Posts Tagged ‘web design’

Recently I have been reviewing a number of projects that are focused on an audience ranging from preschool until 6th grade. One thing very apparent amongst these projects is their homogenized aesthetic. This aesthetic is semi-appropriate for the age group being targeted however there are a number of reasons why I consider the design to be bad. The term “bad” is being used in the context that it directly impacts the works effectiveness. For a better understanding of this context for the critique of these works please see the article “Pizza Flyers: The Height of Good Graphic Design?” from Speak Up.

This is post number eight in my Sources of Inspiration Series. Over 80 portfolios later and I am still amazed by the amount of quality work out there that I am able to find. For this collection I spent over 5 hours reviewing the work, which really speaks for its quality.

Note: This is not a series about the websites themselves. That said, enjoy the amazing design work located within the portfolios below.

It has been quite some time since I have shared some website designs that I find to be amazing. Because it has been a while since I last shared a group of amazing websites, I have decided to share the websites that I have found to be the most interesting over the past couple of months. Typically this series has been more or less restricted towards html/css sites but I have decided to include flash based sites that are creative and well designed. Now that the stereotypical “web 2.0” look has been subsiding somewhat I believe this series will move more in this direction. In the past there had been some negative comments regarding flash based sites, however I no longer believe in restricting sites for technical reasons. This series will instead be about sites that are overall well designed no matter what the medium.

I was reading wired.com today when I stumbled upon this article featured on the new webmonkey about how starting today dynamic flash documents would start showing up in Google’s index. Apparently Adobe has supplied Google with a special searchable SWF library that will allow it to do so. According to the original press release, Yahoo! is also working with Adobe to achieve similar results. For the most part I have decided that this is a generally positive move for the technology, however I wonder what impact this improved search functionality will have?

On one side of the spectrum this advancement in technology could have little to no effect (which I will explain below) or it could be a major disruptor in terms of established “rules” of web design. Most likely it will fall somewhere near the middle, however I believe skewed towards the no effect column.

Before graduating from college I became increasingly interested in pursuing my education in design further than an undergraduate degree. After talking with numerous faculty members I decided that it was best for me to spend a couple of years in the field doing some actual work before obtaining a masters degree. That was at least until I read about the new Masters of Fine Arts in Interaction Design that is going to be offered at the legendary SVA starting in the Fall of 2009. This program looks to have all the things I have been searching for in a masters program, great faculty (Christopher Fahey, David Womack, Jason Santa Maria, Karen McGrane, Khoi Vinh, Paul Ford, Matt Owens, Rachel Abrams, Jeffrey Zeldman), a prestigious school, and some sort of coverage on interactive media. In theory this new program would actually surpass all of my criteria.

This is something that is really starting to bug me. It seems like every web shop under the sun has been touting their ability to provide standards complaint valid HTML and CSS. But I ask you so what and who cares? I fully believe in the benefits of standards complaint and valid HTML / CSS but why do so many people use it as a selling point?

Since I first started this series, the goal has been to showcase websites that did not feature the design conventions that have stereotypically accompanied web 2.0 sites. Since the beginning there have been some comments stating that web 2.0 is about the interactivity between users. I have always been aware of this however the goal was not to feature sites that necessarily were 2.0 but ones that did not “catch the trend.” That being said, I also have been challenged by some of the readers to find web 2.0 sites that do feature some amazing design.

Many of you may have noticed that I redesigned the site. I have been hinting at a redesign for a number of months now, and I am very happy to finally reveal it to you all. After what has been an almost endless number of hours (or so it seemed) I have a number of new features and what I consider to be a drastically improved design. I am using this article to describe my process and the goals I hoped to achieve through the redesign.

Web design may be a relatively new concentration in comparison to the other forms of design, however there are a number of things it shares in common with publication design. The long standing practices and theories of publication design can be applied to web design to help create more interesting and effective sites. By grasping these traits you can create sites that have an sophistication far superior than your competition.

What I am about to explain is not a new problem however it is one that is rapidly expanding within the world of design. Technology has been a strong part of our disciplines for a long time, whether mechanical or digital. However, the lowered barrier to entry has developed allowed a number of untrained individuals into the market. This increased competition means that to separate ourselves from the services of others, we need to look above the software to gain the types of projects and clients we would like.

This however is not an easy task, it requires you or your firm to embrace the idea of “Being what matters most” at a core level. If a firm wants to really benefit from the mentality it must embrace it in all of its departments including sales, management, and design. Only then will the idea truly be effective.