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19 years Ago

Bartleme

Published by marco on

 Similar to the blue man web site, but less 3d, it makes good use for color for the different areas. The search at the top is “Live” and results update as you type above the Sidenotes. The green new icon also draws the eye. Click an article and scroll down to see the comments view, which is also a nice touch. (Bartleme Home Page)

Zaadz

Published by marco on

 This is another pretty clean-looking design. In particular, the page navigation is nicely organized and presented. The breadcrumbs are integrated under the section tabs and the “Quote Size” buttons on the right are like a toolbar (with result count shown in the same area). All information is gathered at the top. The company web site and philosophy are also interesting (Zaadz Home Page)

Steel Gryhon Blog

Published by marco on

 Another relatively clean look; the thing of note is that the tab folders here are nicely done, collecting the date and topic without being too disturbing. (Steel Gryphon Home Page)

WebSideStory

Published by marco on

  A very corporate web site, but light-colored as well. Good use of line spacing (1.30em), light menu headers on top (tightly against one another and turning light gold when hovered). Uses green for the “read more” links to draw the eye and differentiate from menu links. The bottom of the page has an elegant copyright and site info section, with nicely grayed images. (WebSideStory Home Page)

The Man in Blue

Published by marco on

  Tight, good-looking use of strong blue color. The frame around the lead-in graphic looks very good too. Note the use of an initial gradient on the article text to give it more texture. Header, navigation, content and sidebar are clearly-defined areas with their own colors. (TheManInBlue Home Page)

Steam (Valve Software)

Published by marco on

 Nice use of dark military colors; the first page (seen to the right) also makes good use of a familiar “shopping flier feel” for sales information. At the bottom is a list of credit cards supported, which offers information and an nice visual touch. (Steam Home and Steam News)

IntelliJIdea

Published by marco on

 A single-product web site with two columns and modest use of color for attracting attention. Note the “What’s new” and “Download” buttons featured prominently and that the product description, upgrade and documentation information all fits into the first scroll pane. (IntelliJIdea Home Page)

Enlightenment

Published by marco on

 Nice use of watermark graphics in text boxes (see logo at bottom right). Site is a bit slow; have patience. (Enlightenment Home Page)

Inside Mac Games

Published by marco on

 This is a gaming site and looks it, but the menu design on the left is quite tight and looks “solid”. The “bubbles” in the middle serve to nicely accent the important parts of the site. Compare and contrast with the highly metallic style of GameSpot. They have a very similar layout, but more boxy (though the headers for the boxes are nice). (Inside Mac Games Home Page)

Haiku

Published by marco on

 This BeOS-variant maintainer is simple, but quite nice. I find the banner graphic fits with the logo quite well. Both the actual logo and the site icon (3 leaves in a circle) are elegant and nice. (Haiku Home Page)

Dynarch Navbar (JavaScript UI Controls)

Published by marco on

Mike Lischke’s Soft Gems site is a good example of this cool control in use. It uses accelerating/decelerating animation and opacity progression to show/hide menus. Very slick … and it’s cross-browser. (Dynarch Navbar Home Page)

UserPlane

Published by marco on

 Nice, clean, professional single-product web site. Icons are simple, consistent and single color; uses one other color for the word “Free”. (UserPlane Home Page)

There’s Pie in the Lunchroom

Published by marco on

 This site is quite nice, using the four colored boxes motif to make their sidebars and articles distinct. Especially nice is the gradient shading at the bottom-left hand corner to separate the text blocks from each other and to draw attention to the details for each block.

I kind of like the little stipple-pattern used as a separator too. (Pie Home Page)