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Web Design
covers many different aspects of services and visual design for use on
the web including html, flash animation and hosting services.
I
started offering web design services back in 1996. Things were
 a whole
lot different back then, but one thing hasn't changed... bad
design. Spend any amount of time on the web and you will run
into it. It's understandable when the site is nothing more than your
nephew's tribute to Play Station games or your mom's celebration of
the family's comings and goings, but when you see companies',
ministries' and organizations' websites looking like your nephew's or
mom's, this is inexcusable.
One of
the lessons that I try to stress to my clients is that people will
judge you based upon your public relations materials, including
your website. The old saying is true! You only get one chance to make
a first impression. My advice to my clients is that it is better to
have no website than to have a badly designed one. At least
when there is no website, it leaves to the potential visitor's
imagination that it might have been a very nice web site. But
putting up a bad website eliminates all doubts and leaves a bad
impression. Am I being too hard? Think for yourself. Imagine that
you are going out on the web to look for a particular product,
service, church or organization. Of the myriad of sites that you view,
will you not take the most seriously and give the greatest
consideration to the ones that are well designed and professional
looking? Do you believe that you are the only one with such
discriminating taste and that everyone else could care less? Do you
really believe that you have an equal footing with your competitor
simply because you have a website, even though yours is
inferior? We instinctively know better!
As I point out in
the article I wrote on my GRAPHIC DESIGN page, Companies like
McDonald's and Microsoft are not the great success that they are due
to superior products. Instead there success is due to
superior marketing.
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The
internet is the great equalizer. Your website can pop up on
 the
internet search engines right along with the big, successful
companies, even on the same page as theirs! With that, half the
battle is now won! Don't lose the battle because your visitor loses
confidence in you because your site was amateurish. You might say,
"I cannot afford a professionally designed site". I know how
cliché it sounds, but it is absolutely true! You can't afford
NOT to have a professionally designed site! Besides, a well
designed website need not cost a fortune. But a poorly designed
site might cost you everything!
When
the world wide web
 blossomed some years ago it was primarily dominated
with sites created by programmers. These people who have amazing
skills at punching out code and getting the incredible things to
happen. Unfortunately, as programmers only, they know nothing about
visual design. HTML is not a programming language, but rather a page
layout language. Therefore, when I began doing web design back in
1996, the transition was relatively easy for me because I already had
years of training and experience as a graphic designer.
 Web design is
primarily about visual design and all of the skills
needed in
traditional graphic design are just as fundamental in web design.
Skills such as layout, color, typography and photo editing. I am not a
programmer, I am a visual designer. Your website is almost an amalgam
of advertising design and multimedia design. It only makes sense to
have someone who is a professional in such fields design not just your
print ads, but your website as well! Allow me to design a site for you
that will grab visitor's attention and give the kind of first
impression that you want them to have! |
