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Best site designs?

  • 27-10-2009 10:08pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭


    Hey folks,

    I'm not sure if there's already a thread about this (there probably is), but I've spent the last few days (between doing actual productive things!) looking around at various websites for some inspiration :) There's some great designs out there.

    Let's leave aside most of CSS Zen Garden's designs :p

    eg. Mark Boulton's website
    http://www.markboultondesign.com

    I also love this one
    http://twistedintellect.com


    Isn't white space great??? :D


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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    Oh here's a couple I forgot about

    http://www.subtraction.com

    I love this :)
    http://www.misterpresident.org


  • Registered Users Posts: 156 ✭✭kgpixels




  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    kgpixels wrote: »

    Class site to "play" with, but I had no idea what the site was about from the home page, it's pretty difficult to navigate, and I still have no idea what "big black pencil" actually do!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,251 ✭✭✭RobertFoster


    And it resizes my browser window, so I've even less chance of knowing what it's about as I've closed the tab already.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    This site uses Flash a bit more delicately to great effect :)

    http://www.whitenoisestudios.com


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 263 ✭✭HandWS LTD


    Also, Mark Boulton's website says they design websites but it consists of errors. Thats not good for anyone who plan to design websites as a service.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 742 ✭✭✭Pixelcraft


    It's going through a re-design so that's probably why. The site though is still well coded and perfectly accessible. Seriously, Mark Boulton's one of the best designer's around, and has been designing for a long time. I don't think any of us here are in a position to criticise his work.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 263 ✭✭HandWS LTD


    Hi pixel.....you are prob right about that. I'm not critising him as a designer but the errors he has. Didn't think it could be a redesign.

    I'll look again in a few months.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    Hey folks, just wanted to bump this because I think it'd be good to have a thread to post good designs and perhaps critique them! I'm looking for inspiration and am always looking around at sites, particularly portfolios, for good techniques and the likes.

    Feel free to post up more! I've a few bookmarked on the laptop, so will post some myself later :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,099 ✭✭✭Dean820


    Jim Carrey has the most flashiest website known to man:

    http://www.jimcarrey.com/


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,015 ✭✭✭✭titan18


    http://www.2advanced.com/

    I find this site to be quite cool


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,495 ✭✭✭Abelloid


    I really don't like Flash... not sure why, but I'm instantly turned off sites that rely on it..

    I do like this -

    http://benthebodyguard.com/


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 386 ✭✭anbrutog


    Good thread.

    I find Creattica to be a fantastic resource myself , some wonderful stuff there...

    http://creattica.com/


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 234 ✭✭Lostinspace


    Hi OP,

    I find that Web Creme is excellent. You could spend hours looking through it.

    http://www.webcreme.com


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 386 ✭✭anbrutog


    Hi OP,

    I find that Web Creme is excellent. You could spend hours looking through it.

    http://www.webcreme.com

    Never heard of that one , some great stuff there!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,979 ✭✭✭Vurnon San Benito


    Never mind flash.
    Look at Chris Pearson's website. Truly class.

    http://www.pearsonified.com/


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,829 ✭✭✭lil_lisa


    This is a fun design:

    www.oddodesign.com

    (Although I personally love it just for the bus!)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 549 ✭✭✭TitoPuente


    Doocey wrote: »
    Never mind flash.
    Look at Chris Pearson's website. Truly class.

    http://www.pearsonified.com/

    It's a pretty standard looking WordPress blog. Nothing special there whatsoever IMO. :confused:


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,332 ✭✭✭desaparecidos


    All of these supposedly good designs are nothing more than pointless glossy brochures, which would fall on their arse if applied to a data centric real world website.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,829 ✭✭✭lil_lisa


    All of these supposedly good designs are nothing more than pointless glossy brochures, which would fall on their arse if applied to a data centric real world website.

