Design
What a good web site should look like
No matter how vivid the colors, or how many Flash animations you want on your site, the most important thing is that visitors should be able to find what they are looking for, and if they want to know more, the web site should make it easy for them to find it.
So clear, concise navigation is an absolute must. If you think that the ideal website involves flashing text, dancing hamsters, and the opening guitar riff from a Kinks’ song, I’m happy to oblige you (although I’ll warn you to seek permission on the song and advise you on Fair Use), but if this entices your visitors to seek more information, or better still, go to your shopping cart, then it has to be easy for them to do so.
Most sites have variations, but a typical page consists of a header, where your logo and a navigation bar might reside, a side bar on the left for another navigation bar (if needed), one on the right for ads, and one or two columns in the middle that display information unique to each page. Most sites also have a footer, which is a good place for contact information, policy on privacy, and a copyright. Headers, sidebars, and footers would display uniformly on all pages. Unfortunately, there’s only a few hundred colors that display reasonably reliably in all browsers, and fonts are limited to a handful of typefaces. Even Flash animations do odd things with fonts in different browsers.
The templates I use are tested to be compliant with the browsers most often found in Windows, on Macs, and on Linux machines. Unless you have strong reasons to do otherwise, consider muted colors and text that is a variation on Arial or Times New Roman. Thanks to a web design godsend called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), there is a lot you can do to control the size and spacing of those fonts. CSS also allows continuity among all pages on a website. Or not, depending on preference. My own philosophy regarding web design is to start simple, but make it possible to grow.
Template doesn't mean bland or unimaginative. It's a jumping-off place, and not only is there a lot of flexibility in the specific layout of all templates, but an unlimited choice of colors. Unfortunately, we are limited on what types of fonts we can use, but someday, that will change.
Meanwhile, here are samples of current projects based on templates. The first is an ongoing project, the second on hiatus.
