I like that themes that come in the bundle, esp. the Diverse news magazine theme. http://www.wpbundle.com/demo/diverse/
I wonder if they offer one-off’s not interested in the whole enchilada’.
Dunno about that, but I do know the usability of the main focus of the site is horrible. I mean, honestly, why would you have the two blue arrow scrollers sitting over the main images? You can’t even tell it’s part of the UI. Not to mention the first time I went to this site and saw the large screenshots each theme has on the hero area they all blended into each other…. so I couldn’t even tell it was different screenshots. Bigger margins?
Had a hard time deciding where to put the arrows. After a few different places that seemed to be the place that worked best. But I might take another shot at those for sure.
@dudeydudeydude – You can’t just rule out any style that’s been done before, just because other people have done a bad job of it. I like to think that what I have used is subtle enough to not be classed as a cliché.
@Crssp Thanks, no one-off’s yet. Maybe in the future, but for now we’re focused on the Bundle aspect of it.
Also, what’s sad / tragic is that I knew you were a “dribbbler” just by looking at your portfolio, without even checking dribbble. To confirm my assumption, I did check, and I was right.
Funny how you dribbble people haven’t noticed that all of you all share the same look and have created a community which encourages homegenity – so much that if a client wanted a style which contained elements of “gloss, film grain, slab serifs, letterpress, gradients, drop shadows, pixel icons, etc.” all they would have to do was eenie-meenie the thumbnails on dribbble’s home page, and it would make no difference.
Ah well, I shouldn’t be complaining. I guess dribbble makes it easier to find the trends that should be avoided.
Well, it is a cliché buffet, but to me it’s a spot-on artistic direction.
Do you really think the correct direction for selling WP themes to the mass is to go for cutting-edge, never seen before web design? You know better than that.
The site is bathed in WP clichés, every theme has a look that goes a bit too far in a stereotyped style, and that’s why it works.
I don’t think its worth arguing that dribbble is indeed full of copying, because I agree. But things get popular for a reason. This site and all the rest of Liam’s work is anything but awful. I’d love to see your actual portfolio, it must be filled with wonders… even more so if it avoids any kind of ‘cliche’ or ‘trend’ you mention
I highly doubt you are remotely involved with O+M. If you are, congrats on being part of a corporate committee design clique. It doesn’t make your comments hold any more weight.
I really don’t think slamming each other’s work is productive, especially when it’s paint-by-numbers criticism like “that’s so dribbblr.” Just fill in the blank with in/offensive trend and slam somebody for fully inhabiting it or designing adjacent to it.
If the big D is working at Ogilvy, fine. But I’ve noticed that he’s carefully kept his portfolio out of site when dropping his often insubstantial criticisms on these posts. At the end of the day, there are problems in a llof our work, including dudydudydude’s, and instead of forming a bitchy clique we should just try to do better work without be offensive shits about it.
@Louis: Generic design for a product intended to be generic? I guess you’re right. Difficult to argue with that.
@Kyee: I disagree with what you were implying with regards to trends. Web design “trends” are usually born out of fear and ignorance (save for the recent @font-face trend).
What I’ve noticed with regards to the web design community in particular, is that a large majority are neither artists, nor designers, nor had any art or design-school training, and/or are largely ignorant about art history, and why, where, and how certain styles were born.
Most web designers are actually coder-nerds and people who learned Adobe’s tools through online “how-to” photoshop tutorials.
The end result is what the majority of the community is now: a large mass of people who are mostly clueless about art, design, and what good design actually is. That’s why they imitate their peers – they think a particular style is “good” because it’s something that their peers do, not because it was appropriate or effective.
I mean seriously – does every church website have to look like a bloody letter-pressed brochure? With religion’s history being so deeply intertwined with art, how could you miss the centuries-worth of inspiration that was staring you in the face?
Simple: you were not meant to be doing creative (design) work. You should just be coding.
As for OM: At our office, doing what other people are doing gets you fired, not a pat on the back, and we pride ourselves in coming up with stuff that our rivals didn’t.
Imagine if we copied W+K’s Old Spice idea and stuck a white guy in place of Isaiah? Ridiculous right? Retarded even?
Well, that’s what the web design community is doing right now.
In all honesty, I think Kyee and dudey have great comments.
I do want to note though, dudey, that your reference towards churches and a letter-pressed design… That’s simply taking into account the history of your client and their audience.
For instance, one church may be a new startup that is trying to attract younger audiences. Do you think a design with victorian/roman/historical influence would accomplish that clients goal? Doubt it, and it goes vice versa too.
Given the userbase of WordPress users and the target audience to buy these themes, what other style other than Liam’s would have been more appropriate here? Not much as far as I can see.
I feel the larger problem comes when trying to persuade a headstrong client away from ‘I like this design, can we use something like this?” mentality.
Trend by definition is prevailing tendency, general move in a certain direction… if a client is very set on a certain direction because his competitor is doing it… yeah you know where that goes, and how difficult it can be to persuade otherwise. it’s an entire art form in itself to get them off their comfort zone.
