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  Showcase Of Appetizing Restaurant Websites

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    They say the first bite is taken with the eye. If so, these appetizing restaurant websites succeed in whetting our appetites, inviting us to a savoury next bite. In these designs, color scheme and introductory copy show vastly different aspects of the restaurant experience. Moody warm tones create atmosphere, vibrant greens underscore freshness, and earthy colors communicate a relaxed, friendly attitude.Because customers are increasingly using mobile browsers to make decisions on the spot, restaurant websites are doing a better job of communicating core information quickly. Similarly, full Flash websites with no mobile alternatives are seeing some decline. Especially interesting is how these businesses are improving their online menus by replacing PDF-only downloads with Web-optimized alternatives that are more readable and easier to navigate.[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that there is a Smashing eBook Series? Book #1 is Professional Web Design, 242 pages for just $9,90.]Showcase Of Restaurant DesignsGeogeske This design has printerly qualities, with its eye-catching oranges and whites and oversized headings. Everything works together to establish a relaxed yet smart urban atmosphere. The JavaScript effects (sectional fades and spring-loaded logo introduction) are used sparingly and effectively. Simple navigation and short copy make scanning easy while putting the focus on the strong menu-worthy photography.Jam Restaurant Upscale modernist and classical elements are used consistently on this website and in the menu and restaurant interior. The vibrant typographic header looks stunning while enhancing usability by prominently displaying a phone number and hours. Another nice touch is how the body scrolls beneath the stationary translucent header.Benito’s Hat Named after a celebrated Mexican president, this restaurant communicates authenticity and freshness with a green cilantro backdrop and clear devotion to its culinary roots. At times, the backdrops on the interior pages eat the foreground text; a little contrast and spacing would help in spots. Overall, an offbeat feel that works.Pizzeria Napolicentrale This website uses horizontal navigation to guide the user through photos of mood-setting rustic Italian elements. The beige picnic pattern adds just enough visual interest without competing with the copy. But in some sections, the taller content makes horizontal scrolling a bit floaty.Barley’s A cozy design rich in grainy colors and sturdy serifs. Small touches—like the roll-overs, and lighting effects such as in the logo hover state—give a handcrafted feel. Do not miss the nice, readable menu and beer list that feature stylishly simple beer ratings.State With nocturnal tones and pictures of people having a good time, the State uses a hip design to say that it’s a cool sociable night spot. Perhaps intentionally, there seems to be little focus on food; for example, the menu section feels skimped (disjointed navigation and flimsy type for the buttons). More photos of the restaurant and food might enhance the personality of this website. Also, the home page seems a tad cluttered. In general, a little more depth in the sub-pages would round out what is a good-looking piece.Farinella Bakery Fun and disarmingly honest, Farinella Bakery takes the cake in blending personality and usability. The bold header and fun footer become bookends for the spot-on copy and photos. Notice the slight head bob when you click on the navigation and the magnification when you roll over menu items; a tasty browsing experience. What makes this a winner is that the integrity and consistency of the design can be found in the smallest elements.Sono Authentic Japanese design elements and atmospheric audio effects work well to create mystique on this Flash website. A few usability concerns pop out: for example, the flaky JavaScript for the “Back” button and the small text that is in a cramped box with a small scroll bar.The Little Cake Parlour This more conventional website shines with gorgeous photography that almost seems edible. The design has a strong focus on typography, with various elements embedded in the elegant pink multi-column layout. Some design elements probably shouldn’t be images and would work better as simple plain text, though. Also, because all visual elements have a similar pink tone, they may be a bit difficult to recognize at first glance — for instance, the pink PayPal-button in the footer of the site.Pizza Luce With playful tattoo-like scribbles and quirky photography, Pizza Luce makes clear its immutable place in Minneapolis’ food culture. Check out the oddly captivating home page illustration. For all of these strengths, the community section feels slapped together and in need of a bit of refinement.La Vista The clever use of the Flash overlay here adds intimacy and life to the crisp photography. The menu is noteworthy: simple to browse and very clean.Georgian Wine Society The backdrop feels like a matte painting that draws us into the headspace. With that, we are receptive to the interesting narrative about Georgia’s role in wine-making. The e-commerce system is well integrated; a more generous margin between elements would augment the shopping experience.Catered by Kate This website’s “About” page is one of the top in this showcase. It opens with Kate smiling warmly, giving the page a welcoming human touch. Next, it summarizes (in only two sentences) three very compelling reasons why you would use Kate for your catered event. Just one distracting but easy-to-fix minus: a call-out to an empty Flickr page that is supposed to hold more images.Can Jubany This clean layout on deep chocolate brown feels elegant even while containing a surprisingly large amount of content. The home page sets the right tone with the large yet quick-loading video that tells a story. Two more unique touches are the simple sliding navigation and the tantalizing, well-written recipe section.Caravan This simple and savvy composition uses negative space to focus on the coffee while adding depth with subtle textures. If the placeholder is this solid, then our expectations are high for the full website!Chipotle Humor, earthy tones and engaging (and notably non-Flash) animations make for an experience that is engaging and relaxed yet expertly crafted. Consistent with its corporate message of “Food with integrity,” Chipotle focuses much of the website on its brand rather than the burritos. Be sure to tug the rope in the footer for some hidden and delightful interactivity.Le 28 Thiers Here are tangerine and rose hues mingled with crisp photographic elements and textures. The simple wooden table distinguishes the layout and grounds the content visually. Subtle gradients in the typography, quality photography and the curved navigation inject elegance and dimension.Brooklyn Fare This playful design achieves a unique charm through imagery that consists of real employees, bookish serifs and a stylish seafoam background. Especially nice is the consistent layout, with its cheerful copy and gritty photography, which avoids appearing repetitive.Canela Canela (Portuguese for “cinnamon”) employs a conventional layout, energetic reds and generous imagery to give a sense of flavor and sophistication. The three-column PDF-only menu makes browsing on a mobile device more challenging.Last ClickBrew Shop The Brew Shop is not really a restaurant website, but it is still worth mentioning. The site establishes personality at first sight with a hilarious photo and beery good humor. It backs the funny with substance, such as a very usable e-commerce system, effective copy and scannable icon-enhanced navigation. Especially nice are the swaths of red as call-outs and the subtly scrambled type.Related PostsYou may be interested in the following related posts:Corporate Website Design: Creative and Beautiful SolutionsShowcase of Sweet Chocolate WebsitesShowcase Of Delicious Coffee Websites(al)© Sam Wilson for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: showcases