    This thread has absolutely nothing got to do with the data/databases in a website, how it processes/sorts data or even whether its functional in any way or not. This is about design. I think if you want to discuss the architecture of a website then maybe you should start another thread about it.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 742 ✭✭✭Pixelcraft


    All of these supposedly good designs are nothing more than pointless glossy brochures, which would fall on their arse if applied to a data centric real world website.

    That's like saying my car would be crap if it was used as a bus.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    This is pretty awesome

    http://www.copterlabs.com/


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    Dave! wrote: »
    This is pretty awesome

    http://www.copterlabs.com/

    Have to say I hate it. The "broken-up" font is hard to read, and the site has far too little whitespace. The "enlarge on rollover" screenshots aren't z-indexed properly, appearing "under" each other, and the enlargement viewer is bog-standard.

    The headers in the blog don't give you any idea that they are links (ironic considering the topic of the first blog entry)

    Add in that the navigation jumps you around the place and I would have to say that that's a site that I'd rate very, very poorly.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    Yeah, but besides all that stuff... :D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!




  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    I love this one

    http://www.mailchimp.com/


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 768 ✭✭✭EIREHotspur


    US websites are great cool design I think.

    abc.com
    nbc.com
    fox.com
    nfl.com


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 234 ✭✭Lostinspace


    www.glenilen.com and www.tearoundapp.com are beautiful websites


  • Registered Users Posts: 295 ✭✭shrewd




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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!




  • Registered Users Posts: 687 ✭✭✭pfurey101


    The full flash websites are indeed gorgeous but I hope the owners are not depending on their websites to bring them visitors/customers. The search engines wont find them. Then again they probably have huge PPC budgets.

    Jim Carrey's site is the biz, well suits his ego :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,713 ✭✭✭Bonavox


    I personally love Matt Brett's site. Excellent use of colour and fonts:

    http://mattbrett.com/


  • Registered Users Posts: 124 ✭✭Mike_Eile


    This tops my list:

    http://cure.org


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    Bump :)

    This one is outstanding
    http://www.cacaotour.com/

    Can't get enough of the contact form at the bottom! *droooooollll*

    edit

    Oh, and did I mention that it's responsive as f*ck?! Resize your browser there :p


  • Registered Users Posts: 30 One Flew Over


    I love this site for it simplicity, use of white space with blocks of colour and it's user accessibility.

    http://www.segd.org


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,383 ✭✭✭S.M.B.


    Dave! wrote: »
    Bump :)

    This one is outstanding
    http://www.cacaotour.com/

    Can't get enough of the contact form at the bottom! *droooooollll*

    edit

    Oh, and did I mention that it's responsive as f*ck?! Resize your browser there :p
    Not a fan of that site at all.

    There's a lot of completely unnecessary design elements in there that would put me off using it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,245 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    Dave! wrote: »
    Bump :)

    This one is outstanding
    http://www.cacaotour.com/

    Can't get enough of the contact form at the bottom! *droooooollll*

    edit

    Oh, and did I mention that it's responsive as f*ck?! Resize your browser there :p

    The form doesn't render the same in IE 7 or 8 and I reckon there is close to 10mb of background images to download on the home page alone.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15 Duncan1001011


    I'd recommend allday.cc.

    It's an excellent showcase of one of the lesser talked about aspects of web design: persuasive copy.

    Your design isn't going to convert anybody of the copy was written by a stiff businessman with no regard to the brands identity.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,070 ✭✭✭Placebo


    whats copy got to do with web design?
    You could have the best speech of the world on a really badly designed website, it may still read like the best speech in the world, but it will still be written on a brown paper bag found on the street


  • Registered Users Posts: 15 Duncan1001011


    I think copy has a lot to do with web design. Would allday.cc really work as a design if it didn't have top notch copy?

    At the end of the day a web design is a frame for content. I actually think that a decent speech written on a paper bag would have a chance of doing down well. On the flip side however, the greatest design in the world is worth nothing if it is just there to present a wall of lorem ipsum.

    Ideally both need to be taken into consideration to make a nice site. Both the content and design would benefit from working off each other.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,070 ✭✭✭Placebo


    . Would allday.cc really work as a design if it didn't have top notch copy?


