Simply put, people love illustrated characters, and Mplusz does a great job of utilizing illustrated characters to grab their visitors’ attention without going overboard.

Not only does their home page provide information about their company and samples of their work, but it also prominently displays whether or not they are available to take on new assignments.

Finally, by also utilizing a fun illustrated character at the bottom of the page, they are able to generate attention for their contact form, which helps to persuade more visitors to send them inquiries.

Regarded as one of the top web hosting companies, Media Temple’s website conveys an attitude of cool professionalism. While many web hosting websites look like they haven’t been updated in ten years, Media Temple does an excellent job of using their design to convey the fact that they are a cutting edge hosting company.

Past the home page, Media Temple’s continued use of strong graphics and clean layouts helps them guide visitors through their site and ultimately convert them into customers.

Thanks to its vibrant header graphic and three distinct product links below the header, as soon as visitors arrive at the Guifx home page, they can quickly decide what content they want to view on the site.

Throughout the rest of the site, Guifx continues to do an excellent job of not only featuring striking graphics and illustrations, but using them to effectively enhance the user experience for visitors to the site.

Following the footsteps of the popular Web 2.0 designs, RedBrick Health provides a layout that manages to be simple, colorful, straightforward and playful all at once.

In addition to its eye pleasing color scheme, RedBrick Health is also successful at using an illustrated background that isn’t too overwhelming or distracting to visitors, and allows them to still find exactly what they need on the site.

Instead of choosing a traditional static portfolio, Julius Mattsson made the wise decision to use a blog format for this home page of this portfolio, while providing a traditional portfolio gallery on one of the inner pages of the site.

By blending very bright elements with darker and more subtle elements, this site is able to provide plenty of splashes of color without being tacky or overwhelming.

Instead of settling for a design from the mid-90s, Ameritrac’s website is simple but very attractive. The site is anchored by the large and colorful header photo. The combination of the red and beige in the color scheme allows the brightness of the red to be showcased without it becoming overwhelming.

Because this is a corporate site, the simple navigation layout is also a good choice for this site.

tap tap tap is an extremely well-designed website. The home page is designed like a sushi menu, with different iPhone apps being each item on the “menu.”

Thanks to the contrast of the dark background with the white body, visitors can’t miss what’s important on this site. Additionally, when any of the “menu” items are clicked, the smooth transition to a detailed product page is quite elegantly done.

Thanks to their warm color scheme, visitors to the College Park Church website instantly feel like they are welcome. In addition to being provided with a bright slideshow, visitors are also provided with a quick look at the church’s upcoming events.

The rest of the website is used to provide visitors with all of the information they could want about the church and its programs, including links to multiple audio versions of the latest sermon.

To increase its retention rate of visitors, TasteBook instantly prompts anyone who visits the site to sign-up for their newsletter. Once visitors move past this option, they are greeted with a warm site that is well-designed.

The ingredients that go into great recipes have a lot of different colors, and TasteBook has successfully reflected this in the color scheme of their site. However, they avoid overwhelming visitors by also incorporating a lot of white space into their design.

The layout of the site does an excellent job of featuring what the site is all about, and giving visitors plenty of reasons to continue exploring the site.

While Intridea is not a complicated website, this is not a bad thing at all. In fact, it is actually a strength, because the simplicity of the website allows the important information (such as what Intridea does and how they can be contacted) to be displayed prominently.

Additionally, while Intridea has incorporated several bright colors into their color scheme, they have ensured that they aren’t overpowering by also using plenty of white and gray in the design.