JesiiKat
"Good" site- http://www.robertquill.com/
Robert Quill's site is pretty awesome. I'm not a huge fan of his work really, but I think he does excellent web design work. I wish I could remember his real name so I could find another example but this will do. For one thing, the intro is interesting without taking too long or being over the top. It is clean, but fun and really shows off his unique style, and draws you in to want to see most of his work. I like the feature that pops up when you click on the gallery and it asks if you'd like to filter out the adult content. On the gallery pages the background is colored, but doesn't detect from the work, and you can even choose to see the images larger. Overall it is clean and simple and very easy to navigate. I think some of the inner pages are bordering on boring, but for the most part it is to emphasis his product, and in that it serves the purpose.
"Bad" site- http://www.nyorganicmomma.com/
Organic Momma is a pretty cool site that offers products for baby and child that are either entirely organic or just BPA or phthalate free. While it's pretty awesome what she is trying to do, the website is just short of being absolutely horrid. I believe she generated the main layout using the shopping cart service's templates. While the main layout doesn't look horrible, it stinks of unoriginality and is quite bland. In the meat of the pages, she places random bits of text in different colors and sizes, and randomly adds images in for effect. It is messy, unorganized, and appears as if she is using some kind of editor provided by the host. This is the exact reason why I don't support learning how to design from programs, learning the underlying code should always be the first step as it gives a better grasp of the language you're working with, and helps to prevent poor design choices in the long run.
Kathryn
http://www.lookingglasswars.com/
I love the way they use the cards for the navigation, as well as using the links on the side. It adds to the experience. The quality on the images could be better, but it's a very interesting site. As cool as the navigation is on the cards, it's hard to read because of the quality, and it is very confusing at times.
http://www.stephenking.com/DarkTower/
It has a very basic navigation, but the effects make it interesting. It's very easy to know where to go and what to do because it's very straight forward. It looks very clean and simple.
Sara
There are so many bad web sites out there, it was really hard to pick just a few. We’ll start with this one:
http://www.havenworks.com/
Where do you start? Other than the fact that the colors on this site almost sent me into a seizure, the sheer volume of information and links on this page makes you have to really WORK to find anything. I found it not user friendly.
Next:
http://www.juliegarwood.com/
This one surprised me, since she is a wonderful author – but the way the entire screen moves around made me nauseous. Motion sickness anyone? It was clever to a certain degree, but I felt that the site designer got ‘overly enthusiastic’, putting in cute little links and graphics here and there that served no purpose, did not have anything to do with the site topic and just ended up cluttering up the page.
Both of the above were courtesy of webpagesthatsuck.com
I’m going to throw in one more, just because it is dear to my heart:
http://www.puppetworld.net/
This is actually my Fathers web site – so no one tell him I’m putting it on the bad list! He is not someone who is familiar or comfortable with technology, but he does know that his site really isn’t well designed. He’s on me quite a bit to ‘hurry up and finish’ my degree so that I can fix it.
First, although the colors may seem appropriate for the genre, I find them too bright. Puppets may be a children’s plaything, but children aren’t the ones who will be shopping here. The text for the links on the top of the page is too small, and has no real uniformity on the page – different fonts; different sizes all make it seem messy. Plus, the same links are on the top AND the bottom. One last thing, since I could go on and on – no search bar! A site like this needs one desperately.
Now for a good site:
http://www.sidhe-seersinc.com/
Just because I think it’s very cool. The animations, links, look – everything. It’s more like watching a movie than visiting a web site.
http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/home#section=HOME&subSection=0&subSubSection=0&language=EN
This is a great site. I found it to be visually pleasing, easy to navigate and the way the site was set up made me want to stay. It looks very high tech and ‘now’.
http://www.coca-cola.com/HF/index.jsp
This site has some wonderful animation. I found it to be such a fun site that I hung around for quite a while.
Rowan
http://www.ebolaworld.com/
Nice use of implementing Flash to give a rich experience and make the
website more fun.
http://sftm.org/
Bland and somewhat out of date not orginased as well as it could have been.
