Bad Ass Site Awards

First, there are about a million web site awards you can win. Chances are some of those awards are so bad, you probably wouldn’t want them displayed on your web site even if you did win. If you are a web designer, chances are some of those awards are not within your reach because the people that give the awards away are web designers (the Lunar Graphics award, by the way, is for everyone). Then the really famous awards may not be within reach because you are web design firm, and that is not very original. Even though the “winning strange off-the-wall sites” have probably been designed by a web design firm, but still, they skip over your corporate site because it isn’t that exciting to visit a web design firm site. My advice is: try submitting your client’s sites to the hard to get awards. For those of you who could care less how ugly the award is, (which you should be concerned with that if you do any type of design services) just apply, you can get them. If you have a page with nothing on it, chances are they will give you an award. They want their award anywhere they can get it.

My opinion is, if you have an award that is ugly, then it isn’t much of an award. If I spend hours and hours designing a site, and I apply for something called “all that and a bag of chips” web site award, how is any one going to take me seriously as a designer? That award is actually funny, but some of them are just plain dumb. Awards shouldn’t take a half hour to load, be five inches high and three inches wide, blink and shoot lightning or have pictures of stuffed animals on it. If you just want awards to make your site look award winning, but not display the ugly images, try typing in text how you won your awards, but “The Cyber Bear Award” is going to look silly no matter if it is typed or displayed as an image.

On the other hand, try applying to award sites so you can be listed on their site. Chances are, no one comes to the site just to browse the winners, but you never know. Most award sites require you to display their site. Awards can be very useful when trying to catch a client. Someone who is new to the web, may not understand how easy or hard it is to get an award, but they know what looks nice and what doesn’t. The design of the award should be comparable or better than your own talents. So, if you think that the “Bag O’ Chips” award is well designed, then go for it. But if you don’t, it is better to exist without the award all together.

Here is a list of some of the awards that are a bit difficult to get or have nice design. We will try to add to the list as we find new sites. At the bottom of the site, is a few awards sites that you can visit to apply for many awards. Those awards aren’t always that hard to get. Good Luck.

Net Guide Top 10 Site
Macromedia’s DHTML Zone Spotlight
Cool Site of The Nite
Flung of the Day
HOW Now/Top Links
LookSmart
GTE Cool Sites
LA Times Pick
Yahoo! Picks of the Week
Xplore Site of the Day
Hot Spot Today!
Lunar Graphics Award
Webmaster Award
World Best Web Sites
AccuSubmit
TK Award
Jayde Awards
Web Ratings
Neutral Design Award
Award for Xellence
Webbie World Awards

Author: Gina Hutchings
Copyright Lunar Media Inc
Chicago Web Design