WSA Winner
Wednesday April 28th, 2004
Skating is all about attitude -- living your life, committing to the move. And eS footwear's attitude goes down smoothly.
The layout of each page is well structured and defined, separating navigation from the cool tones of the content, which itself perfectly frames luscious product shots alongside vital stats. Visitors to the site come for glossy pictures, and that's what they get, along with some tight code and edgy design.
Some of the colour contrasts on the text could be upped a bit, but given the target market of the site, the defaults are serviceable.
Reviewed by Cameron Adams
#1
Love the use of dropshadows, bud :)
Posted by Christoph :: April 28th, 2004 at 03:36 AM
#2
I like this one. Nice and smooth. I also agree with Chris about the drop shadows, very nice indeed.
A couple things I don't like (as always) -
1) Most of the main page headers are background images (like "Latest News" etc.). While minor, I still see this as a problem. Background images don't provide a way to include alt text. Try to avoid using them for content related images.
2) I'm pretty sure the list on the right side of the home page was ripped from Adaptive Path. If you compare the 2 style sheets you can see the rules are structured almost identically. The one difference is that this site uses a class instead of an id for the container. Maybe ripped is too strong of a word. I see that there's 2 rows of images but I'm talking about the rule structure. I'd rather see people code from scratch when deriving things from other peoples work, not copy over and edit.
If I'm wrong here I apologize but it really does look like that's what the author did.
Posted by Damon Haidary :: April 28th, 2004 at 10:07 AM
#3
I landed on this site just last week, straight from someone's portfolio. Anyone who can remind me of the mastermind behind the site?
Posted by Cameron Moll :: April 28th, 2004 at 09:59 PM
#4
Thank you for making the éS site a WSA Winner. I've been messing with web standards for a while now (etnies.com, emericaskate.com, thirtytwo.com) and the éS site is the one I'm most happy about. There is still a lot to be added though.
The design was done by Ako Jefferson, the éS Art Director, who recently co-created a new skateboard magazine called The Skateboard Mag (temporary site: theskateboardmag.com). Pick it up at a skate shop or news stand, if you have a chance, it's an amazing magazine.
Regarding the right side navigation on the home page, it's a "node of inspiration" originated from Adaptive Path. (Thank you Mr. Moll for that term. You get my vote for WSA Site of the month!). Sure, the structure is similar, but how much more different can you mark it up? The CSS is much leaner and I used Pixy's rollover method for the images.
I really wish more web designers in the skateboard industry would start to develop with web standards in mind. It's hard to learn, but once you 'get it' it can be a lot of fun.
Posted by huphtur :: April 29th, 2004 at 04:23 AM
#5
Hi Huphtur, I couldn't find any contact details on the site, so I couldn't tell you about your award. Looks like you found it anyway :o]
Posted by Cameron Adams :: April 29th, 2004 at 01:10 PM
#6
Nevermind, huphtur. I must have seen it featured on another site. Can't remember which one.
Nice, nonetheless.
Posted by Cameron Moll :: April 29th, 2004 at 05:18 PM
#7
damon... the h1 is replaced using some type of ir technique. if you turn styles off, the header is still there.
cameron... i bet you saw it on www.weeklystandards.com. that's where i first saw it.
huphtur... great job on the site. too bad dcshoes didn't hire you when they re-designed their site. it doesn't look bad bad but it's 100% flash.
Posted by Nick :: April 30th, 2004 at 07:37 PM
#8
I just surfed in this great place. But it’s really a pleasure being here. Go on
with this good work.
Posted by Chisette Marina :: September 24th, 2004 at 09:48 AM
Comments on: eS