November 2005 Winners

Decibel Magazine

You want proof that you can make a CMS site with plenty of content completely Standards compliant? This site is it.

The folks at Pixelworthy have beaten the Ektron Content Management System into submission, allowing them to produce this hard rockin' magazine's site entirely in XHTML 1.0 Strict validating code.

And the design's pretty nice too: good whitespace for actual reading, just the right amount of angles, and some decent photography. However, that doesn't necessarily save the writing :P I'm still trying to figure out whether this guy liked the album or not.

  Reviewed by Cameron Adams :: Comments (5)

Matt Brett

The recent CSS Reboot produced a lot of action in our submissions box, but I would have to say that Matt Brett's site was the most polished and well constructed out of all of them. He continues the dark/grunge revival that's being supported by this latest batch of awardees, but he's hotted it up with the latest hip fluorescents.

Probably one of the most intriguing features of his site is the hover states on all the various content areas. They provide a good bit of focus for your cursor, particularly against the dark background. Another highlight is the way he's jigsawed all his interests into the layout -- flickr, blog entries, comments, currently-listening-to, video games, etc. Very tight.

  Reviewed by Cameron Adams :: Comments (6)

Elan Snowboards

When I first saw this site, I *so* wanted to award it, but a look under the hood revealed pretty much all divs.

I'm pretty certain the semantics have now been updated (or maybe my standards have just fallen in the interim) but now the code resembles something respectable. But that's all by-the-by. What you really get here is a fine execution of grunge to the nth degree. And where better than on a snowboard site?

The Subtotal team have really created a coherent experience that mightn't be your cup of tea, but should hit the bullseye for the target market.

There's the usual Flash validation errors, and also a strange reluctance to put input tags inside a fieldset. But don't worry guys, I'll award now and let you correct later :P

  Reviewed by Cameron Adams :: Comments (6)

Twintype

I'm not going to say much about this site (which some of you might be thankful for) except to say that:

1. Inline JavaScript rollovers by Macromedia suck
2. It's really up to you what order you put your source in, but this one's slightly weird

Other than that, it's a nice, sharp little portfolio that Owen Johnston has put together here.

  Reviewed by Cameron Adams :: Comments (3)