Inspiration help.

[a.g.r.c]

Hello,

I have been asked to design a web site for a local plumbing company. Given i have done one paid website in the passed, which was totally out of context for the requisit of the company...(A flash presentation site for what really should have been a sales site).

I need some guidance if any one is willing to offer the expert opinion. The site has a reasonable amount of content. Maybe 10-15 pages and the company are not trying to sell anything online, just create a presence with information regarding their company, its policies, its services and its protocols.

The company have been established for a long while and a bad representation of their business, would not be a good idea. They arent paying major money for this, however i do want to do the best i can.

Which path should the site take? Flash or html? Any idea on structuring the site would be good.

And inspiration on the design layout would be immense. A plumbing company isnt exactly the most desirable of sites to do.

As this is the second site to be created by myself and my plans are to make the web and computing related things a career. Representing myself badly would be a mistake also.

Any useful pointers on this would be brilliant.

A mock up of the site is required by Friday coming and if they like it, we will go ahead with site design in January.

Please help with this.

Love web dev!

Faithfully.

Alistair Rossini

[NogDog]

People who want plumbing supplies, services, etc. probably are not interested in Flash presentations. They want the information they're looking for, and they want it now. They do not want to wait for initial splash pages to load before they can get to the content they want. They don't want to be distracted by overwhelming animations, unexpected music, and so forth.

Therefore you'll want to keep the pages lean and clean, with important information "above the fold" (as they say in the newspaper business). As the title of Steve Krug's excellent book says, "Don't Make Me Think".

For inspiration, search for other sites in the same and related businesses to see which ones give you both a feeling of professionalism while making it easy to find information. Get copies of any logos and advertising graphics the company currently uses to help you work out color schemes and designs that will be easily identifiable with their company "look".

[a.g.r.c]

Thanks NogDog,

Flash is out of the question then. Good summary of the cons against the flash. Even if there were any pros left....Its out weighed.

Totally seeing what you are getting at and I will be sure to have a sniff around.

So keep loading times minimum, not too many graphics...but what is deployed, deploy it well is what you are saying?

They are not wanting anything earth shatteringly brilliant, something more so.... Do what it says on the tin?

Thanks for the post.

Much appreciation.

Alistair Rossini.

[NogDog]

Sometimes I like to poke around the www.CSSZenGarden.com site for visual inspiration. I don't look for complete designs to mimic, but for little graphic touches and ways of presenting text and images that will give me an idea for just the sort of thing I need for a site. For instance, this design (http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/179/179.css&page=2) gave me the idea for the musical staff that stretches across the pages on my site (http://www.charles-reace.com/). (I am most definitely not a graphic artist, so my site doesn't look nearly as nice.)

[a.g.r.c]

On that note Nog Dog,

http://2shades.net/IR/mockup.htm

Its not ground breaking or anything, but the layout works. After looking around this seemed functional and practical and could even have a little bit of flash work involved, if the flash is not doing it for them, its easy to mod it for no flash.

CSS zen is a great site...probably one of the best imho and inspiration is always found there.

Thanks for your posting.

Alistair