May 2004 Winners

Berit Somme

Here at WSA we've given out many awards to sites that put content first. The tasteful site for Norwegian illustrator Berit Sømme is no exception. By focusing on Berit's excellent illustrations, husband Petter has developed a site that feels very sophisticated and stylish despite actually being very simple.
Unfortunately, I noticed some problems with *jumping* content in Firefox (.. or, lo and behold, could there be a rendering bug in my beloved Firefox!). A quick spell check might be a good idea as well.

  Reviewed by Johan Edlund :: Comments (5)

Goppa

Soft tones, big pictures, clean lines. Goppa Fireplaces' new site has them all, and gives you a thoroughly enjoyable browsing experience (should you be in the market for a fireplace).

Much like a good fireplace, the web site does not call attention to itself, but uses its structure to focus the user on the product. The product pages do this extremely well -- navigation, text and features providing an unobtrusive showcase for what users really want to see.

  Reviewed by Cameron Adams :: Comments (10)

Yellowlane

It's big, it's yellow and it's the personal website of Firewheel Design founder, Josh Williams. While most CSS sites go for muted colour pallets, this site is a veritable colour riot. So settle down, put on your shades and check out this excellent personal site.

  Reviewed by Andy Budd :: Comments (5)

Oceanen

Okay, last award for a bloggy-looking site that uses a wallpaper pattern ... promise. But the monc agency has created a site with a unique colour composition that works well. The red, green and brown palette, combined with a patina of dirt gives the site a warm, homely feel; the subdued brightness of the main content drawing your attention like a lamp in the corner of a dusty room.

Those tabs look a bit familiar though. :o]

  Reviewed by Cameron Adams :: Comments (3)

ReadyMade Mag

The vibrant colours of Yellowlane weren't enough to beat out the hand-crafted feel of Readymade in May's battle of the Standards.

The complexity of information presented on Readymade's site as well as its "real-world" application of Standards gave it the slightest edge over its compatriots. Congratulations Readymade and congratulations Fluffco.

More...

  Reviewed by Andy Budd :: Comments (11)

RAD.E8

RAD.E8 is the beautiful personal site of Sascha Höhne. The attention to detail on this site is excellent. From the icons and nav styles to the alternating header graphics (just hit refresh) this is a really slick site. Enjoy.

  Reviewed by Andy Budd :: Comments (0)

Critical Mass

This is a clean, flowing site. Large blocks of colour separate text and navigation nicely, letting the content breathe but still filling the screen with interest. Sparse usage of Flash for feature items lends some vibrancy to the higher level pages without distracting from the real content.

The drop down menus feature some nice JavaScript to give that sliding feel, but still offer a suitable navigation path for non-JS browsers. Most of the pages have a few entity reference problems preventing them from validating, but the code is clean, well-formed and style separated.

  Reviewed by Cameron Adams :: Comments (5)