Despite an obscene use of rollovers, the site is nice and pleasant. I like how they don’t take themselves too seriously, and I enjoy that they limit their design examples to a few good ones. I’m always glad to see quality over quantity with portfolio items.
Rob from Collision Labs here. Thanks so much for including our site in the gallery!
@tdub & @eric Thanks for the praise and constructive criticism. We love our design, and were definitely going over the top with the rollovers. I suppose we didn’t think about others’ reactions to them, personally I was going for a bit of shock and excitement.
When I think about the cleanliness of the site overall, I think I definitely see your point. They jump out a lot more than rest of the site, so maybe we’ll think about reigning them in.
@tdub – What would you consider the right amount of roll-overs? Besides the menu, I counted about 4 other roll-over effects on the site. That’s too many?
(The reason I’m asking is because I currently have a client that wants a whole bunch of roll-over effects… and I’m just curious what most people consider “too many.”)
@Cassie: I wonder if tdub was talking about the amount, or the way the roll overs worked. Personally, I didn’t like the way the roll over worked on the home page because the style was a little too different from the rest of the site.
@Rob: I noticed you’re using League Gothic on your blog. Self-hosted? I’m curious because even when I changed the sizes, yours always looked cleaner than the League Gothic displayed on Typekit’s tester.
Rollovers seem to be subject of the day. This is a pretty good looking website.
As far as the rollovers are concerned the only one that confused me was the twitter link at the bottom, I thought it was some problem with the width of my browser, apart from that I can view everything as a stylistic effort.
The contact page is wonderful. The form is really good looking (shame about the hover state on the submit button). I do, however, always wonder what is achieved by listing prices, or in this case price range, on a website.
@Cassie: My issue with the rollovers are both amount and content. On the one hand, there just seems to be too many, too cliché, just… too much. It’s no lie, I love me some good rollover effects, but in this case I just think it’s over done. I don’t need *every* image link to have it. The menu is fine, the Twitter link.. okay sure (though I’ll go into that soon), but the View Our Work just pushed it over the top for me. It’s certainly a personal preference, I just think less is more when it’s specific discussion to this site.
Second, the way the rollovers worked made me cringe a little. Specifically, again, the Twitter and View Our Work ones just threw me off and left a bad taste in my mouth. Specifically, the Twitter upside-down link was weird and off putting to me, and the View Our Work link felt like it was shouting at me and felt too distracting. However, in contrast, the roll overs for the menu are great. Simple, elegant, and don’t distract from the rest of the site. If your client wants rollovers, just explain to him how it effects the end user. They may look pretty, but they may also drive customers or clients away. It’s definitely a give and take with advanced web effects such as JS, JQuery, etc.
Again, I like the site as a whole, and the mood it brings. I think sites should reflect a certain level of emotion and feel to the user, and I think this site (other than those mentioned) does that well. Not only that, but it’s looks put together well. You can usually tell the sites that were planned out and sketched (which all designers should do) rather than thrown together at the last minute in an editor.
@tdub: Thanks for the in-depth response. I’ll definitely explain that to the person I’m making a site for… However, what they’re wanting is akin to what http://carsonified.com is doing – and they have a ton of rollover effects on their site.
@Cassie: The Carsonified (and damn near everything they do) I really like. They are a great and creative agency. The difference between the Carsonified site and Collision is that Carsonified does it with a sense of refinement. It’s not in your face. It’s simple and it flows with the rest of the site. With that in mind, it could be that my biggest gripe with the Collision site is the abrupt large text on the rollover itself, and the weird Twitter rollover. Honestly, if the rollover for the View Our Work had kept the same font, perhaps changed the text color, and still kept the effect of the arrow moving up, I’d probably be fine with it. Good luck with your project, click my name and email me when it’s done. I’d love to see it.
@Jack re: price range, I imagine it’s because it discourages the people with the tiny budgets. I’m thinking of putting something similar on our company site. It gets boring quoting for jobs that people don’t even have the budget for in the first place.
I guess that makes sense. Having a budget option on the contact page is a good idea, as with a deadline field. However I think offering definitive numbers might be a hinderance. It’s not going to stop people with a $50 000 idea expecting to pay $2 500.
Maybe if/when I get clients with larger budgets I’ll understand more… haha.