Leonette
The website www.bermuda-triangle.org is a horrible website for many reasons. First, it seems as though not much thought was put into the website. It is unorganized and the contents of the home page are clustered together, and is not very pleasing too the eye. I believe too many things are going on at once on the ome page, such as the pictures, graphics, and color scheme. Furthermore, the links that direct viewers to the other web pages are very simple and somewhat unprofessional. In addition the other web pages contents are not properly aligned and it seems as though each page has a different theme. rather tan all the pages focusing on one design scheme.
the wesite http://moma.org/serra is a better website because the color scheme is great. he contents fits together, everything is aligned in a professional and pleasing to the eye way. Also, you can tell that much thought was put into creating the website. The links on the page, once the site has been entered is new and fancy. I haven't seen rollover links like that before. Once the mouse is placed over a link, that tab is then split into two or more links. In other words the first link is more of a title and the rollover links are like the subtitles to that link so that the viewer can be directed exactly to where they want to go.
Sam
Worst websites:
www.kems.com
I chose this one because even though they are a printer, they offer graphic design including web page design. The home page you land on is pretty uninspiring. It’s almost a blank canvas, but not done in an artsy way. After clicking on one of the three options, it gets worse. The secondary pages seem like they’re cut and paste with bullets listed, but no navigation and text and images used in a haphazard way with minimal if no design thought. When you click on Business Cards, it goes to another page that has one sample card on a separate page. Under the Kems Digital Gallery, it’s laid out just as bad with a broken link to the business cards navigation. When you click the Water Screens link, it brings you to another page that is mostly unused and has four examples all on the left side of the page with no design forethought about how to lay them out. The teal text on the black background is horrible as well.
Another site I hated was:
www.noahslittleark.com
This is a site I discovered while looking at the competition for a venture my mother is starting. Just looking at the homepage it’s apparent they didn’t spend any money on design, but just used a template. It reminds me of a Constant Contact email. The navigation bar is horribly designed and very small. When you click to see additional pictures of the puppies, you’re given a long, single column, page of pictures that scrolls up and down. I think there is a more creative way to lay out the pictures. The whole site just seems like it was thrown together without any thought to design, only to sell dogs.
A site that has always been a favorite is:
www.arnoldworldwide.com
Okay, so I know they’re a big ad firm, so it’s probably comparing apples and oranges when I compare this site with the other two, but I love how the main page for Arnold is clean and interesting. The flash piece is awesome. It works flawlessly and is smooth. When you move the mouse one way, the spinning names follow the movement. When you click on the name of a person, it’s replaced with a picture of them which stays up and even stays proportionate to how the mass of words spin and it even layers properly. It’s a nice transition when you enter the site. I like how the site keeps the clean look, but looks well designed still. The top nav animation is nice too. When you click on the Our Work, it gives you a brief introduction and a sub-nav of the clients that scrolls nicely. Click on a client and it gives another sub-nav of the examples of work. Everything is easy to use on their site, it’s fast and clear. I love how clean the whole site looks, too.
Another website I found that’s pretty neat:
www.okaydave.com
It’s a portfolio site for this designer Dave Werner. The home page is a huge collage that has different links to different pages. The sections highlight and show the name of the page when you move the mouse over the collage. All the pages are also on the bottom in a separate navigation. Each page has a movie of Dave explaining the process of the project while the project is on the right side of the screen. Each page is handled a little different, but all tie together design wise. I like how on his Logo page, you could move the mouse over the logo to see all the notes on it’s creation. On the Kennedy Center page, you can flip through the pages of the booklet he designed. The videos load a little slow and can get a little old, but I definitely think this is a good example of a non-traditional site design that works well.
Olivia
The first is my good site choice http://www.americanidol.com/ . This site is easy to go around to view the area that interest the viewer, as well as the images rotate.
The next site is my bad style site http://www.ign.com/ . This site is very cluttered with lots of links going to many places but if you don't type in the search bar you'll have a hard time finding what you want to find.
Jeff
1- http://www.google.com/
Yes Google! I know that google is not flashy in its initial appearance and that is part of its unique branding. The absence of art and the utilization of white space draw you to this sites true purpose, searching. You could easily replace the brightly colored "google" letters with almost any other word and people would most likely know that you were mimicking this internet giant. It is only once you enter into your search that the screen begins to load up with advertisements and material including imagery. Google incorporates product placement and advertising on a one to one basis like very few other websites do. They actually build your search results to include advertisements appropriate to what you are looking for.
