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Best Website Designs of 2010

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Re: Best Website Designs of 2010

#21

Post by redthrowaway »

cormullion wrote: post #17
redthrowaway wrote: post #14

As a disinterested observer, I can say two things: 1) They're pretty 2) They piss me off These sites scream style over substance. I can't think of an Alexa top 500 site that uses this kind of design. The only one I frequent would be Grooveshark, and their design is highly functional. Between facebook, gmail, reddit, HN, and the various blogs and news sites I visit, 98% of my time online is spent on sites that look no…

I think these are mostly "first impressions count" sites, rather than "you come back over and over again" sites, which have different requirements. Sometimes you only have a few seconds to make an impression...

The only people for whom "first impressions count" is a better business model than "you come back over and over again" are web designers. These sites seem to exist only to fill the niche of sites that exist to please web designers. I can't imagine many successful startups employing these people.

Re: Best Website Designs of 2010

#22

Post by redthrowaway »

jamesteow wrote: post #20
redthrowaway wrote: post #14

As a disinterested observer, I can say two things: 1) They're pretty 2) They piss me off These sites scream style over substance. I can't think of an Alexa top 500 site that uses this kind of design. The only one I frequent would be Grooveshark, and their design is highly functional. Between facebook, gmail, reddit, HN, and the various blogs and news sites I visit, 98% of my time online is spent on sites that look no…

I'm just taking this list as what it is: A list of very well crafted websites that hopefully inspire others for their own work. And really, what's wrong with style over substance? It's not like a firm needs to have a Reddit/Gmail style of a design. I, like you, use Facebook, Gmail, and Reddit quite a bit. However, I don't consider their design to be as outstanding as their functionality (which I know we'll disagree w…

If you look at design as being purely aesthetic, then I agree with you. If, however, you approach design as does an architect, that is, to facilitate human interaction with a necessary medium, then these sites suck.

They are a chair that looks really great from a distance, but that you can't sit in. It's pretty and pointless.

Re: Best Website Designs of 2010

#24

Post by ghrtjtykyu »

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Re: Best Website Designs of 2010

#25

Post by xsltuser2010 »

jamesteow wrote: post #20
redthrowaway wrote: post #14

As a disinterested observer, I can say two things: 1) They're pretty 2) They piss me off These sites scream style over substance. I can't think of an Alexa top 500 site that uses this kind of design. The only one I frequent would be Grooveshark, and their design is highly functional. Between facebook, gmail, reddit, HN, and the various blogs and news sites I visit, 98% of my time online is spent on sites that look no…

I'm just taking this list as what it is: A list of very well crafted websites that hopefully inspire others for their own work. And really, what's wrong with style over substance? It's not like a firm needs to have a Reddit/Gmail style of a design. I, like you, use Facebook, Gmail, and Reddit quite a bit. However, I don't consider their design to be as outstanding as their functionality (which I know we'll disagree w…

To quote the movie character Mark Zuckerberg: It's clean and simple, no Disneyland.

Re: Best Website Designs of 2010

#26

Post by dawgr »

jamesteow wrote: post #19
Complete wrote: post #18

Not a single one makes use of the full width of the screen. All static layout. My websites all make use of the full screen width. I still think dynamic layout is better for usability. What do you think?

I think it has to be taken on a case by case basis. It's extremely difficult to do a well-designed dynamic layout that doesn't look too boring/un-crafted.

I read somewhere recently that most sites are using central layout now as opposed to fixed or liquid. I was looking for tutorials but I didn't find any, how would I go about making a central layout?

Re: Best Website Designs of 2010

#27

Post by rossriley »

dawgr wrote: post #26
jamesteow wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it has to be taken on a case by case basis. It's extremely difficult to do a well-designed dynamic layout that doesn't look too boring/un-crafted.

I read somewhere recently that most sites are using central layout now as opposed to fixed or liquid. I was looking for tutorials but I didn't find any, how would I go about making a central layout?

you just need a container, make the width of it about 980px and set the margin like so: #page_container {margin:0px auto;}

Re: Best Website Designs of 2010

#28

Post by jorde »

dpcan wrote: post #3

What I wouldn't give to watch YouTube videos of some of these designers putting these sites together. Everything from how they get the background textures, to adding gradients, shadows, altering colors, everything. It would be amazing. I'd probably pay to watch a 10 part series from an accomplished designer who goes start to finish designing some of these nice sites.

Recently in Hacker News:

http://blog.guestlistapp.com/post/2133037823/timelapse-desig...

I just shows how one designer can put 4.5h in a landing page with design exploration.

I would also like to see more in depth tutorials made by professionals. Something for the ThinkVitamin guys?

Re: Best Website Designs of 2010

#29

Post by true_religion »

redthrowaway wrote: post #21
cormullion wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these are mostly "first impressions count" sites, rather than "you come back over and over again" sites, which have different requirements. Sometimes you only have a few seconds to make an impression...

The only people for whom "first impressions count" is a better business model than "you come back over and over again" are web designers. These sites seem to exist only to fill the niche of sites that exist to please web designers. I can't imagine many successful startups employing these people.

Quiet a few of these sites are actually landing pages for Web Design firms. A couple are for portfollio galleries of 3rd parties.

The rest are pretty minimalistic and function focused.

Re: Best Website Designs of 2010

#30

Post by ugh »

redthrowaway wrote: post #14

As a disinterested observer, I can say two things: 1) They're pretty 2) They piss me off These sites scream style over substance. I can't think of an Alexa top 500 site that uses this kind of design. The only one I frequent would be Grooveshark, and their design is highly functional. Between facebook, gmail, reddit, HN, and the various blogs and news sites I visit, 98% of my time online is spent on sites that look no…

What’s wrong with being pretty? Those websites are fine for what they are, portfolios mainly. You are not supposed to use them every day, that’s not what they were designed for. They are not supposed to be Alexa top 500 websites, none of their designers thought they ever would.

A metro station doesn’t look like a Gucci store and that’s just fine and perfectly appropriate.

What I don’t like about this list is that it focuses on Gucci and not on metro stations. You can’t design a metro station like a Gucci store, you can’t design a high-traffic web app like a designer portfolio.

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