Site Info

Colouring Code

Colouring Code

March 9th, 2010 Category: CSS

35 comments to “Colouring Code”

  1. Jeremy Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 8:52 am

    Bad design, ugly font, terrible portfolio, laggy website. How’d this make the front page?

  2. Carl Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 9:11 am

    @jeremy

    In total agreeance, I’m starting to question the credability of bestwebgallery.com, is this all just about hte creators personal taste?

  3. cdot Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 9:30 am

    @ Carl

    I believe it is.

  4. George Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 9:59 am

    Yikes!

  5. Jack Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 10:07 am

    I think it’s only here because of its use of CSS3.

    Ugly site though.

  6. Matt Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 10:16 am

    That typeface is awful.

  7. niuage Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 10:42 am

    I love the design personally! The font choice is not so good though.

  8. Carl Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 10:45 am

    Until CSS3 is fully cross browser compatible, there is no place for it as yet.

    And that doesn’t compensate for a lack in design and functionality.

  9. Christina Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 11:44 am

    This site is fab, I don’t know why you guys don’t like it ^^

    Love the overlayed backgrounds; the overall theme of super heroes which extends to the illustration, typography and copy; and nice progressive enhancement.

    Personally I’m not sold on the whole transform and zoom thing in CSS3 but I think it fits well here.

  10. Pontus Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    “Superheroes sans disguise”.
    Tim Van Damme much?

  11. Renee Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 2:27 pm

    Everyone is such a critic on this site! Ha ha. Just because it doesn’t appeal to you, doesn’t mean it needs to be bashed. It’s typical here, and elsewhere, that the only time someone wants to take the time to open their mouth is to complain. Constructive criticism goes a long way at helping a designer! Although this design is not one I would have designed, I respect it. :)

  12. Carl Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 2:36 pm

    @renee

    I agree with what you’re saying and you’ll see my defence of someone’s work in another website that has been submitted on here http://jamesmli.net/.

    My only gripe with this site is that the…
    • font choice is poor
    • the layout seems tight and constrained
    • the nav just blends in with the rest of the site and could be lost?
    • With the poor choice of font, there doesn’t seem to be any clarity between the text, it all looks ‘bold’ to me
    • There’s only 2 featured projects, where are the rest?

    Constructive?

  13. Marshall Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 4:09 pm

    These sites are being criticized harshly because people who visit bestwebgallery frequently expect a certain level of work to be showcased…

    Personally I think the past two featured sites were/are not up to snuff with what is usually posted on this site.

    Don’t get me (or anyone else I’m sure) wrong. I am happy that the people who have submitted these sites are actually doing something rather than playing Halo or World of Warcraft all day. I think its great that they worked hard and completed their websites. I just don’t think they are ready to be showcased.

  14. Marshall Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 4:13 pm

    Not to mention one of the “Featured projects” links on this site does not work, and they both take you away from the actual site… Should probably load in a new window, wouldn’t you think?

  15. Rich Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 4:32 pm

    Figured I’d chime in on this… I agree with Renee, but Marshall brings up a good point that you expect a certain level of quality, and I agree that this isn’t ready yet.

    As for everyone knocking the typography, each typeface evokes a different feeling. I don’t think the typeface is bad, I just don’t think it was used properly. Overall I like the design it’s just subtle things that really make or break the quality of a site, on this particular site that seems a bit neglected.

    Another gripe is there does not seem to be very much contrast to distinguish sections, projects, etc. Again this can go back to the typography with the same font for the intro used for headers, and not much difference in size or weight causes some displacement.

    To Carl about the showcased projects, I agree. But then again maybe this is a new venture and they haven’t had enough time to secure or showcase client work. Building on that, the only working link for their work goes to a landing page using Arial in images for text and two images of a magazine. Nothing even remotely close to something to showcase on here.

  16. aledesign.it Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 6:42 pm

    This font is really ugly…and old style…Remember me the 80’s graphic.. I see better works, sorry…

  17. Nick Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 8:07 pm

    I wasn’t gonna comment on this but what the hey…

    The design isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen but its not necessary worthy of this gallery.

    Little details like the angled images having jagged edges and the colors not really having much contrast don’t really help it out. Also the header illustration does a good job at telling the story of the company but it is a very basic illustration.

    All in all it feels more like a scamp then a finished site.

    My two cents

  18. Marshall Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 12:08 am

    Well at least this has evoked some nice conversation!

  19. dudeydudeydude Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 2:30 am

    This is the first site that aledesign didn’t like on this gallery.

