Many hours may be spent online looking for, and locating, nice designs for websites.

Lots of that time can be spent in the visual, the aesthetic view of an online site. But web designers look beyond that, to the typography, to the appeal of the site as a whole. Having this in mind, I have had the opportunity to perform a paid review on a site in Essex that specialises in creative web, print and graphic design - Realworks.

It’s a nice looking site, orange a very vivid, memorable colour, and can sometimes be used badly, but this site does use it nicely. I especially like the menu system which appears to be molded from the site itself, appearing upwards and downwards from the visual area. One thing I am disappointed about is the lack of use of an extra menu box for mouseover, but that’s just personal opinion really.

The site merges a sales page, portfolio, blog, services and contact pages among others, and lets you see what work they’ve done. Again, with the menu the portfolio doesn’t seem to have a menu tab, but that’s a small detail.

Their blog appears to be integrated fully into the site, the same appearance - this is something that specialists like myself do - but I notice that clicking on the ‘front page’ of the blog doesn’t show any articles but only a list of articles.

The site, Realworks, appears to be focused on the Essex area but also caters to the UK as a whole, like myself. They offer other extra services, such as marketing (although this appears focused online), print and graphic design in addition to the web design services. All in all, a nice site, I hope that I see more from them, and perhaps open up a professional relationship with them for work that they need assistance with.