What kind of web site design is considered good for hosting company?Or is it just question of taste?

How about these beauties from Pixwlbrick:

http://www.fastwebsites.com/home/index.htm
http://www.dialyourweb.com/home/index.htm
http://www.rackfast.com/home/index.htm

ugh! pixelbrick sucks! Flash lameness and music that's sure to turn off many a customer.

aiste,

its really a matter of taste on which designs you like and which you dont.

Originally posted by Drewcifer
ugh! pixelbrick sucks! Flash lameness and music that's sure to turn off many a customer.
Obviously not a broadband user. :D

Pixelbrick rock. End of story.

bah! I have a 2mbps connection. Pixelbrick sucks no matter how fast your connection is. All their designs look the same! And the one they seem to be copying wasn't all that great to begin with.

Originally posted by Drewcifer
All their designs look the same!

Hmm noticed the same thing. Once site keeps crashing my system. Not sure why, just one in particular

Pixelbrick does do some nice work, but be prepared to have some deep pockets if you want them to do something similar to one of the sites in their portfolio, they'll cost you 5K on up (And I stress the on up part!).

Best of luck,

David

the question was not about pixelbrick but what would make for a good design for a hosting company.

This thread is headed off track. If you want to complain about pixelbrick and thier designs.. start a new thread.

Originally posted by Drewcifer
ugh! pixelbrick sucks! Flash lameness and music that's sure to turn off many a customer.

I agree :-)

IMO a good design for a web hosting company consists of the following things.

FAST LOADING, period. (Keep the page size & images size down, remember not everyone has broadband).

EASY NAVIGATION. (Not all your clients/potential clients, will be masters of navigation)

No Banners.
Nice Colors.
No Lies.

And your good to go :)

I agree with vigour, personally I don't think there's any need for music and the like, it may increase or (in the cases of drewcifer and kdghsu decrease) overall viewing experience but in the end the purpose of the host's website is to simply sell a product.

The website's appearance is important, it can be compared with the presentation of the staff and the general condition of the building in which a normal business trades in... so IMO again, something which is plain, attractive but not overboard is ideal for a hosting company.

I think that Aiste, was looking for examples of hosting sites, in which case take a look at Poznet (http://www.poznet.com) a site I recently developed. I think it's a good example of what I was saying earlier on.... :)

Serge,

I thought your name sounded familiar, I take it you were the actual designer who did the work on my site? All my dealings went through Bill, so I never actually conversed with you, but I had noticed your name embedded in the source code of the pages from my site a while back.

My site isn't a hosting site, but the company this gentleman works for does some spectacular work, the hosting site they designed the templates looks superb in my opinion.

Best of luck,

David

EDIT NOTES: Looks like they removed the original post above that I was replying to for a board posting violation.

Hello, David!
Your website "Genaldi"
http://www.genaldi.com
was created by me :-))) and another man created programming for you. Unfortunately, I don't know his name.

Serge.

What does a hosting company do? They host web sites, right? In my opinion, a hosting company's site should represent the industry that it provides for. It's like has to be truly awesome and that is what pixelbrick do in my opinion. Another pixelbrick like site is http://hostevolve.com - pretty nice.

Anyway, their sites take a while to load, but the wait is worth it and most people are bowled over by the sites. People want a hosting company that looks secure and stable. Pixelbrick provide an image that smacks of corporate cash. Sites are interactive and appeal to sight and hearing.

And, oh yea, HostNexus v2 in production by you know who. ;)

I just want a host's website to let me find what I want QUICKLY. Ever seen verio's website? It's alright, but it takes FOREVER to find what you need.

One of my favorites is hostway. I'm working on a site that's hosted by them and their service is great as is their site. I've worked on a lot of sites where I had problems with the control panel or their help section because it took some browsing to find the answer I wanted. Hostway is not too flashy like pixelbrick. they don't need to be. it's simple, straightforward, and clear. and that's my preference for a hosting site.

Originally posted by NexDog

Obviously not a broadband user. :D

Pixelbrick rock. End of story.


:eek:
If you like looking at the same layout and listing to the same sounds over and over.

All of there stuff looks the same.

