WSA Winner
Monday October 31st, 2005
If you don't have Flash on you'll miss a chunk of this site, but it's still great Standards development.
This site is a perfect case of designing for your target audience. Here, the bullseye is kids aged 5 - 13, and the site caters for them perfectly by deftly using elements from the source material and combining them into a bright and lively interface.
As its focus is a children's animated series, the use of Flash throughout the site is warranted, but not overused; giving the kids enough interaction to get them hooked and make the site an extension of the TV series, rather than an afterthought.
A few validation errors, mainly because of the Flash inclusion method, but that's as good as you're going to get.
Reviewed by Cameron Adams
#1
I agree -- a beautiful site that hits it's demographic perfectly, and mixes standards with flash elements as great as, well, as great can get. It's nice to see a high end production embrace this output, when I would have assumed without looking under the hood that it was a tablebased design. Color, quality, problem solving design -- love it.
Posted by Brady J. Frey :: October 31st, 2005 at 09:36 PM
#2
I still find it odd that you allow sites to win your award that don't validate completely, even transitional which should be totally easy. Flash is no excuse, there are ways to do that too, a site I did recently (http://www.dramsayconstruction.com) proves that, it validates to XHTML 1.1 and CSS, and has Flash embedded. The days of saying Flash can't conform to standards are over. I say no more awards to sites that aren't error-free, no matter what the doctype.
Posted by Garrett Ramsay :: November 1st, 2005 at 05:35 PM
#3
The fact that they award sites that don't fully validate doesn't seem odd to me at all. The judging criteria clearly states that, "Some exceptions may be given for obvious typographical errors and the inclusion of rich media, such as Flash."
This is an excellent selection and adds variety to the mix of awarded sites here. I usually go out of my way to find sites like these whether they validate or not simply to amuse myself.
I'm especially amused by the Flash animation where the boy tosses popcorn at the girl. Excellent material that shows the designers sense of humor. Sites like this amuse me to no end since they show the playful inner-child of web standards, not just the creative but serious side.
Posted by Sywan :: November 1st, 2005 at 06:55 PM
#4
Simply stunning. Great to see some flash in there as well. There are various ways that the flash can be included, to get the ol' 'validation badge', but it's not really that much of an issue.
Posted by kevadamson :: November 2nd, 2005 at 06:39 PM
#5
Great pick!.. fluid design is so hard to achieve! As for the fact that it doesn't validate "bit wip!" ... validating doesn't nessay mean the site is done well... as long as it follows the spirit of "validation"... which this site does... and using Flash is the main part of the site, and it's important to the target audience... (which is king! not CSS backend my friends!)
http://www.flash99good.com/?p=85
Posted by Kevin Airgid :: November 4th, 2005 at 04:07 PM
#6
A lovely and stylish site with wonderful attention to typography and flow.
Validation nerds need to get a day job! Waaaaaaah!
Posted by dmr :: November 7th, 2005 at 10:14 PM
#7
A copy of my comment on CSS Beauty:
What a refreshing design, I like this a lot! Great colours everywhere (white on brown! especially) and the illustrations are wonderful. Pro stuff.
My only other comment is that the right-hand column should remain left-aligned against the main content area in larger (1024+) viewports.
Posted by coda :: November 11th, 2005 at 01:45 AM
Comments on: Zimmer Twins