LAYOUT: - www.grayofficefurnishings.com - www.place-crete.com

For both of these sites, as discussed above, I wanted to go with a clean, sleek, compact design layout. This would accomplish consistency, clarity, easy navigation, visual interest, and a comfort level with viewer.

SHAPE: Working along with layout, I wanted to use shapes that reinforced some of conceptual ideas found within subject matter itself. - www.grayofficefurnishings.com With Gray Office Furnishings site, I chose to utilize some of basic "language" found in different types of furniture that they offered. This includes soft curves, hard edges, straight lines, repetition, contrast (big & small), grooves/cut pieces (moving parts), displacement, symmetry/asymmetry, organic/mechanical, etc. While using this "visual language," I strived to achieve a balance between all of above. Just as furniture is an art form, so was process of trying to capture balance of these contrasting ideas.

- www.place-crete.com With Place-Crete site, I used same "visual language" that I just described above with Gray Office Furnishings; however, with Place-Crete I had a different message to convey. Place-Crete deals with concrete, cement, engineering, construction, and like. Very industrial sounding stuff. Hard edges, straight lines, grid based blueprints/schematics, smooth finishes, hard surfaces, etc. So that became my "visual language" with their site.

COLOR: - www.grayofficefurnishings.com Just as described above in "Shape" section, there is a duality within characteristics of different types of furniture. I wanted to capture warmth of wood, and coolness of synthetic materials - vibrancy of some colors, and conservativeness of others. Once again, I tried to achieve a balance between these contrasts. There are different styles and themes of office furniture, and of course different types of people and offices. With this in mind, I had to create a site with a broader focus. My aim was to try and appeal to all of them in a professional, clean, and organized fashion.

- www.place-crete.com With Place-Crete, I wanted to capture cool smooth nature of concrete. In addition, I added a bit of "construction yellow" to counteract overwhelming coolness of this site. The goal was to create an image of professionalism, cleanliness, precision, and craftsmanship. I wanted to leave no doubt in viewers mind that this company meant business, and that they hold themselves to extremely high standards.

IMAGES: - www.grayofficefurnishings.com Just as with other design elements described above, I wanted to create contrast and balance between two opposing concepts. I tried to choose images that would capture these ideas... including color, shape, size, etc.

- www.place-crete.com I tried to utilize images that wouldn't necessarily reveal too much of messy details, but ones that would generate enough interest, and maintain design theme that has been established - cool, engineered, industrial, hard edge, precise, and clean. I wanted to create a sense of absolute confidence - a boldness that implied that this company knew exactly what it was doing, and can be trusted.

FONT CHOICE: - www.grayofficefurnishings.com - www.place-crete.com For both of these sites, font choice was fairly simple. Since both of these sites aim for a clean look, a simple and sleek sans-serif font such as Arial or Helvetica was used (sans-serif means that strokes of letters don't have caps or feet at its joints or ends like Times for example).

DOWNLOAD TIME: While both of these sites appear to be fairly "image heavy," they are not as bad in terms of download time as you might think. Nobody likes to wait forever to see your site... especially busy business people. Keeping audience in mind, I aimed to create perfect balance between beautiful imagery and reasonable download times. On one hand we didn't want to have a dry and boring site; and on other we needed it to download fast enough for our targeted audience.

CONCLUSION

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#3 Loading site with slow-loading graphics

The Internet is about getting information fast. When you slow down process, you sabotage your own marketing. One of ways people slow it down is by loading their website with slow-loading graphics. Every second your prospect has to wait his impatience and frustration build... and that is NEVER good for business.

Use graphics by all means but use graphics which are fast loading and which highlight, emphasize and reinforce your client-centered message. Again, look at simple, fast-loading graphics at http://www.worldprofit.com

#4 No attempt to discern what prospect wants

Most websites are about owners of those sites. They are egotistical, making prospect work to discover what that owner has that will benefit him. The extent to which you make it difficult for prospect to know what you've got and how she'll be better off using what you're selling is extent to which you're killing your sales.

Instead, you should take every opportunity to ascertain just what prospect wants. How can you find out? Use a questionnaire like one you'll find at http://www.homebizedge.com A questionnaire like this gives prospect opportunity to tell you what she wants, so that you can respond with just appropriate information.