Valid HTML, valid CSS stylesheets and beautiful creative websites are not a contradiction.

It is very much within the realm of possibilities and you have come to the right place.

The Mysterious World of Design..

A few words about Website Design

A nowadays successful site must have a multitude of talents.

A website should be eye-catching, yet original.
With so many talented designers in the world, there are naturally thousands of visually appealing websites on the web, so finding a designer who has taste is not so hard. Originality is a somewhat bigger problem, as some designers get inspired by 'what works" and simply apply it in their next design, which explains why certain nice websites soon became nothing but average.

A website should be optimized for search engines.
You can either have a full Flash website and hope that the WOW effect (+ perhaps some advertising) will bring you visitors/customers, or you can have a super-heavy-search-engine-optimized regular HTML site (without any Flash), or you can have a regular HTML website, use some Flash (for accents) and have it optimized for search engines. The third option usually makes the most sense.
In order to have a well optimized website, you should have a decent amount of plain text. Quantity is not the only relevant aspect however, what also matters is the density of related keywords. In the case of "Art of Designs", it would be phrases such as web design, professional website design, graphic design, custom logo design, or Flash designer.
This is obviously a goofy way of bringing them up. I warmly recommended hiring a professional copywriter.

A website should be user-friendly.
User-friendliness involves several aspects, of which some are universal and should be considered for each website, and others custom-tailored, depending on your target audience. Ease of navigation is always a plus. Surfers are looking for something on your website. If they can't find it easily, they will probably look somewhere else. Site loading time should always be as short as possible, however it is important to understand that impressive graphics, elaborate animations (possibly with music, or voice-over,..) and other eye-catching gadgets add to the file size. So, know your target audience, and make a decision based on that. Your site visitors and potential customers are the only ones who matter in this aspect.

A website should be memorable.
No matter what business you are in, make sure to offer your visitors something that will distinguish you from your competitors. An amazing (not just pretty or nice) design, free goodies (e.g. downloads, coupons, etc.), a game promoting your brand or product,.. Offer something extra, and make sure your place on the web stands out.

What next? You can either bookmark this page and consider the above web design tips regardless of who designs your website, or you can continue browsing 'Art of Designs'. If you like my style and persona, contact me.