    That’s like the web design equivalent of Paula Abdul saying you’re not cut out to be a singer.

  20. Rob Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 3:56 am

    @dudey lol!

    I think people have got to bear in mind that some/possibly a lot of the sites on this gallery have not been submitted by the author so regardless of what anyone else thinks, obviously ’someone’ thinks it is good enough to be here.

    Saying that, I do have to agree with a lot of the comments above, it is difficult to judge this as it uses a lot of CSS3 techniques we are not so used to seeing at the moment in your every day sites, but if you can try and strip all those techniques back and look at the site as if it were someone looking at it on older versions of IE for example, the site becomes pretty plain.

    I also think the sidebar detracts from the main ‘breaking points’ in the sections on the page. No matter how clearly you define the content on the left into sections, having a single sidebar is always going to make this less obvious.

    I also really wanna see more form the work section…. Any ideas on if this will be expanding?

    So for me, its points for the techniques attempted, but the base and core elements involved in the site are not the greatest.

  21. Ian Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 4:27 am

    I personally don’t mind if some of the sites on BWG aren’t 100% brilliant. There’s still some positive aspects to be taken from this site and at least it tries to go in a different direction and has caused plenty of controversy.

    Sometimes we learn more from mistakes than we do success. Showcasing perfect sites on BWG all the time just breeds a whole lot of designers who want to copy the ‘perfect’ designs and the industry becomes stale and boring.

  22. The Designer Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 4:41 am

    Wow - so many comments - so much controversy!

    I’ll tell you one thing - I’m glad it’s caused so much debate - to me it must be a good design because of this alone.

    We wanted to get away from the standard - a site must be like this or that - we wanted to be different.

    The majority of people whose opinions we truly value (not that we don’t value any of your opinions) have said positive things about the design and they’re usually our harshest critics.

    Can somebody point out what’s wrong with our font?? Other than ‘ugly font’, ‘poor font choice’??

    Why is the design ‘terrible’??

    We have no problem people criticising our work - just don’t make a statement without clarifying it?

    @renee #11 - one thing we have noticed is that unless you’re an established, well known designer/agency your work will be slated. There is too much back-patting going on in our industry.

    @carl #12 why is it a poor font choice? 2 featured projects?? That’s why they’re featured - if there were 20 - they’d just be our projects. None of what you’ve said is constructive - let us know how we could improve it?

    @nick #17 The jagged edges are down to the browsers rendering not our work - chrome/safari on a mac seems to be the best to view them - any other browser has poor rendering.

    To all of you - thanks for your comments - good or bad?? We appreciate them!

    This site is still a work in progress - we’re currently too busy working on actual client projects to dedicate time to this site - our clients like it - we keep getting business - so it doesn’t really matter if another designer doesn’t think it’s perfect - it’s not you who were trying to win over.

    Peace out!

  23. Ian Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 5:45 am

    @The Designer - I like the design and I think it IS different. I dislike the font though. It’s difficult to read especially when bold and it’s jagged in my browser - whether a fault of the browser or not, it can and should be avoided.

    Your featured work doesn’t justify what you say in the title though. Firstly, the iPad site doesn’t link to anything but a holding page and the e-commerce site doesn’t actually link to an e-commerce site, just a catalogue.

    You need to back up what your saying to your clients with some evidence.

  24. Keren Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 6:33 am

    @The Designer

    So basically you’re saying “If you’re not on a Mac, tough”. Do you realise that you’re basically saying to 93% of users out there that their OS is the problem, not your work? Sorry, but if you’re an actual web designer, that IS your problem - to cater to other OS & browsers, not just tell them to bugger off. And if you don’t think it’s your problem, you’re in the wrong job - elitist Mac snobbery gets a FAIL.

    I’m on a PC, and your fonts make me feel like I need glasses (I don’t).

  25. ian James cox Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 7:46 am

    @Karen - only 7%?

    I don’t know what everyones bitching about. Its worthy of a place on bestwebgallery.

  26. Keren Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 8:12 am

    Yep - see http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

  27. The Designer Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 9:11 am

    Apologies to all for trying to push the boundaries of the web.

    #Ian #23 - I agree with the weight of the font we’re currently looking into it. Cheers for the feedback.

    We do have loads of projects to push live - we’re just waiting for the approval from the clients. So they’ll update as soon as they can.

