WSA Winner
Tuesday March 9th, 2004
The first thing that struck me when viewing this site was how quickly it loaded despite having a lot of graphics and icons. The second thing I noticed was the vivid colors and artistic logo. Finally I realized that this is not an art magazine, but a very bold design for the staffing company Marquess and Associates.
Firewheel Design has created this site and I feel they deserve a "Silver Star" not only for the excellent design and valid code, but also for breathing new life into the corporate world of blue and white.
Reviewed by Johan Edlund
#1
Hmmm. I'm not entirely impressed. Good for a staffing services company, I'll give you that. But nothing very unique or creative about this one.
Posted by Cameron :: March 10th, 2004 at 12:44 AM
#2
i think it is a nice site, and it is simple, I don't like the the hovering the links that much. but I do like how it fits well on a small screen.
It is a unique look, because of the black at the top that looks very old fashion signature, and then transformed into modern style. The colors scheme is good, and odd. It looks nice, and elegant, and odd.
I think it deserves the silver star because of the mark up, and the basic style. But something is a bit... off... for me... something sort of like what was said above.
Posted by dcohen :: March 10th, 2004 at 03:08 AM
#3
Oh, but how could this get an award?! It doesn't validate due to a single unencoded ampersand (how hard are those to fix? ye gods), something about it doesn't fit within my narrow definition of 'accessibility', it doesn't appeal to my obviously superior sense of aesthetics, it's unusable because I don't use a mouse, and oh yeah, it doesn't work on OS 9.
There, I think that covers 'em all. Can we move on?
Excellent work Josh. The job category icons are well-built and good unique identifiers. The subtle touches like the line work and shading bring it together well, and I'm digging the continuation from header to footer.
The header seems to stand out a bit too much, and I'm not sure whether it's due to the black used or the relatively low-impact logo floating in such an open area. The colour scheme feels like it resists the black a bit too much, but that might be my own tastes picking up on it.
Great job, good code, and unique thinking.
Posted by Dave S. :: March 10th, 2004 at 05:44 AM
#4
... also in opera the main menu is displayed wrong due to the errors in the code.
Posted by amano.ncr :: March 10th, 2004 at 08:40 AM
#5
i never check to see if these sites validate (i was under the assumption they all do) but i took a look in each of the major win browsers and the only problems i noticed visually were:
* menu does not display inline in opera
* ie6 suffers from peek-a-boo bug (http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/peekaboo.html)
other than that, great work. i'm impressed at how much the text can be scaled both ways w/o screwing up the layout.
Posted by Nick :: March 10th, 2004 at 05:24 PM
#6
I am quite impressed with this site. It is a rather simple composition, but that is where the beauty lies. Some of the most powerful designs in history have been quite simple in form.
The greatest strength lies in the use of negative space combined with the diversity of value (in the header and footer). The extra space gives the top header much more intensity than the designer's portfolio.
The script face used in the header makes for an interesting juxtaposition with the dominating modernist elements - an evolution of the style, I suppose.
The difficult question is always, "why?"
Posted by Kevin Davis :: March 11th, 2004 at 02:30 AM
#7
Thanks for the diversity of comments, fella's. As with many limited-budget, commercial projects, you have to choose your battles.
In this case, our target demo is mainly women, 25- to 50-years-old (whose primary knowledge of Opera includes Andrea Bocelli).
Comment #6, above, really sums up our thoughts in many ways regarding the header. We simply wanted users to remember the name, even if that was the only thing they remembered. That way, they can find their way back next week.
I must note that my friend and cohort, John Marstall (aka IconMaster) is responsible for this site's beautiful icon work.
Thanks for watching my back Dave. We gotsta be representin'.
Posted by Josh Williams :: March 11th, 2004 at 02:45 AM
#8
*hides face in shame
;)
Posted by Cameron :: March 11th, 2004 at 04:32 AM
#9
While it may be true that job seekers who use the site are mainly IE users, the main source of revenue for a company such as this comes from employers who hire the staff. Ignoring the fact that a portion of this important demographic target are likely to be opera / os9 users isn't doing the client any favours.
Posted by doug :: March 11th, 2004 at 09:17 AM
#10
Gets a thumbs up from me, works lovely on IE 5 on a MAC using OS9 and the icons in particular are lovely ... if only all so called 'accessible' sites paid as much attention to detail ... ;)
Posted by Graham Sanders :: March 11th, 2004 at 12:41 PM
#11
Definitely a grower I didn't like it the first time I saw it but the more I look the more I like. Real nice job.
Posted by Rob Winters :: March 16th, 2004 at 10:58 AM
Comments on: Marquess and Associates