Thanks for all the positive comments on the design, we appreciate it.
@tdub You’re right, we planned this site out thoroughly, we had a vision and we executed it. I’m still in love with the colors and the site’s message, but the rollovers were an afterthought. I think after working on it for weeks, we suddenly realized our footer and ‘view work’ link should be a bit more active. So we went overboard, going for links that almost explode, only because a similar style had worked well on my blog. But I agree, especially after reading this discussion, that the technique is a distraction and does not at all reflect the quality of the rest of our work.
Rollovers are a little thing, and perhaps I’ll give them a rethink today. The ‘Twitter’ rollover idea was that when the tab shot up, it killed the bird. I’ve always found having a bird on my websites was too cute, and felt it necessary to kill the poor thing. But I assume that idea is lost on most people. Generally humor is a great addition, but it sounds like in this case we went a bit too far and it simply looks stupid. Which is fine, haha.
A web design is never finished, so I’ll post back here when I’ve made some changes.
@Jack We include a price range because we get vast amounts of leads where people need work done for next to nothing. Lisa and I simply don’t have time to answer dozens of e-mails to only later find out they can’t work with us. I absolutely HATE having throw numbers out there, because that’s not why we’re artists. But it’s one of the few places we can discourage tire kickers, and maintain our sanity. If we ever grow and had dedicated account managers, then perhaps I’d remove the money rule.
Additionally, a lot of our leads are familiar with myself or Lisa personally, as we used to be freelancers. The price range indicates our company work is operating on a different level than “Hey I know a guy who can design cool things.” That said, if we were a huge agency that charged hundreds of thousands, we could probably remove those price tags as well, haha.
24 Comments
Everything seems to glow on this site! I like this site a lot. Good colors. Nice layout. Easy to use. And fun.
Despite an obscene use of rollovers, the site is nice and pleasant. I like how they don’t take themselves too seriously, and I enjoy that they limit their design examples to a few good ones. I’m always glad to see quality over quantity with portfolio items.
I enjoy the use of colors and layout here, but have to agree with @tdub. The rollovers are just awful!
Rob from Collision Labs here. Thanks so much for including our site in the gallery!
@tdub & @eric Thanks for the praise and constructive criticism. We love our design, and were definitely going over the top with the rollovers. I suppose we didn’t think about others’ reactions to them, personally I was going for a bit of shock and excitement.
When I think about the cleanliness of the site overall, I think I definitely see your point. They jump out a lot more than rest of the site, so maybe we’ll think about reigning them in.
Thanks for the feedback though, always helpful.
For those who like this site as much as I do, I urge you to visit the ABOUT section and check out Rob’s blog, I do say it’s pretty awesome.
good! (I liked the contact form).
@tdub – What would you consider the right amount of roll-overs? Besides the menu, I counted about 4 other roll-over effects on the site. That’s too many?
(The reason I’m asking is because I currently have a client that wants a whole bunch of roll-over effects… and I’m just curious what most people consider “too many.”)
Not bad, a solid site…though nothing new here really
Personally I LOVE the rollovers…I really love the portfolio rollover on Robs blog (See about page like @tub said.)
The contact form is nice as well. All around great website and worthy of being here.
@Amanda: What hasn’t been done before? I am so sick of seeing that comment.
Like the colors
!
@Cassie: I wonder if tdub was talking about the amount, or the way the roll overs worked. Personally, I didn’t like the way the roll over worked on the home page because the style was a little too different from the rest of the site.
@Rob: I noticed you’re using League Gothic on your blog. Self-hosted? I’m curious because even when I changed the sizes, yours always looked cleaner than the League Gothic displayed on Typekit’s tester.
Rollovers seem to be subject of the day. This is a pretty good looking website.
As far as the rollovers are concerned the only one that confused me was the twitter link at the bottom, I thought it was some problem with the width of my browser, apart from that I can view everything as a stylistic effort.
The contact page is wonderful. The form is really good looking (shame about the hover state on the submit button). I do, however, always wonder what is achieved by listing prices, or in this case price range, on a website.
Also, it took me a little while to figure out what kind of design actually goes down at Collision labs.
