A drawn out concept phase. And the winner is... this one.

National Standards Authority of Ireland Website (2001)

Perfect example of an already existing logo dictating the form of a website's design.

Design

So, far from it being a case of the rounded-corners and brief few hints of playfulness being mere contrivance - they followed the logo. They type still stayed pretty rock-solid with the use of Arial/Helvetica but it was lightened up again with primary colour. I wouldn't often go for two strong primary colours together and no others - especially red and blue, but it felt okay and appropriate in this case. And besides: there was still lots of white everywhere to give the eyes a break.

Not much more to say about this except that I was quite pleased with how it looked at the time. One of my first cleaner-looking designs with plenty of white space. I have to admit though, it was a slow process in the concept stage: many iterations and much chiselling down to the visual essentials.