynamic or interesting things going on here. Above all else, the only sign that humans created this site is the “wacky” font type. Where are those smiling “happy and healthy” people enjoying Centrum, Boots No7, or any other products? Check out the CVS homepage. At least they have an actual human on the page!
![cvs.com](https://whybegee.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-09-at-11-22-47-pm.png?w=474&h=297)
Bigger is better is not always about white space though. It is really about expressing a certain humanity through your site. While Walgreens lacks that touch, even the very white-space full Kroger uses its Hero Banner slider as a means to communicate a human touch.
![kroger.com](https://whybegee.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-09-at-11-16-35-pm.png?w=474&h=314)
As for Target, they go for the gold – cute babies sell. It is a rule as old as advertising itself.
![target.com](https://whybegee.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-09-at-11-17-28-pm.png?w=474&h=306)
But what unites these very 2014 images is the huge space they take up. They eat the page. Target advertises Black Friday in July next to its Hero Baby, but the size is nowhere on the level of the hero. There is no way you would look at that Target page and not see (and have some human emotion maybe) for the baby first. Now that they have you suckered in, enjoy those Black Friday in July “savings”.
Just to drive the point home further – Bigger is Better in 2014 through expressing a human touch and dominating the eye – check out an example of a site that already feels old.
![homedepot.com](https://whybegee.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-09-at-11-21-18-pm.png?w=474&h=313)
Apologies Home Depot, but where is the Dad grilling for his family or building a deck? Where is the human touch to all these home projects?
This is the era of BIG IMAGES, BOLD STATEMENTS, and making the web feel like it has a human touch. Right?
![](http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTMVNuk49Gaf0jEEPjsBzmJyMgRSxsiKWAwyzs-nBuPFdnfepNG)
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What do you think? Have you seen similar things? Feel free to leave me a reply or connect with me on LinkedIn about this.
Want to read more? You might like this article on how to improve your site.