END OF STORY!!
"ADD FUNNY LOUD SOUND EFFECTS HERE"
oh wow Button makes a eek sound lets use this host :rolleyes:

A hosting site should be:
1) fast-loading
2) no intro page
3) no sound
4) no banners/pop-ups
5) easily navigated
6) easily readable (type not too small or too many colors on the page)
7) no pics of people

I don't know about others, but I back out of sites that have some of the above. Note: if you're selling web design, put all that flash on your web design link, not on all of the pages.

You don't need to use a template. A well designed logo/banner is good enough. If you must have a template, there are many free ones.

that's my 7 cents worth :)

Well...
I like nice designs... maybe if you are just doing hosting... a clean design (not full of graphics/sound/animations) will do the work better... dunno... do you think that people thinks "Oh, look this site, the hosting have to be great!!!".... mm.... so... why all of you use rackshack? ... the website is one of the horriblest template based design I ever seen... but It's hosting almost 10.000 servers.... hehe....

And... all okey... pb. designs are very respetable...
but... how much they charge?
does any one have any idea of the price of this sites?

I mean... lot of hosting are using a $100 template... or maybe... a $300 design ....
how much will you pay?
how much is pix.b. charging?

Anyone of you have a pix.b. design?
how much you payed?

you know... you can't compare a Hand Made Ferrary... with a cheapo car .... this is the same...

time vs. money

more time, better works, more money...
but 99% of people looks for a CHEAP website... a CHEAP hosting... a CHEAP car ... a CHEAP world.

anyway.... anyone have prices?
I really want to know :P

Regards.

pixB has a list of cleints on their site ranging from $1500- $35,000 ... :eek:

I think a good site shows that they care.. some pile of cr** shows the host does not care about anything to me.. :rolleyes:

DESIGN!... but fast loading design..

oh i see...
just think... for a $5000 site (maybe an average?)
I can do the site, wash your clothes, dunno... jjee

for that money... I can have 2 designers and 2 programmers working a full month... just for you. ahhahahah

:)

LOL.. yea $35,000 and I think the gaps site sucks... :rolleyes:

Give me $35,000.. I will pay someone else $5,000 to make you a damned nice site.. and pocket $30,000 ;)

Originally posted by Drewcifer
ugh! pixelbrick sucks! Flash lameness and music that's sure to turn off many a customer. :confused::eek::confused:
Hmh, a little jealousy? PixelBrick designs awesome websites, that are functional and easy to use. You must not be in the web design industry, to have made such awful comments. I assure you that if you asked any graphic designer about a PixelBrick website, they would tell you that, their websites are extremely functional, user friendly, and are just good sites, period. You need to rethink the comments that you made.

Originally posted by NexDog
How about these beauties from Pixwlbrick:

http://www.fastwebsites.com/home/index.htm
http://www.dialyourweb.com/home/index.htm
http://www.rackfast.com/home/index.htm To add to your list:
http://www.hostrocket.com
http://www.dominet.net
http://www.dialyourweb.com

Here's another,

http://www.kaltschmid.co.at/winter/de/home/index.htm

Originally posted by NetXL
Here's another,

http://www.kaltschmid.co.at/winter/de/home/index.htm Another example, of the beautiful work that PixelBrick produces.

Just a side note, I just love the designers who say they use flash but it's really just Swish :)

PixelBrick does do tremendous designs, but IMO it's not worth the cost. Not many have 35k to drop on a website design.

I dont like the flash and music that pixelbrick uses either. All their sites are the same. No originalitly to them. Kinda carbon copies of eachother except for a few minor changes. Im guessing its the same designer as each one will no doubt have their own style.

to answer the original question........
I would say the type of design suitable for a hosting company is one that is:
- professional
- usable
- simple
- fast
- accessible
with well delivered content that sells the product quickly and efficiently.......

There is no doubt that Pixelbrick can deliver a professional looking site with very well designed graphics.......but what about accessibility and standards?? considering the larger number of devices and users accessing the web, you would want that(well I would).....especially for $30k....

Pixelbrick is overhyped.......but I guess they are not complaining....

Yea, their sites are all the same. Yea, all the music sounds the same.

1. Open your eyes.
2. Open your ears.
3. Get a grip on reality.

I notice how all the people chewing out PB don't have active links to their own site........

A VB hack ain't a true site and requires no skill to make. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by NexDog
Yea, their sites are all the same. Yea, all the music sounds the same.

