We hear a lot about the importance of regular redesigns in order to keep our sites fresh to our visitors. We also hear a great deal of emphasis on the importance of branding. But what is never mentioned is the paradox that can exist between these two objectives.

I'm not of the school that says that a regular redesign is essential to the continued success of your site. I do believe it can be helpful to stimulate renewed interest, but it's definitely not crucial if your current design is already effective. In fact, some of the most successful sites have gone through little to no redesign work for years. In some cases, I believe in some cases that their lack of redesigns may have helped them more than it hurt them. These are sites that people visit day in and day out, and they know exactly what to expect. There are no surprises. It's simple, easily accessible, and the visitors know exactly where to click, because the layout hasn't changed a bit over the years.

I believe that good web design has much more to do with the ideas the site is trying to convey than with the actual techniques involved in graphics and coding. I see quite a few sites that make great use of dynamic HTML, fancy animations, mouseovers, Flash animations, and interactivity, but yet are still quite unappealing and ineffective. One of the fundamental ideals to be considered is to always keep your page designs balanced. You should look at your screen as a painter looks at his canvas. Design your page as if you are painting a picture.

With that in mind, how many unbalanced paintings go on to be considered masterpieces? The placement of objects and colors in a great painting are never unbalanced or sloppy. In the same way, you don't want your site to be unbalanced.