Lets face it – we are in an industry which has a massive amount of ‘handymen’ traders. For the younger, less experienced (or under-qualified) people who are freelance designing it can be very pressuring on your success to avoid trends entirely. That is one reason I think Dribbble exhibits it so much. On the other hand, its a great source of exposure for designers. Can be a bad combination.
Kyee I think the ‘but the client wanted this’ is a bit of a farce. 9 times out of 10 the client barely knows what design they want unless they source you directly off dribbble etc.
As designers we tend to nudge the client towards a design/look that we feel comfortable creating because there is plenty of inspiration out there that you can source to create a design that is ‘unique’ but still familiar.
I don’t enjoy reading things like ‘but it’s the clients fault’. It is your job to take their demands and treat them as suggestions and nothing more.
Although I don’t agree entirely with DDD I think he has a point about the majority of us not having a proper knowledge base when it comes to design, art etc.
Because most of us are self taught it is only natural for us to learn through inspiration on dribbble etc. and unfortunately it’s a viscous circle.
Interesting discussion going on here. I agree with DDD that web designers should embrace larger perspective on design and look at some standard old art forms. I’ve even written my univeristy essay on this exact topic.
On the other hand the site you are discussing is a web template site. And it has certain audience. People who are looking for “template design”. Something that they can probably easy change to suite their needs, something simple that can be used in diverse type of businesses. They are not looking for the next unique web equivalent of the 1984 Apple’s Macintosh Commercial or something as much special and unique as that.
Taking this in account this site works really well in the niche it is made to work in: WP themes. Apparently the designer is really proficient and the themes are executed well.
The topic whether good designers should make templates or not is whole different topic and it goes back to the first passage of the web designers understanding more traditional art in my opinion. Particularly for me it reminds of Neville Brody and his response to an interview that he prefer starving than going against his principles. And he actually went through a 4 years of starvation because he didnt want to create design that’s against his ideas and principles. This is the type of designers that change the world. Others are making templates. Although it sounds really dramatic I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just personal decision. And in this particular case it doesn’t have anything to do with good or bad design in my opinion. This is really great design for the niche it wants to cover – WP theme designs.
I started to wonder if all the sites listed here are advertising links so the host could get paid by the clicks….. Most of these sites are all commercial sites who sell products!!!
16 Comments
My only critic would be to have the navigational arrows on there corresponding sides so not to break the flow. Other than that great job
I like that themes that come in the bundle, esp. the Diverse news magazine theme.
http://www.wpbundle.com/demo/diverse/
I wonder if they offer one-off’s not interested in the whole enchilada’.
Awful. This is like a cliché buffet.
Film Grain. Diagonal Stripes. Gloss. Pixel icons. Reflections. Drop shadows. Slab serifs.
Man.
Yeaaa…
Dunno about that, but I do know the usability of the main focus of the site is horrible. I mean, honestly, why would you have the two blue arrow scrollers sitting over the main images? You can’t even tell it’s part of the UI. Not to mention the first time I went to this site and saw the large screenshots each theme has on the hero area they all blended into each other…. so I couldn’t even tell it was different screenshots. Bigger margins?
Everything else is OK for me…
Lovely site! always liked Liam’s stuff.
@dudeydudeydude lol. Way to be a keyboard warrior.
Had a hard time deciding where to put the arrows. After a few different places that seemed to be the place that worked best. But I might take another shot at those for sure.
@dudeydudeydude – You can’t just rule out any style that’s been done before, just because other people have done a bad job of it. I like to think that what I have used is subtle enough to not be classed as a cliché.
@Crssp Thanks, no one-off’s yet. Maybe in the future, but for now we’re focused on the Bundle aspect of it.
@kyee Thanks dude
@Kyee: I simply call them like I see them.
Also, what’s sad / tragic is that I knew you were a “dribbbler” just by looking at your portfolio, without even checking dribbble. To confirm my assumption, I did check, and I was right.
Funny how you dribbble people haven’t noticed that all of you all share the same look and have created a community which encourages homegenity – so much that if a client wanted a style which contained elements of “gloss, film grain, slab serifs, letterpress, gradients, drop shadows, pixel icons, etc.” all they would have to do was eenie-meenie the thumbnails on dribbble’s home page, and it would make no difference.
Ah well, I shouldn’t be complaining. I guess dribbble makes it easier to find the trends that should be avoided.
Well, it is a cliché buffet, but to me it’s a spot-on artistic direction.
Do you really think the correct direction for selling WP themes to the mass is to go for cutting-edge, never seen before web design? You know better than that.
The site is bathed in WP clichés, every theme has a look that goes a bit too far in a stereotyped style, and that’s why it works.
I don’t think its worth arguing that dribbble is indeed full of copying, because I agree. But things get popular for a reason. This site and all the rest of Liam’s work is anything but awful. I’d love to see your actual portfolio, it must be filled with wonders… even more so if it avoids any kind of ‘cliche’ or ‘trend’ you mention
I highly doubt you are remotely involved with O+M. If you are, congrats on being part of a corporate committee design clique. It doesn’t make your comments hold any more weight.