1. Open your eyes.
2. Open your ears.
3. Get a grip on reality.

One could say the same thing to you, my friend. But since you're so obtuse about this matter I won't bother. You can ooh and ahh over Pixel Brick sites all you like. They are not now and never will be worth the money people pay for them. If you wish to have one so you can impress easily pleased people like yourself, be my guest, it's your $30,000.

Did you actually play the 'well, none of YOU can do any better' card? That's the sign, not only of a weak arguement, but a weak mind as well.

originality i.e. NOT pixelbrick.
pixelbrick isn't that great. yeah, it's cool looking and stuff, but it's OVERDONE. and soooo duplicated over and over and over. those flashy sites are NOT meant for webhosting if you ask me.

Yikes, well you people certainly are picky, sheeesh. Ok, maybe the site loads too slowly for your connection, you don't like the music, it isn't you particular taste, or you feel they are too expensive... but to say they 'suck' ???

I beg to differ. :D

If I was selling Ferraris then I wouldn't drive around in a beat up old ford. For companies like us, a website is our shop front, our only point of contact with the public and prospective clients. An interactive site with tasteful flash and music (I admit some of PB's music is cheesy, but that has to be client preference too) will make that site stand out from the crowd. People won't forget it and it represents the company in good stead. It says, "We host websites, we are your site's gateway to the net. We are stable, we are successful".

We represent the whole internet package. Ecommerce, networks and design.

Originally posted by Chicken
Yikes, well you people certainly are picky, sheeesh. Ok, maybe the site loads too slowly for your connection, you don't like the music, it isn't you particular taste, or you feel they are too expensive... but to say they 'suck' ??? Ya, saying they suck, is going a bit too far...

I love them. PixelBrick does a great job. The intros are great, it has the people with professionalism, it just kicks butt! :) I think some people are just jealous. i wish someone wouuld make me a deisgn like that for Kylecool.com, but I don't have any money atm. :( Oh well.

I bail on sites with the following:
Flash
Background music
"click to enter" pages
I bail on hosting sites for the following:
Flash
Background music
"click to enter" pages
Banner ads
Incomplete info (like saying you will be charged for going over bandwidth, but won't say how much)
Fake, vague or incomplete info listed for the registered domain name. (yes, I do whois, and a DIG)

I wholeheartedly stand by my belief in their suckage =D

Originally posted by Drewcifer
I wholeheartedly stand by my belief in their suckage =D Link us to your wonderful site.

Yea, let me see your site. :P

What exactly does this have to do with anything I have done? We're not picking on individual sites here, we're talking about designers that charge $30,000 for a template.

Originally posted by iamdave
Link us to your wonderful site.

You find me one place where I ONCE referred to my website and I'll not only show you my site, I'll give you $1000.

Look at this beautiful table, hand made over 4 months with a $15000 price tag. But it sucks and is poorly made because I am also a carpenter and I know everything about this industry even though you will have to take my word for it. :D

Originally posted by NexDog
Look at this beautiful table, hand made over 4 months with a $15000 price tag. But it sucks and is poorly made because I am also a carpenter and I know everything about this industry even though you will have to take my word for it. :D


Of course you'll have to take my word for it. It's an O P I N I O N .

Human beings are known to have opinions. Didn't your alien leaders tell you that before they sent you to our fair planet?

I agree with alot of what was said and disagree with alot said. You want omthing to look great with good colors but what you need the most is something thats inviting. But you also want something fast. People out looking for host often will visit 25 other ones in teh process and if your taking to long to load they will elave. Also you want to display yoru deals on the front of the page so they see it right away with out doing any scrolling. Make sure its a true deal and a good deal.

I can't say I agree with those of you who think PB's design are completely bad. However, I do believe that they forgot a couple crucial elements: "music off" and "stop animation" buttons. I don't want to be bothered with the annoying sound of repetitive bleeps nor strobing images. Not to mention the fact that fast strobing images can cause epileptic seizures.

The graphic layout is nice, but seems to be copied for at least 80% on all the links that've been shown in this topic.

But, in all fairness, everyone would love to be able to use the same template for all sites that (s)he makes and still charge several thousands of dollars for each and every site.

Roland

Originally posted by iamdave
Another example, of the beautiful work that PixelBrick produces.


