Webby Awards

Web sites that load fast and still capture a distinct visual feeling won Webby Awards for Mega Star Media Inc.

of Reno.

The Webby Awards are to Web site design what the Oscars are to acting, says Sandy Rowley, lead designer and chief executive officer of Mega Star.

Rowley's company won honorable mention in this year's competition, placing two winning Web sites among the top 20 percent of the best sites worldwide.

The Webby Awards are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

The competition judges sites on content, structure and navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity and overall experience.

Visual design that draws an emotional response proved a winning combination.

Of the award-winning site www.DeafAfrica.org, Rowley says, "It provokes an emotion about what you're looking at." The site was designed for Deaf Africa Association, an Encinitis, Calif., group that works to improve education for the deaf in Ethiopia.

Of the site www.Boedai.com, Rowley admits that picturing celebrities helped draw the judges' attention.

Boedai Entertainment is a New York City organization that seeks to develop films, music and other media to inspire young people.

Celebrities grace many of the Mega Star Media Web sites as music industry artists make up about a third of the company's clientele.

That started when Rowley created and donated an AIDS Web site for a Southern California benefit.

The headliner was Patti LaBelle.

Getting in touch with LaBelle led to her doing the star's pet site, www.pattispuppies.com.

And that led to three more Web sites for other clients of LaBelle's manager.

When he had come to trust Rowling, he entrusted to her the building of LaBelle's own Web site, and that of her fan club.

"The site tripled her fan club membership base," says Rowling.

Word of mouth then brought her other clients from the music industry.

But the work isn't all celebrities and champagne.

It's a challenge, says Rowling, to keep clients on task and organized when it comes to providing the content information she needs to work with.

And she doesn't just mean divas, but all clients even those in the more prosaic markets she serves such s small business and non-profits.

Rowley, who designs up to four new Web sites a month, has created more than 250 sites, employs two programmers, three administrators and a couple of independent sales reps.

Her favorite site? It shifts as new ones come into being, but her current favorite child is www.thehousethatlovebuilt.org, built for the non-profit Ronald McDonald Foundation.