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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

© Jennifer L. Huls

People have requested I give out the URLs of the sites I discussed in my first article. At the time, I thought, "No, who am I to "bash" sites?" Then I realized one day, surfing the competition, that I am also a surfer and am being subjected to bad design just like everyone else.

THE GOOD
Venus Art
When I came across this site, I was blown away! I absolutely love her ideas and concepts. The site loads quickly, despite the use of many pictures. This site gets an A+ for originality.

The next two sites are both record labels and both Flash sites. If you don't have the Flash plug-in, don't bother viewing them.

Maverick Records
I have to admit, I am a sucker for a well-developed Flash site (even if they do break one of the rules of accessability). Maverick Records is Madonna's record label and you can tell. It has style and uses music well. This one gets an A+, too.

Macromedia, Inc.
I know this isn't a web design company but I thought I should include the site from the developers of Flash. This site has a simplistic, yet effective approach. Easy navigation and plenty of white space to control the flow of text. This site teaches that moderation can work.

Nicole Miller
Nicole Miller is a clothing designer. Her web site uses branding and image tie-in (excuse the pun) effectively. The use of JavaScript roll-overs are imaginative, to say the least. This site will show why knowing something about design pays off.

THE BAD
The reason these are bad is because the all look the same. It seems as though these folks passed a template from one another. I will only say to the owners of these sites: "Look at the ones above!"

Lacey's Web Design
Can you say template? The logo is nice, which makes me wonder why she stopped at that.

Webtek
Can you say Microsoft FrontPage template? Why are there pictures of mountains on there? Watch out for the animated butterfly and globe!

Xty Web Works
...okay, I'll add some spinny stuff and then I'll center everything, yeah that'll look good and then I'll use some of these free icons I found...

THE UGLY
These sites speak for themselves. The only thing I wonder is, "What were they thinking?"

Webcraft-City

Reiters Design

ComputerTek

Kitty's Web design

Finally, I have a duh award. Now at the time that I wrote this article, this site's index page was blank. It may be fixed by the time you see this.

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