Making Sharepoint Look Good

The Left Hand Navidation Area

• Side nav area should remain the same width.
• A background colour and graphic can be applied to the vertical column itself. The graphic can be assigned to be aligned from the top or from the base of the page.
• Keep in mind that while the navigation elements may cover the top portion of this vertical column most of the time, there are numerous SharePoint templates in which the navigation is absent … so your background colouring and imagery in this area should look good with or without the navigation elements.
• Within the vertical column of this area the nav elements themselves do not need to start at the top. Padding can be added to lower them.
  

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• The nav subheadings text and background can be styled in terms of colour, size, font and background colour/graphics.
• The link text and background can be styled differently, with their own colour, size, font and background colour/graphics.
• Small alternative ‘bullet’ images/colours can be applied instead of the standard small square.
• The ‘View All Site Content’ link text and background can be styled independent of the other links in this column.
• The ‘Recycle Bin’ link text and background can be styled independent of the other links in this column.
• The Recycle Bin icon should remain as is.
• Visual alternatives for the hover (rollover) and active (current selection) states of links can be prescribed for the links (aside from the subheadings). This includes link colour, size, background colour/graphics.
• Background can be flat colour or a graphic, but in the case of the latter, keep the dynamic width in mind. E.g. a repeated background graphic concept is shown here, which visually includes the lower drop shadow.

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