This is the most recent iteration of anythingbutplain.com, which could seen as a perfect example of web design in general through the fads and fashion of the times. At first it was simple hand-coded pages for Netscape 2. Then, roll-over navigation and frames. We used BIG IMAGES. Then iframes. Then CSS iframes. Then using blogs for news. We are now looking at the most recent design which uses an all-CSS, web standards-based design.
The issue is one of compromise: the client, because of her industry, wanted ornate, lush, rococo visuals, the kind that are usually too large (in file size) or don't lend themselves to clean web design. Complex graphics also slow down redesign and basic maintenance. Her class schedule changed every six months, so the class pages had to be re-built almost from scratch almost every time. The home page had a magazine-like cover image the client insisted on (calling it the "pow" image) that was 55K on its own. Overall, it was big, clunky, and did not attract much search engine traffic.
This design tries a different approach. We use a beautiful texture for the background (which, because its repeated, gets a lot of real estate without being a large file to download) and the "pow" image gets smaller, topping the news. The key change is that it uses a lot of text to invite Google and other search engines to spider the site. Using text also makes the site more accessible and easier to read.
The client prefers greens and creams for colors, and we've stuck with that for the life of the site. This time we switched from Verdana to Trebuchet just because Verdana is used today like Helvetica was 15 years ago. The class sections are easier to maintain, using CSS tricks like "float" to keep things simple on the code side.