2- http://nikonusa.com/
I have always been a camera buff. When I started searching out a digital camera I was truly impressed with the wealth of information available on this site. Upon entering you are shown a swirling collage of dynamic images. This quickly settles into a quiet, but attractive home page for Nikon. Each time you login to the home page, the collage and final base photo are different so as not to make the site stale for people who browse it frequently. The buttons have mild animation, good icons and offer excellent site navigation. The search functions of this site enable the user to get updates, downloads and offer answers to technical and artistic photography questions. My only minor issue is that the main photo on the site is large enough that you have to scroll down to see many of the articles that Nikon is featuring. I really like when a site’s front page is a very complete experience. I don’t mind having to dig down into another part of a site, but don’t like a site that makes you scroll for what looks to be key information.
3- http://www.andrewmail.com/
The company that I work for………. The first link is to our flash based site. Unfortunately I was in charge of implementing this site (not as a web designer, but as a project manager). I like some of the images (I shot or “photoshopped” most of them), but even as I was asked to manage the project I did not like this site. I felt that the Flash was not really effective, the navigation was mundane and the colors were poorly selected giving the site an overall dull appearance. The second link is a stopgap attempt to have a simpler, cleaner look. I was not involved with this one, but when I was asked by my peers I offered that we really need to commit to creating something clean and dynamic that represents us as a technical cross media organization (a total re-work). Finally both links fall dramatically short and should not be available for clients to view. Beyond the aesthetics and lack of true design, both utilize logo branding that Andrew Associates has not used in nearly a year. Any client being courted by a cross media organization that offers full creative art services should have a web site that uses its current logo and branding. Maybe that will be my class project.
Nicole
The good one I found was for my favorite author, James Patterson. The url is http://www.jamespatterson.com/index2.html. I feel that it is pretty simple, even though it has a bit too much information on the index page. Other than that, the links are well organized and lead you to where you have to go.
The one I felt was poorly done was one for a channel on TV which is Bravo. The url is http://www.bravotv.com. Even though it tells the viewers what they want to know, I feel that it is very cluttered with information from every television show they run. But, compared to the other site, this one has a lot of flash going on.
Herlinda
Here is a great website from Harvard University. I listen them on my Ipod. It is wonderful!!!
http://cs75.tv/
In this website the students can download the videos in Itunes. Also, they give you the slides shows and audio. They can go to the lecture 10 and wacth the videos in flash or QuickTime formats, listen the lectures in MP3 also, see the slides.
Lecture 10: CSS. Cascading Style Sheets. Available in Flash, MP3, and QuickTime formats, along with slides.
If anybody is interesting Harvard University is posting the current course's videos online. It is about Building Dynamic, Scalable Websites. http://cm.dce.harvard.edu/2009/02/22884/L01/
http://cm.dce.harvard.edu/2009/02/22884/L01/seg1/index_FlashSingleHighBandwidth.html
Here, there is another one that is very good. It is Lynda.com's competition.
http://apex.vtc.com/dreamweaver-cs3.php
http://www.computer-training-software.com/dreamweaver-cs3.htm
Also, there is a website that is offering a CSS level 1 course for free. http://westciv.com/courses/free/index.html
VERY BAD WEBSITE!!! http://yvettesbridalformal.com/ This is a very confusing website. It is hard to know where you should go to find what you are looking for. This website brakes many good wen design practices. The music starts as soon as the website is open.
It is hard to find how to stop the music for playing.There is no color coordination. Next, it is hard lo find the links
Many places on the website it is hard to see the words because of colors conflicts.
VERY GOOD WEBSITE!!! http://www.speakvisual.com/#/spotlight This is a very creative site. The viewer know exactly what the designer is trying to communicate which is the Nvidia graphics card. Here is why this is a great site. Has a contemporary feel. It is very clean and uncluttered.
Makes people to stay and learn about the company’s products. It is very relational .
It is easy to find the links
It has great colors coordination.
It is fast. The transition are outstanding
Vanessa
http://yvettesbridalformal.com/
Failed! horrible the whole rainbow is included to much words everywhere disorganized the only thing i got was the name because it was mentioned to much! graphics don't relate and there's a drawing done in paint lol where do i click? took too much to load and it prompted me with quicktime a total nightmare!
http://www.magnivate.com/
Passed! i really like the design of this website is very interactive and it doesn't take too much time to load everything is organized the links work and the colors are easy on the eyes plus its so cute!
Iurii
Very Excellent... www.adidas.com/us/homepage.asp
Very poor... www.kresy.co.uk