@Cassie: My issue with the rollovers are both amount and content. On the one hand, there just seems to be too many, too cliché, just… too much. It’s no lie, I love me some good rollover effects, but in this case I just think it’s over done. I don’t need *every* image link to have it. The menu is fine, the Twitter link.. okay sure (though I’ll go into that soon), but the View Our Work just pushed it over the top for me. It’s certainly a personal preference, I just think less is more when it’s specific discussion to this site.
Second, the way the rollovers worked made me cringe a little. Specifically, again, the Twitter and View Our Work ones just threw me off and left a bad taste in my mouth. Specifically, the Twitter upside-down link was weird and off putting to me, and the View Our Work link felt like it was shouting at me and felt too distracting. However, in contrast, the roll overs for the menu are great. Simple, elegant, and don’t distract from the rest of the site. If your client wants rollovers, just explain to him how it effects the end user. They may look pretty, but they may also drive customers or clients away. It’s definitely a give and take with advanced web effects such as JS, JQuery, etc.
Again, I like the site as a whole, and the mood it brings. I think sites should reflect a certain level of emotion and feel to the user, and I think this site (other than those mentioned) does that well. Not only that, but it’s looks put together well. You can usually tell the sites that were planned out and sketched (which all designers should do) rather than thrown together at the last minute in an editor.
@tdub: Thanks for the in-depth response. I’ll definitely explain that to the person I’m making a site for… However, what they’re wanting is akin to what http://carsonified.com is doing – and they have a ton of rollover effects on their site.
the website color is too bright and shining. it should make the color not too high saturation. not comfortable color feel.
@Cassie: The Carsonified (and damn near everything they do) I really like. They are a great and creative agency. The difference between the Carsonified site and Collision is that Carsonified does it with a sense of refinement. It’s not in your face. It’s simple and it flows with the rest of the site. With that in mind, it could be that my biggest gripe with the Collision site is the abrupt large text on the rollover itself, and the weird Twitter rollover. Honestly, if the rollover for the View Our Work had kept the same font, perhaps changed the text color, and still kept the effect of the arrow moving up, I’d probably be fine with it. Good luck with your project, click my name and email me when it’s done. I’d love to see it.
@Jack re: price range, I imagine it’s because it discourages the people with the tiny budgets. I’m thinking of putting something similar on our company site. It gets boring quoting for jobs that people don’t even have the budget for in the first place.
@Keren:
I guess that makes sense. Having a budget option on the contact page is a good idea, as with a deadline field. However I think offering definitive numbers might be a hinderance. It’s not going to stop people with a $50 000 idea expecting to pay $2 500.
Maybe if/when I get clients with larger budgets I’ll understand more… haha.
Rob from Collision here again.
Thanks for all the positive comments on the design, we appreciate it.
@tdub You’re right, we planned this site out thoroughly, we had a vision and we executed it. I’m still in love with the colors and the site’s message, but the rollovers were an afterthought. I think after working on it for weeks, we suddenly realized our footer and ‘view work’ link should be a bit more active. So we went overboard, going for links that almost explode, only because a similar style had worked well on my blog. But I agree, especially after reading this discussion, that the technique is a distraction and does not at all reflect the quality of the rest of our work.
Rollovers are a little thing, and perhaps I’ll give them a rethink today. The ‘Twitter’ rollover idea was that when the tab shot up, it killed the bird. I’ve always found having a bird on my websites was too cute, and felt it necessary to kill the poor thing. But I assume that idea is lost on most people. Generally humor is a great addition, but it sounds like in this case we went a bit too far and it simply looks stupid. Which is fine, haha.
A web design is never finished, so I’ll post back here when I’ve made some changes.
@Jack We include a price range because we get vast amounts of leads where people need work done for next to nothing. Lisa and I simply don’t have time to answer dozens of e-mails to only later find out they can’t work with us. I absolutely HATE having throw numbers out there, because that’s not why we’re artists. But it’s one of the few places we can discourage tire kickers, and maintain our sanity. If we ever grow and had dedicated account managers, then perhaps I’d remove the money rule.
Additionally, a lot of our leads are familiar with myself or Lisa personally, as we used to be freelancers. The price range indicates our company work is operating on a different level than “Hey I know a guy who can design cool things.” That said, if we were a huge agency that charged hundreds of thousands, we could probably remove those price tags as well, haha.
Thanks again for everyone’s input.