Website Design for Design Agency

Up and coming Australian design agency looking for a high quality website that reflects the quality our clients expect. Swamped with client work, we simply do not have time to justify working on our own site. Our experience with this contest may determine how we handle future overflow work.
Home page design $250
Detail Page $100
Package Comparison Page $100
Files to be provided as a layered photoshop file (PSD). No HTML/CSS coding required.

Not At All Strange

Background

Not At All Strange provides branding services to small businesses and NGOs. Our packages are tied to our 3 core offerings - Web Design and Development, Print Design and Execution, Identity and Brand Management. Our tagline (which we do want on the site just yet), is "Big ideas for small business? Nothing strange about that".

Requirements
- 1 home page
- 1 detail page (will be used for about us, contact us, etc)
- 1 package comparison page (similar to the detail page but with a table comparing the details of each our packages)Layout
- 950px wide fixed layout
- home page less than 750px high
- detail pages can be any length, but no shorter than the home pageLogo
- logo can be found at
http://notatallstrange.com/logocondensed.ai
http://notatallstrange.com/logocond…parated.ai
http://notatallstrange.com/logoexpanded.ai

- logo will be altered by us at a later date and should be used as isType
- Frutiger, Futura or equivalent for key message
- all other font choices to be planned with web usage in mind and browser type limitations taken into account
- we require styles for h1, h2, h3 and body text
- any text should be taken from http://loremipsum.net/ as we are not looking for creative writingColor Palette

There are 3 key components to our business, and there will be 3 equivalent sections within the website. We do not require design for these sections, but we would like a color palette to work with. So, for example we might use green as the section color for our web design and development section, blue for our print design and execution section etc. Ideally we would like to keep the color palette small with the focus being on section colors alone.

Imagery

As mentioned previously, we are only looking for a single key image per page. Any images used should be available within iStockPhoto and will be purchased by us at a later date. iStockPhoto allows you to download a free complimentary version of any image you find for use in your design. This comp. image will be low resolution and will scale poorly, but we will replace it with a high resolution image at a later date, and will not take image quality into account when rating a design.

Examples of the type of imagery we are looking to use can be found via the following link.

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_sea…oveCache=1

Home Page

A single advertisement style piece should be central to the home page, with both a single key image (isolated with no background and no edges), and a single key message (10 - 20 words).

Page copy should be secondary to this key message and should be noticed after the key message, meaning that the key message should really stand out. I am not a fan of starbursts, glow effects or drop shadows on key imagery and would like both the key image and the key message to stand out based upon quality alone. Large fonts, and high quality background isolated images should be enough to take care of this.

There will need to be page copy included elsewhere in the page . As an indication, you can expect a maximum of somewhere in the vicinity of say 2 paragraphs of 5-7 lines, with around 7-10 words per line.

Detail Page

As with the home page, a single advertisement style piece should be central to the detail page, with
both a single key image (isolated with no background and no edges), and
a single key message (10 - 20 words). This may be positioned different to the home page, and sized a lot smaller, but should definitely be present, and should still be the first thing a user notices.

There may be extensive page copy included elsewhere in the detail page and consideration will need to be made for this. As
an indication, you can expect a minimum of somewhere in the vicinity of
say 8 paragraphs of 5-7 lines, with around 7-10 words per line.

Package Comparison Page

As with the home page, a single advertisement style piece should be central to the detail page, with
both a single key image (isolated with no background and no edges), and
a single key message (10 - 20 words). This may be positioned different to the home page, and sized a lot smaller, but should definitely be present, and should still be the first thing a user notices.

The package comparison page should contain a table similar in nature to the table found on the following site - that is to say the text contained within the table will be similar, the table can be totally different.

http://www.thewebshowroom.com.au/features/

Pointers

I am a very big fan of good typography, and good use of fonts will be noticed. Check out any of the articles doing the rounds at the moment regarding web 2.0 typography, or web 2.0 fonts, if you need ideas.

The center piece of the site will be the advertising style pieces used throughout, so thought should really be given to how these center pieces can really be made to sing.

The site should demonstrate class, and with this in mind extensive use of white space is important. Clutter looks cheap. We are looking for images to be used only when required, or when they achieve something. This sounds like it would make the design easier, but it actually makes things harder, as alignment and proximity become the most important parts of the design. Elements that should go togeter should be placed together. Elements that should be separate should be placed apart, or contrasted via size, or weight, or color.

I sound fussy in the brief, but in actual fact I am just trying to make things easier. I provide good feedback and will let you know exactly what I am thinking. I don;t bite heads off, and am discreet when providing criticism.

Questions

Ask questions if you have any. This is a very short contest and we are looking for a design we can use immediately. The more questions you ask the better your design will match our expectations. I'll make a point of answering any questions as soon as I get them.

- classy web 2.0 feel
- generous use of white space
- subtle gradients
and implied edges rather than hard borders
- very minimalistic
- single high quality isolated image per page with careful typographyExamples

Ignore the style of the following example, but take into account the content. This is meant to demonstrate my idea of a single key message and a single key image per page. Please note that this is a content example though, and we do not want flash or a sketched design.

http://www.elevenmarketing.com.au

The following example shows the subtle web 2.0 feel we are looking for, although the main content at the bottomis a bit scrappy. The upper half of the page is great. I like the inplied edges (eg. the bottom left borders in the header) and the fact that a whole border is not required.

http://www.holgerkoenemann.de/

I do not like the design of this site, but the table demonstrated on this page is similar to what we will need to place within our own package comparison page. Please note that this example is only included for content. The table is not meant to indicate design preferences.

http://www.thewebshowroom.com.au/features/

Examples of the type of imagery we are looking to use can be found via the following link.

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_sea…oveCache=1

- busy pages or too much content
- borders or boxes or containers - any grid should be implied onlyAlthough the following example caters to a similar audience, and I like each of the design elements, the site is a good example of what we do not want. The site confuses the eye as there are too many things that draw your
attention all at once. We would like a definite hierarchy of attention.
We are looking for the user to notice things in the following order:
key image and key message, page content, logo, and then navigation.

http://www.computercc.com/