You guy's are right ... There are a number of excellent looking sites out there. I wish we could use a lot more of an artistic approach in the designs we build at Atlanta Virtual!
We tried that a few times by incorporating "Flash & Shockwave" elements into our core designs, but our statistics revealed that a lot of the site's users were getting lost in the circus, so to speak. The maker's that we build sites for expect a different result from their sites. They want "deep page penetration" by every new visitor ...
There are only two possible approaches to a core design, in fact. One is to build an "Art Gallery" with the project. The other is to build a "Knife Selling Machine".
Since all of our work is designed for the later, it has to include certain elements which tend to make it less interesting than what would be possible otherwise. The simple fact that we were noticed (above) for having the "Best All-time Logo" at the
http://www.customknifedirectory.com shows that it's very important to include a "bang" element in all good site's now days. But, if you polled the makers who sell their work from the CKD, you'd find that what they voted for as the best element in that particular site was it's ability to "move" their available designs and create new orders.
My questions are ...
"Who gets the award vote for having the site that sells the most knives worldwide?"
"Who gets the award vote for building the largest customer base the quickest?"
Those aren't very prestigious awards from an art standpoint, but I'll guarantee those are the most coveted awards if you poll the serious players out here in the industry...
Thoughts?
Alex
Alex Whetsell
Atlanta Virtual Internet Services
http://www.atlantavirtual.com http://www.customknifedirectory.com
AlexWhetsell@atlantavirtual.com
Firetalk Username " AlexW "