    Honestly, i feel that site is badly designed. So to me it wont make a difference.
    However even if it was the best site in the world, the copy could be replaced with random 'Lorem ipsum' copy and it would still look good.

    The type of writing, wether 'persuasive' or otherwise, to me, doesn't have any effect on design.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 34,809 ✭✭✭✭smash


    allday.cc.... min €250 daily rate to write copy? Isn't that what marketing teams are for?

    And sure he didn't create his website, http://youloveus.co.uk/ did.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15 Duncan1001011


    However even if it was the best site in the world, the copy could be replaced with random 'Lorem ipsum' copy and it would still look good.

    I think this is where we are differing. I'm figuring that design is solving problems. To convert more users into paying clients for example. To solve this problem the end design may not look pretty, but if it does the job then it's a good design. Whether it looks pretty or not is superfluous. For example lingscars.com looks crap, but it's usable and I'm never going to forget the site. I've seen it posted on just about every top "bad design" list, it's probably gotten a lot more attention that any other online car shop by looking like such crap.

    My point is that design is for solving problems, not making things look pretty. You simply can't achieve anything with a site full of lorem ipsum.
    allday.cc.... min €250 daily rate to write copy? Isn't that what marketing teams are for?

    If you have a marketing team with competent writers then sure. I'm not sure what his target market is exactly.
    And sure he didn't create his website, http://youloveus.co.uk/ did.

    Sorry, I'm new here, is this thread specifically for self made sites or something? I didn't mean to imply that he did.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,700 ✭✭✭tricky D


    I would have thought it was pretty obvious that copywriting has plenty to do with design. Copy is a functional aspect of a website which inputs into the form of the design. Take a look at so many websites with their walls of text on homepages which is a poor way to handle the content. A good web copywriter knows that you generally start with easily digestible snippets and than progress to longer bits of text as the user's interest and attention level rises. The site cited does that with the first 2 pages having copy of about 25 words, then 3 paras of 25 each and then the fuller sell. This reflects the increasing level of interest, though I'm not a fan of how it has been executed into the design form. I doubt that the site wasn't solely created by youloveus, Mr Allday obviously had significant input, possibly beyond just the copy. I don't think his day rate is any issue and what the marketing Dept should be doing and actually do is another matter.

    There's a nice article which covers all this with links to further reading: http://uxmyths.com/post/718187422/myth-you-dont-need-the-content-to-design-a-website including using Lorem Ipsum stuffing.

    @Duncan, have a look at what Ling has written on this site - interesting stuff. She even did an 'In the Well' http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055793398


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 34,809 ✭✭✭✭smash


    You simply can't achieve anything with a site full of lorem ipsum.

    Nobody said you could. Lorem Ipsum is placeholder text to show a client what their design will look like when copy is added. A designer's job is to create a design, not copy. Therefore copy has nothing to do with design, it's to do with the end result. The two are different. A well designed site should still look well with dummy text.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    Strange angle this thread has taken... I follow alot of design blogs and aggregators, and read a few books, and have never seen mention of copy as being an important aspect of design. Typography certainly, but not copy... As mentioned, it should look just as good with Lorem Ipsum.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,332 ✭✭✭desaparecidos


    Length (word count) of copy matters, not the words themselves (except maybe for large titles).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 34,809 ✭✭✭✭smash


    Length (word count) of copy matters, not the words themselves (except maybe for large titles).

    Length of copy can be controlled by formatting and styling/features of it's parent container.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    This is probably a matter for another thread - keep posting sexy designs! With or without nice copy ;)


  • Registered Users Posts: 15 Duncan1001011


    @tricky D That's a nice link, cheers.

    @ Dave! Good point :) Here's a nice site.
    good****ingdesignadvice.com

    *lol, boards edited the obscenity in the URL. It's goodfu ckingdesignadvice.com/
    Without the space.

    This one has a nice contact page.
    peacock.st/


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