It has been quite awhile since I've been to Mark Monciardini's website,
DesignsbyMark.com. For those of you who do not know this fabulous graphic artist, he is known worldwide as the Master Lama of
Adobe Photoshop. Mark's graphic artistic abilities are awesome. He's been designing graphics since he was 12 years old.
When I visited Mark's site today, I got a very pleasant surprise. It is being redesigned with a visitor-friendly format with lots of white space. Although Mark is an excellent graphic artist and it shows without saying in his designs and tutorials, effective web design should not be confused with graphic design. To make your website effective for a diverse audience, it certainly needs to be attractive but more importantly it must be navigational and accessible to everyone.
Compare Mark's new design:
www.designsbymark.com with Mark's old design:
www.designsbymark.com/index.phpQuite a difference, yes? I admit the old site will W-O-W you, and that's what Mark wants to do. However, if only half of his visitors have a high-speed internet connection, he'd only be able to WOW half of his visitors (maybe a little more if they have the patience) with the old design. Studies have shown that only 20% of internet users in the USA have access to high-speed internet connections.
Congrats on the new design Mark! Welcome to "white space". We like it ... simply basic. It enables your products to stand out. Such a simple little thing as white space can have HUGE rewards.
// posted by BasicRic on 6/11/2004 04:33:13 PM / Permanent Link
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