Vote Vue de Monde

I’m not sure that Sharon Shannon Bennett needs anybody’s vote as his restaurant Vue de Monde has wiped the floor in just about every single restaurant award in Australia over the past couple of years.

But he may need your help in voting for the Vue de Monde website designed by David Trewern Design in the Webby Awards, sort of the Oscars ( or is that Logies?) of websites as the established cliché goes. Vue is up for Best restaurant site.

Being a snob, I’m not sure is I would describe his competition in culinary terms as good company. We’re talking about Gaucho Grill, Hard Rock Cafe, KFC’s Flavour Station and Montage Studio.

I must admit that I was quite surprised by Vue de Monde’s nomination for two reasons. First, Melbourne as Jerry Seinfeld famously described it, really is at the arse end of the world. Second, because the fact that Vue de Monde was a great web design never really entered my head.

And I think that the second reason is what makes the Vue de Monde site good. Many local restaurants go over the top in providing music and totally 100% flash animated sites. The Vue is classic and tells you absolutely everything you need to know – or how to get there – on the front page. It is very clean and easy to read.

The only flash animation is a reel running of Bennett (I presume) assembling various dishes. It is very clever and each time I navigate to this site it does make me stop and watch.

I don’t think it matters whether we are talking about on the dead-tree (printed page) or the web the basics of good design are to keep it simple and understated (I only wish I had the time and knowledge to properly tweak my own design templates to something better looking without colourful headlines).

So get on over and vote for Vue de Monde.

Website fascist

I think for people who aren’t experts in webdesign commissioning a website is fraught with dangers and unforseen costs. In Australia, in particular, the cost of a dotcomdotau domain name is excessively high and the cost of hosting is about ten times that of the US.

Many restaurants are sucked into providing flash animated sites with music. I’m sorry but when I’m on the web I’m often listening to itunes. I really don’t want your choice of music invading my office or home. I also want sites that are quick to navigate and provide all the information I need.

I suspect many restaurants are also sucked into paying quite a lot of money for content management systems and site maintenance. One small business I know spent $5,000+ on one. For web newbies a content management system simply allows you to write you copy in window online. When you press publish – just as you may press save in Microsoft Word – it publishes on the web.

There are plenty of content management systems that are free – WordPress which drives this blog would count as one. But I’ll reason why I think the blog format is an ideal format for restaurant websites, especially for ones on a budget, another time.