The abrupt design change when clicking on Portfolio (linking to personal site) put me off. It’s okay otherwise.. don’t see anything super spectacular about it overall.
@tdub and @Iain,
The changes from this blog, The Design Cubicle, and my portfolio site are due to the fact that The Design Cubicle is a separate site from my portfolio. More of a project of mine. I often showcase other’s work, interview other designers and didn’t want to give potential clients the wrong idea. Although since it is my writing I felt that it was also necessary to link the two. Hope this helps to clarify a bit more.
Really like the use of cross hatching on this site. Like many others, I add gradients to things far too readily. I would agree that you don’t expect outlinks from the main nav..
I like how nice and clean it is. But the first article says 2 comments but when I click on it, it says 0 comments? Not sure what happened there. Probably the first 2 comments were pingbacks.
Thank you for the more detailed explanation of why it’s like that, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that as a user it’s disorienting, and from a designer it culls the atmosphere that the rest of the site has. On a side note, I do like the color palate and textures you used. The site overall could certainly be a “web 2.0″ theme (I hate that phrase, by the way), and am actually glad you stuck to non-gradient patterns and solid colors.
My only problem with it is is possibly similar to the seperate design conundrum. Which is thus;
When I clicked portfolio and went to the Hoffs actually porftolio website, I then clicked blog to go through to his blog (I thought that might be design cubicle but it isn’t) and then when I tried to go back to the portfolio I went to some squarespace website.
Where that ties into Design Cubicle is perhaps instead of having “portfolio” mixed in the navigation, perhaps it is a seperate sting? Or bumped up to the links above the navigation.
Apart from that, it’s a pretty cracking website. Nice colours and I like the center align thats becoming popular these days. Nice attention to detail with some subtle textures.
@tdub, there’s still some gradients in there, haha. But at least it’s classy.
Overall I like the simplicity, but one thing that kind of bugs me is the background color for ‘Records’ with the list of months and it’s size seems to throw off the center alignment balance with it’s weight, since the only thing on the left column is ’9 Comments’. Maybe a shade that is a tad lighter than the background would help with this? Just a thought.
I really like the subtle use of patterns throughout the site – I think that works really well and gives the site some class. Other than that not much really stands out for me..
It isn’t even the site design change that makes this difficult to navigate around, it is more that the main navigation between sites change.
If the designs were totally different but the navigation across the top stayed consistent this would massively help the user experience I think, and not to much to change or design.
Sticking with the site in question, I to like the simplicity and subtle textures, just that break in flow on the navigation that hurts it.
I LOVE THIS CREATIVITY…. you’ve gat to break the rules some times…… fellas always think outside the box. the design is cool and the concept of different styles for certain pages is interesting.. i love the creativity.
11 Comments
The abrupt design change when clicking on Portfolio (linking to personal site) put me off. It’s okay otherwise.. don’t see anything super spectacular about it overall.
Agreed, I got taken to about 3 different styles of page. Instantly lost and it’s a well trodden style.
@tdub and @Iain,
The changes from this blog, The Design Cubicle, and my portfolio site are due to the fact that The Design Cubicle is a separate site from my portfolio. More of a project of mine. I often showcase other’s work, interview other designers and didn’t want to give potential clients the wrong idea. Although since it is my writing I felt that it was also necessary to link the two. Hope this helps to clarify a bit more.
Really like the use of cross hatching on this site. Like many others, I add gradients to things far too readily. I would agree that you don’t expect outlinks from the main nav..
I like how nice and clean it is. But the first article says 2 comments but when I click on it, it says 0 comments? Not sure what happened there. Probably the first 2 comments were pingbacks.
@Brian
Thank you for the more detailed explanation of why it’s like that, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that as a user it’s disorienting, and from a designer it culls the atmosphere that the rest of the site has. On a side note, I do like the color palate and textures you used. The site overall could certainly be a “web 2.0″ theme (I hate that phrase, by the way), and am actually glad you stuck to non-gradient patterns and solid colors.
My only problem with it is is possibly similar to the seperate design conundrum. Which is thus;
When I clicked portfolio and went to the Hoffs actually porftolio website, I then clicked blog to go through to his blog (I thought that might be design cubicle but it isn’t) and then when I tried to go back to the portfolio I went to some squarespace website.
Where that ties into Design Cubicle is perhaps instead of having “portfolio” mixed in the navigation, perhaps it is a seperate sting? Or bumped up to the links above the navigation.
Apart from that, it’s a pretty cracking website. Nice colours and I like the center align thats becoming popular these days. Nice attention to detail with some subtle textures.
@tdub, there’s still some gradients in there, haha. But at least it’s classy.
Overall I like the simplicity, but one thing that kind of bugs me is the background color for ‘Records’ with the list of months and it’s size seems to throw off the center alignment balance with it’s weight, since the only thing on the left column is ’9 Comments’. Maybe a shade that is a tad lighter than the background would help with this? Just a thought.
I really like the subtle use of patterns throughout the site – I think that works really well and gives the site some class. Other than that not much really stands out for me..
It isn’t even the site design change that makes this difficult to navigate around, it is more that the main navigation between sites change.
If the designs were totally different but the navigation across the top stayed consistent this would massively help the user experience I think, and not to much to change or design.
Sticking with the site in question, I to like the simplicity and subtle textures, just that break in flow on the navigation that hurts it.
I LOVE THIS CREATIVITY…. you’ve gat to break the rules some times…… fellas always think outside the box. the design is cool and the concept of different styles for certain pages is interesting.. i love the creativity.