Well said, @kyee.
I really don’t think slamming each other’s work is productive, especially when it’s paint-by-numbers criticism like “that’s so dribbblr.” Just fill in the blank with in/offensive trend and slam somebody for fully inhabiting it or designing adjacent to it.
If the big D is working at Ogilvy, fine. But I’ve noticed that he’s carefully kept his portfolio out of site when dropping his often insubstantial criticisms on these posts. At the end of the day, there are problems in a llof our work, including dudydudydude’s, and instead of forming a bitchy clique we should just try to do better work without be offensive shits about it.
@Louis: Generic design for a product intended to be generic? I guess you’re right. Difficult to argue with that.
@Kyee: I disagree with what you were implying with regards to trends. Web design “trends” are usually born out of fear and ignorance (save for the recent @font-face trend).
What I’ve noticed with regards to the web design community in particular, is that a large majority are neither artists, nor designers, nor had any art or design-school training, and/or are largely ignorant about art history, and why, where, and how certain styles were born.
Most web designers are actually coder-nerds and people who learned Adobe’s tools through online “how-to” photoshop tutorials.
The end result is what the majority of the community is now: a large mass of people who are mostly clueless about art, design, and what good design actually is. That’s why they imitate their peers – they think a particular style is “good” because it’s something that their peers do, not because it was appropriate or effective.
I mean seriously – does every church website have to look like a bloody letter-pressed brochure? With religion’s history being so deeply intertwined with art, how could you miss the centuries-worth of inspiration that was staring you in the face?
Simple: you were not meant to be doing creative (design) work. You should just be coding.
As for OM: At our office, doing what other people are doing gets you fired, not a pat on the back, and we pride ourselves in coming up with stuff that our rivals didn’t.
Imagine if we copied W+K’s Old Spice idea and stuck a white guy in place of Isaiah? Ridiculous right? Retarded even?
Well, that’s what the web design community is doing right now.
In all honesty, I think Kyee and dudey have great comments.
I do want to note though, dudey, that your reference towards churches and a letter-pressed design… That’s simply taking into account the history of your client and their audience.
For instance, one church may be a new startup that is trying to attract younger audiences. Do you think a design with victorian/roman/historical influence would accomplish that clients goal? Doubt it, and it goes vice versa too.
Given the userbase of WordPress users and the target audience to buy these themes, what other style other than Liam’s would have been more appropriate here? Not much as far as I can see.
I feel the larger problem comes when trying to persuade a headstrong client away from ‘I like this design, can we use something like this?” mentality.
Trend by definition is prevailing tendency, general move in a certain direction… if a client is very set on a certain direction because his competitor is doing it… yeah you know where that goes, and how difficult it can be to persuade otherwise. it’s an entire art form in itself to get them off their comfort zone.
Lets face it – we are in an industry which has a massive amount of ‘handymen’ traders. For the younger, less experienced (or under-qualified) people who are freelance designing it can be very pressuring on your success to avoid trends entirely. That is one reason I think Dribbble exhibits it so much. On the other hand, its a great source of exposure for designers. Can be a bad combination.
Regrettably I am jumping in here.
Kyee I think the ‘but the client wanted this’ is a bit of a farce. 9 times out of 10 the client barely knows what design they want unless they source you directly off dribbble etc.
As designers we tend to nudge the client towards a design/look that we feel comfortable creating because there is plenty of inspiration out there that you can source to create a design that is ‘unique’ but still familiar.
I don’t enjoy reading things like ‘but it’s the clients fault’. It is your job to take their demands and treat them as suggestions and nothing more.
Although I don’t agree entirely with DDD I think he has a point about the majority of us not having a proper knowledge base when it comes to design, art etc.
Because most of us are self taught it is only natural for us to learn through inspiration on dribbble etc. and unfortunately it’s a viscous circle.
Interesting discussion going on here. I agree with DDD that web designers should embrace larger perspective on design and look at some standard old art forms. I’ve even written my univeristy essay on this exact topic.
On the other hand the site you are discussing is a web template site. And it has certain audience. People who are looking for “template design”. Something that they can probably easy change to suite their needs, something simple that can be used in diverse type of businesses. They are not looking for the next unique web equivalent of the 1984 Apple’s Macintosh Commercial or something as much special and unique as that.
Taking this in account this site works really well in the niche it is made to work in: WP themes. Apparently the designer is really proficient and the themes are executed well.
The topic whether good designers should make templates or not is whole different topic and it goes back to the first passage of the web designers understanding more traditional art in my opinion. Particularly for me it reminds of Neville Brody and his response to an interview that he prefer starving than going against his principles. And he actually went through a 4 years of starvation because he didnt want to create design that’s against his ideas and principles. This is the type of designers that change the world. Others are making templates. Although it sounds really dramatic I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just personal decision. And in this particular case it doesn’t have anything to do with good or bad design in my opinion. This is really great design for the niche it wants to cover – WP theme designs.
What do you think guys?
I started to wonder if all the sites listed here are advertising links so the host could get paid by the clicks….. Most of these sites are all commercial sites who sell products!!!