August 2004 Winners
Sunday August 29th, 2004
Coinciding with bad metaphor month, Follow the Rhinos stampeded to the head of the pack with an almost unanimous vote of confidence. I think those sad looking creatures might have won sympathy votes, but there's no doubt that the site is finely crafted. Its beige tones match those of its charges, while the photos and graphics counterpoint the palette -- enlivening what could otherwise have been a dreary site.
This month we'd also like to welcome Andy Clarke from Stuff and Nonsense as a new judge. I'm sure he'll find plenty of Standardised goodies to award.
More...
Reviewed by Johan Edlund :: Comments (14)
Friday August 27th, 2004
It's good to see one of the leaders in the Open Source software movement also taking the time to embrace Web Standards.
Linux developer Red Hat's new site is a fairly complex beast, with plenty of sections, products and information. Good usage is made of plain text -- with a lot of the design working only with whitespace and typographic treatment -- but the odd graphic differentiates pages just enough to remind you of where you are.
Reviewed by Cameron Adams :: Comments (3)
Saturday August 21st, 2004
"We've recently redesigned chevy.com into XHTML Strict and tableless CSS layouts. Navigation is comprised of accessible definition lists. The homepage alone plummeted from a modem-crushing 1MB to a svelte 17k. I hope you like what we've accomplished."
Dave Linabury of
Campbell-Ewald describes the new chevy site and yes, I certainly like it. Most of all I like the fact that another really large commercial site adopts web standards, but the design isn't all that shabby either. The layout could use a little more white space and a softer colour palette to accentuate the pictures of the cars. In my mind at least. The world of hardcore
ROI will probably disagree. :)
Reviewed by Johan Edlund :: Comments (11)
Sunday August 15th, 2004
It's hard to pin down the feel. Op shop? Front porch? Scrappy notebook? Whatever it is, Left Justified has some nice little details -- soft textures, weathered dividers and wood panelling all add up to that undefinable atmosphere.
I did, however, find the front page weblog entries a bit confusing. They look a bit short until you realise that they're just extracts. A "continue reading" link might be handy.
Reviewed by Cameron Adams :: Comments (1)
Wednesday August 4th, 2004
This site has that hip, new Flash designer feel to it. And indeed, it is virtually an exact mirror of the Flash site available from the root URL; but it's quite interesting to compare the two side by side.
Apart from sound (which I generally abhor while I'm browsing) and the obligatory Flash transitions, the two versions of the site are almost identical -- feel, layout, imagery, etc. Except the usability and accessibility of the XHTML version far exceeds its cousin: bookmarkable pages, quicker load times and more searchable code. Which one is "better" all depends where you place your priorities I suppose.
Reviewed by Cameron Adams :: Comments (8)