![[Logo: Vantech Media]](images/logo.gif){kind=logo}
Effective web design
![[Image: Logo of the UK Web Developers' Association]](images/ukwda.gif){kind=small}
We will work with you to decide what's right for your business but the points on this page can be applied to most sites.
Less is more
Visual effects, flashing banners, scrolling text, background music, silly noises, animated logos, splash pages. We've been there and done that. People used to be very impressed with those and it made us web designers look very clever. Until of course the site needed updating. What was the latest effect that took weeks to develop now doesn't work in this browser, or looks silly at that screen resolution or more than likely is just embarrassing.
Thankfully, our craft has come of age. Your customers now use the web as it was originally intended, they want to find out about your products and services and possibly buy them on-line. What works is an attractive layout, simple navigation and pages that load quickly, but above all, useful content.
Style
Our sites are clean and classy, without clutter and each has its own theme that remains consistent throughout the site.
Speed
One of the most significant benefits of hand-coding is that the size in bytes of any page is often many times smaller than one automatically generated by WYSIWYG software used by most of our competitors. Because the page loads faster, it gives us the freedom to tweak up the quality of your graphics by an extra whisker.
Graphics
Every single graphic on any Vantech site is individually tuned by eye to achieve a happy medium between speed and quality. Whether it's a piece of fancy text or a photograph of your product we take the time to get it right.
We won't give your corporate logo jagged edges or dirty shadows.
Like these
Hover over the images for an explanation:
![[Image: This photograph should show a business owner proudly standing by his van, but the designer has used the wrong format and in spite of the large filesize, the picture doesn't reveal much]](images/badgrafix01.gif "[Image: This photograph should show a business owner proudly standing by his van, but the designer has used the wrong format and in spite of the large filesize, the picture doesn't reveal much]"){kind=small}
![[Image: Nice edges! Looks like a homemade site to us. Viewing the code, all is revealed - it's made with Microsoft Word. No doubt this company saved a fortune on web design!]](images/badgrafix02.gif "[Image: Nice edges! Looks like a homemade site to us. Viewing the code, all is revealed - it's made with Microsoft Word. No doubt this company saved a fortune on web design!]")
![[Image: This picture has some important text but the jpg is over-compressed]](images/badgrafix03.jpg "[Image: This picture has some important text but the jpg is over-compressed]"){kind=small}
![[Image: This site is made up entirely of pictures, even the text. The furry edges are nice!]](images/badgrafix04.jpg "[Image: This site is made up entirely of pictures, even the text. The furry edges are nice!]")
![[Image: Adding shadow to a graphic can bring it alive but this one's a bit over the top]](images/badgrafix05.gif "[Image: Adding shadow to a graphic can bring it alive but this one's a bit over the top]")
![[Image: Anti-aliasing of graphics is essential to give smooth edges but in this case the wrong background colour was used]](images/badgrafix06.gif "[Image: Anti-aliasing of graphics is essential to give smooth edges but in this case the wrong background colour was used]")
All of these images are unmodified slices from business websites found within a few minutes' browsing. Unbelievably, some are the work of professional designers. Work of this standard would harm your company's image, you're probably better off without a website.
More about our methods: fluid design»