China Journeys – We got the logo, now for the site

China Journeys (china-journeys.com)

We are ex-employees of a UK tour operator disappointed with changes for the worse. We are going to go it alone and run our own trips to China based around a quality product and high levels of service. We need a website that incorporates a feel for ‘China’, ‘travel’ and ‘quality’. We would also like to incorporate an aspect of fun but that should not detract from the main three issues.

We aim to sell standard tours and tailor-made packages to discerning travellers. These people:
1. Enjoy life
2. Are probably professionals (or retired professionals) aged over 30
3. Get excited by something unusual
4. Do plenty of research to ensure they get what they want
5. Have a good general knowledge (so literary or geographical references are good)
6. Are not fooled by clichés or gimmicks

General Points

The site is completely new so there are few limits.
We have not decided on any Fonts. You are free to use any standard ones. We would consider embedding a font for titles etc. but not at great expense. Let us know any license fees required
We want to try and create a look that is not just simply blocks in columns
The colour scheme should re-use colours from the logo (and black and white). We favour a light background
We favour good use of colour gradients
We are happy to use tabs or similar to increase the amount of content available to the viewer
The design must be SEO friendly

Basic Design

We are aiming for a 1220 pixel width design. All of the main features should appear in the top 800px but we expect the content to require scrolling down
We want one coherent block that is a fast-access way to view our Journeys (we prefer the right-hand side as we feel this is more positive).
We want to use icons for just about every link, with a consistent feel to add to the professional look and brand image.

A full list of the elements required and links to the logo etc are included on http://centour.co.uk/IanTemp/99designsbrief.html

Format Required

We are capable of coding so we really just need the artwork (supplied as sliced jpg/tif/png) … but anything that saves us time and effort will be appreciated.