When you visited one of the Cozy sites such as Cozy Frog or Cozy Academy, you probably noticed the stunning yet Cozy design. The sites are easy to navigate and each small element blends seamlessly with the next. The colors, the fonts and all the icons coordinate and the ads literally pop from the pages. Cozy sites look incredible and there is a reason for that. One half of the duo that created Cozy (C-Pimp) is a web designer.

C-Pimp has asked me to write an article on site design, more importantly, an article on the importance of site design.

HTML is easy to learn, ridiculously easy. The newbiest webmaster will learn basic tags eventually. With the help of webpage tutorials, shortcuts, copy-and-paste as well as WYSIWYG editors a webmaster barely needs to know any HTML code at all.

This article isn't about HTML.

"If HTML is the skeleton and Layout is the flesh then Design is everything else. All those details that imbue personality and cohesiveness, these are the components of Design."

Layout is vital to your success as an adult webmaster. The location of your ads, menus and informational links will mean the difference between profit and loss. You'll want to read reports and studies done on eye-tracking and banner blindness. When it comes to layout, you will have to learn what page areas are best for content and what are best for selling.

This article isn't about Layout. This article is about Design.

There are three separate elements to a webpage. HTML, Layout and Design.

HTML is the foundation or skeleton of a page. It is the wireframe underneath the shape and shade. Without the code, the page will not exist. All that you do with your page you will do in code. You can fancy it up with CSS or use a drag-and-drop editor, but the basis of your site will always be code.

The Layout of your page can be compared to the paper mache that covers a wire frame sculpture. Layout gives a page shape, flesh and form. Like a just-begun sculpture (round ball for the head, reverse-triangle for the shoulders and trunk) the Layout is rudimentary: Ads at the right and top, menu on the left, content in the middle. While vital, Layout is but a portion of a complete web site.

The final - and perhaps most important - element of a webpage is Design. If HTML is the skeleton and Layout is the flesh then Design is everything else. All those details that imbue personality and cohesiveness, these are the components of Design. From the colors, to the logo, right down to the cell-padding size, your Design brings everything together.

Your webpage should be much more than a collection of links, images and ads. Your page should have a distinct appearance that makes sense to your surfers. A candy-colored logo sitting atop a gang-bang site doesn't make sense. A rambling, scrolling assortment of unordered links and banners doesn't make sense. Silly, bandwidth-hogging graphics like animated email icons and reflecting-pool applets don't make sense. A whole page bunched up to the left or centered all the way down doesn't make sense. Dedicating the top half of your visible page to your Flash logo doesn't make sense.

When you think of Design you think of how each detail contributes to the whole. Yes, the ad should be at the top but should it be a text ad? What color will your give your text links? What size font? What Font face? Which Font is appropriate for the kind of content on your page? Should your site copy align to the left? Would the text look better Blocked? How close to the table margin is the text? Would it be better to break this page up with a bar or with a series of bold asterisks?

These are just some of the details you will encounter when you take the time to Design. Yes, you must have HTML. Of course, there must be a Layout. However, none of it means anything without Design.

Again, I remind you to look the Cozy sites. Visit Cozy Frog, Cozy Campus or Cozy Academy.

Study how the colors, text, and elements all work together. Examine the small stuff like the background color underlying ad banners as opposed to the color under the site copy. Notice the little icons that do their part without becoming intrusive.

My boss is one heck of a Designer and you can learn so much just by opening one of his pages.