WSA Winner
Friday July 16th, 2004
Thankfully, the monthly judging panel is totally independent, so hopefully no calls of bias can be levelled at Rapha's win in July. :o]
The Message team just edged out Pseudoroom's portfolio because of its rich content, commercial focus, and distinctive use of the colour pink. Their win shows that fantastic art direction isn't negated by Standards-compliance.
“Sleek, professional, fast loading, excellent colour palette that utilises pink, quality imagery and seamless integration of a shopping cart... the complete package.”
Robert Ford
“This is like second generation CSS layout. Where the designers could have easily taken the easy way out and used a table based layout they've taken the effort to create a layout that is semantically valid and looks great too.”
Makiko Itoh
Original review:
Forget drug scandals, team orders and strict nutritional regimens, this is a return to the golden age of cycling — those black and white times when you had a feeling of direct connection with the competitors; no corporate in-between.
The web site for cycling wear company Rapha does an excellent job of leveraging the history and glory of road racing. Its faded palette, black and white imagery and archival content all contribute superbly to the company's image, and get you excited about strapping on a helmet, jumping on the pedals and heading to the country.
The fact that it's Standards-compliant is almost an after thought — it's the best design you could do using any tools.
Reviewed by Cameron Adams
#1
I saw this site for the first time earlier today, best use of Pink I have seen on the web in a long time.
Nicely designed, standards-compliant, well done.
Posted by Sam :: July 16th, 2004 at 10:33 AM
#2
As a cyclist and Web designer I agree the Rapha site deserves recognition, but I hope you guys agonised over its inclusion seeing as one of your judges designed it! Anyway, nice job Andy. Shame Rapha don't do any downhiller's baggies - more my style really :-)
Posted by Richard Rutter :: July 16th, 2004 at 11:57 AM
#3
What's the logo font? It rocks.
Posted by grayrest :: July 16th, 2004 at 02:05 PM
#4
I like this site. It has a lot of elements I look for in a website. It is simple, easy to use (even without style sheets), and has solid branding.
I did notice one bug though in IE 6. The styling is a little off in the checkout section. It looks great in Firebird though.
Excellent work!
Posted by Clint Bounds :: July 16th, 2004 at 03:20 PM
#5
Rich: shhhhhh ...
Yes, it was a bit of hard choice, but in the end good taste prevailed, along with Andy's £50 note.
Posted by Cameron Adams :: July 18th, 2004 at 06:38 AM
#6
Rapha.cc was actually designed and built by Message with and for our client, Rapha Racing. Just thought I'd mention it.
Posted by Jamie Freeman :: July 29th, 2004 at 06:37 PM
#7
The disclaimer in your first paragraph actually isn't sufficient to counter any valid claims of bias. Do you mean to claim that Eric Meyer, Dave Shea and Keith Robinson had no idea that Rapha was designed (with others) by Andy Budd? C'mon, give us a little credit.
Great site. Nevertheless, as such, and with the painfully obvious overtones of bias associated with this award (which you kind of acknowledge in being so keen to counter them), you maybe could have better awarded it to another site. It seems you just can't shake this feeling - these conflicts of interest just keep popping up with this awards site.
Posted by Martin :: August 9th, 2004 at 05:21 PM
#8
And what vested interest would those judges have in awarding the site, just because Andy Budd was involved?
Do you mean to say that only obscure individuals who otherwise don't contribute to the Standards community should be eligible for the award?
And I'm curious as to what other "conflicts of interest" have popped up on this site?
Posted by Cameron Adams :: August 9th, 2004 at 05:55 PM
#9
Andy Budd and his team deserve this award, Rapha is a cracking site.
Maybe those who disagree should just get on with the job of producing sites to this standard and submitting them for review so the judges know they are out there.
Posted by John :: August 10th, 2004 at 02:14 PM
#10
Great design.
Am I missing something, or does turning off images cause problems for navigation?
(see http://www.rapha.cc/products/ in Firefox with images off - can't see the Softshell link on white, for example)
Posted by Rob Sayles :: August 11th, 2004 at 05:08 PM
Comments on: Rapha