Yup and another look just like the last 30 they turned out if you are on 56k go else where site...

by Pixeldupe ;)

Me,personally i think that WEB HOSTING company site has to be where everything is adapted to the needs of the CLIENT.That he or she finds everything fast ,the client easily gets used to the site.(Finaly you want to make money but not to have a" temple"with Flash, Background music or "click to enter" pages ).Of course it has to be professional and not irritating psychologically...
Speaking about that company you were speaking a lot i really don't think that their sites are attractive....They are quite conceptional but extremely boring.

No host should use FLASH on their site...
It makes dialup users not wanna join them!
(and trust me there are ALOT of dialup users out there!)

Just some FYI :D

Originally posted by YourHostSucks
No host should use FLASH on their site...
It makes dialup users not wanna join them!
(and trust me there are ALOT of dialup users out there!)

Just some FYI :D

yeah i agree with that one! its just too slow to download flash on a modem.

On the other hand.. it does look good :)

I love Flash. Well, more people should get Cable. Dont' flame me for that, so I'll take it back. Hosts should have 2 designs, 1 flash, and 1 non-flash, and if they have a slow speed modem, it takes them to normal, and if it downloads high speed, then flash. :) It can be done easily with a few lines of code. :)

Hi Kyle:

I just wanted to make a post here in reply to your post. I am against your suggestion about having 2 designs (1 flash, 1 non-flash). I feel that even though it is good to accomodate all users, the host must realize it is more practical to go with one design, period. Why can't one design accomodate everyone? Solution is to remove flash from the page.

I agree with the other posts about leaving flash out on web host sites. Until the Internet world is ready to accept broadband as a true home-standard, web hosts should accomodate dial up users also. I believe having any type of "Splash page" on a web host site is unprofessional (whether it is "Enter Here" or "Choose Non-Flash/Flash"). The purpose of a website is to get the point across as fast as possible, in the least confusing way.

Kind regards,

I didn't say there was a splash page, did I? You simply put a speed detector on the first page. it downloads like a quick 10kb image, and depending on how fast it is, it decides if you are broadband or dialup and will take you to that particular section. The internet needs to keep up, and the sites need to keep up. The people need to keep up with what's going on and popular, and hundreds of people are signing up to broadband everyday. Eventually, everyone will be on broadband, and I bet it will be soon actually. :)

But still i must say when im looking for a host it could be at night and everyone in the house is asleep and BOOM! loud music comes blasing out form the speakers because of a falsh site. If you are a host and offer webdesign too then Flash is great because it shows what you can do. But if your just a host you need to show that you can do good hosting not good designs. The way to do that is make evertyhing a fast loading page. Face it if yoru page takes forever to load just because the flash is like 1 mb big or something people wont think of how big the design is but how long it took and they will think you are a slow host when really your not its just you have to big of a page. Realize (this is ment no harm) customers are not always up to date on everything. My grandma has her own ceramics business and if she wanted a website she might figure out what a host is but not know fully technical stuff and think that your slow and not think that things take up space. Now this is a exsample because jsut the other day i tried to show my gma how to use the cell phone and it took 45 minutes to show her and yet she still was confused. but you guys understand what im getting at. Make it so that "Stupid People" still think your great. Now im not saying to call your customers stupid but its a way to look at it. Just think back to your first days on the net and you will remember what its like to be one of them.

I completely agree with cedwards:"Customers are not always up to date on everything"
For most of the clients web site has to be fast and easy,cause its like "a shop",but not "an attraction park".

I think that most people most people know that Flash takes longer than normal to load and most people looking for a host are web designers or know enough to know that. Therefore, if they come across a host's site laden with Flash, I doubt they'd think, "Oh, what a slow server!".

What I like about PixelBrick's designs is the way the page loads incrementally. The flash is so integrated that trhe content displays while the flash loads. It would be bad to look at a white screen for 1 minute if it all loaded at the same time. ;)

flash vs noflash
sounds a lot like IE vs nutscrape.
If you are selling something, just make the site quickly accessable to every one or count on not selling to people who won't wait for your flashy presentation.
I don't care why I am forced to wait, it only counts to me that I have to wait, and if I have to wait because of your flash, I will not understand that you are slow because of MY dial up. I will know only that you are slow. In other words: slow = slow and nobody cares why.
Don't even tell me what ISP connection or browser to use.
My cash is good anywhere.