WSA Winner
Friday September 24th, 2004
Red Labor is a difficult site to pin down. Part gallery, part store, part blog, and the design reflects its split personality.
When I first saw a previous version of the site a few months back I was struck by the eclectic mix of elements - each unassuming, but combined to make an edgy and slightly subversive whole. What I like is that the design appears 'unfinished'. Not because of its Wicked Worn edges, but because the designers have resisted the urge to overcook the design ingredients.
I'm not sure why they have plumped for image-maps rather than CSS Sprites for the home-page navigation, or why so many 'alt' attributes are empty, but what the hell, I love it...
Reviewed by Andy Clarke
#1
Yeah, interesting design, it changes from other "compliant" sites, but semantics could have be much better.
Posted by Thibaut Allender :: September 24th, 2004 at 11:56 PM
#2
Quite a nice design. Each section with it's own style is pretty unique, well it's at leas different. ;-)
I'm tired of designs that look worn is being labelled as using Cameron Moll's Wicked Worn Look... like he invented it??
Posted by Chris Gwynne :: September 25th, 2004 at 06:56 PM
#3
Chris: I agree, but Moll has helped "industrialize" it though. When I first saw it being used as an actual style, it was just called "grunge." A simple Google for "grunge brush" is quite handy.
Anyway, this site has always been a rare gem. When you first open the site, you immediately get inspired to experiment. Red Labor is a great compliment to the artwork that it houses.
Posted by Fernando Dunn II :: September 27th, 2004 at 04:15 PM
#4
Well, I agree with Chris. The site is good and doesn't fall into another standards based standard site.
Im also tired of the "wicked worn look" label. The worn look its very, very old, so it's a bit egocentric to re-label it.
Posted by Hernän Massau :: October 1st, 2004 at 07:23 PM
Comments on: Red Labor