    The site had a soft launch, unfortunately or fortunately depending how you look at it, our site has been picked up by the majority of major CSS galleries so is getting a lot of viewing - we knew it wasn’t totally ready - the problem is we have too much client work to dedicate serious time to our own site. We do however have a bunch of changes to roll from testing.

    As for @Keren #24 - who says we’re being biased towards a Mac? We have a preference of browsers. We also believe in progressive enhancement - so on Win XP IE7 the site will work - it might not look as good as it does in say Win 7 FF or OSX Safari - but it will work

    SITES DON’T HAVE TO LOOK OR FUNCTION THE SAME IN ALL BROWSERS!

    Otherwise, we’d still be designing websites without any @font-face, CSS3 or HTML5.

  28. Carl Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 9:17 am

    @thedesigner

    I can understanding your defensive response, it’s only natural. It’s not about bashing people to the ground on here and on the flipside it’s not about blowing smoke up people’s backside either.

    I thought my listed bullet points where a fair constructive criticism, I actually quite like the aesthetics and approach of your site there’s just the fundamentals that don’t sit right right, that’s all!

    With regards to your font choice being poor, it’s purely because it doesn’t seem to have a distinct range of weight and everything seems to be merging into each other, there’s no clarity.

    And while you have a client base that are very happy with what you do, in order to expand and grow that client base you most certainly need to increase your ‘featured projects’ ok, you may not want a portfolio of work to be on show (god knows why not?) but if you want to show your best samples at least make sure your links work!

    You say the site is a work in progress??

    Then personally i’d have kept it from the view of a design community and continued to develop the site until it was fully complete.

    Surely being in the industry you understand the processes of a ‘flight check’ and wanting to show off a product to the best of your ability.

    Please don’t see this as an attack, I think this site has evoked such a negative response because of the environment that it has been featured in ‘bestwebgallery’.

    Hope all this helps.

    Back to work for me ;-)

  29. The Designer Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 9:23 am

    @Carl #28

    As mentioned previously we’re looking into the weight of the font.

    We don’t see it as an attack - we wouldn’t have minded any points that expand on what they mean - like you have here.

    The points that are ‘I don’t like it’ - are a waste of a post. That’s all. They don’t help anybody.

    Cheers for your response.

  30. Rob Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 9:37 am

    I guess it mainly comes down to if your bothered about making your site:

    a) Pass accessibility
    b) Be X browser compatible
    c) Cater for the masses

    Or, do you want your site to be cutting edge and future proof?… Because at the present moment in time, it is very difficult to have both.

    It brings in the whole debate of ‘is it to early to use these technologies?’ and ‘when is the right time to start?’

    I say as I mentioned above, good on you for implementing HTML5 and CSS3, if your not bothered about points a - c above then cool.

    But as long as you have a fall back that your site looks good on older browsers, as you are seriously narrowing your market by only catering for the people who use FF/Safari etc.

    I personally haven’t checked the site in anything other than FF and Safari, but IF it were my site, I would. :-)

    Oh and @Keren - Bear in mind those stats are only related to the W3Schools stats, not the global population :-)

  31. WearyMax Says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 5:06 am

    AHA!! “best”…
    I cant believe…

  32. Jeremy Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 7:53 am

    @The Designer

    “I’ll tell you one thing - I’m glad it’s caused so much debate - to me it must be a good design because of this alone.”

    There isn’t really a debate, the design isn’t good. Just because your design led to 30+ comments (most of which were saying the design was bad) doesn’t mean that it’s a good design.

  33. Joel G Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 3:51 pm

    So reminds me of a Clif Bar package.

    http://www.fleetfeetsyracuse.com/images/clif-bar2.gif

  34. The Designer Says:
    March 19th, 2010 at 9:55 am

    @Jeremy #32

    Designer’s and people in general will only write comments to complain. It can’t be that bad - on the day this site was featured - we had over 3000 unique hits to the site. And we had less than people say they didn’t like it.

    That’s less than 1% - We’re more than happy with that.

    Like I said previously - it doesn’t really matter what other designers think - you’re not paying for our time - our clients are and they like it.

  35. Vera from Bucharest Says:
    April 3rd, 2010 at 10:46 pm

    I’m an amateour and to me there is nothing wrong with the design of this site, from the aesthetic point of view. I’ve seen others worse-looking than this one, right here.

    Its main problem is functional. I possibly haven’t got it right, but to me the menu “disappears” when any link is clicked, so how are people supposed to navigate it? Clicking the “back” button or scrolling up and down?

Post your comments

Design Jobs on the Wall

See all Design Jobs