  

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  September 2 2010, 6:54am | Comments »

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  Corporate Website Design: Creative and Beautiful Solutions

  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SmashingMagazine/~3/gIzN2VbfD7U/

    What do corporate websites have in common with other people’s children? Three things: they have their charm, like finger-paintings on the refrigerator; they can be useful, if infrequently; they are usually admired only by the people who created them.While designers know that a user’s experience on a website has a large impact on the way that customer will interact with them, impressing that concept on the corporate establishment has taken a very long time. Trends in design are making their way into corporate web, albeit slowly; with patience and a little luck, businesses will soon start to consider carefully coded and appropriately functional design as important as their mission statement and recent sustainability reports.One unfortunate fact is evident above all else: despite having plenty of money at their disposal, many corporations are lost in sterile MS Word-esque designs that are more stagnant than a museum exhibit… though at least museums have dinosaurs and mummies and stuff. Here’s hoping we all will get new corporate clients soon.Below, we present some interesting corporate websites, although the insight they offer may not be immediately apparent. This review is not about aesthetics or visual appeal, but rather about the design solutions the sites exhibit. In fact, corporate websites aren’t as visually arresting as you might think, so if the appeal isn’t immediately apparent in the previews below, take a moment to visit and interact with each of them.[Offtopic: by the way, did you already get your copy of the Smashing Book?]Beautiful Corporate WebsitesLevi Strauss & Co With its website, Levis demonstrates that it has not only a strong flair for style and interactivity, but a rich sense of history. Hover over or click the photographs to see some of the company’s defining moments; ever known for its sense of identity, Levis draws you into its past, present and future, excellently breaking through to customers and inviting them to stay.McDonald’s By simplifying and softening the navigation, McDonald’s opens the entire screen up to use as canvas for their product. Harmonious colors in the typography complement the food (and exploit the visual association with hamburgers), while the vivid photography does not obscure surrounding elements.Starbucks Gentle colors and careful hierarchy of elements aside, Starbucks’ strength is in the details. The navigation exhibits an attention to hierarchy not often seen on corporate websites, while offering alternative destination links, should you find yourself in the wrong section. Such consideration for the user would be a welcome trend in design going into 2011.Sony You’ll see that this is a link to Sony Canada’s website. While the navigation and theme is the same as its American counterpart, the experience here is different: here you can see short films in which people relate their experiences of how Sony technology has enriched their lives. Best of all, a floating meter lets you sort stories into categories, giving you control of the content. Brilliantly executed.The Ones You Would ExpectAdidas Few websites employ a grid design that is at once so rigid and flexible. Individual modules expand and contract to allow for dynamic exploration—a lot of fun, particularly because the website has so many parts to explore. The only thing to note is that images do not obviously reflects the content they open to display, necessitating the standard top-menu — an important point in usability.Citroen While the technique of using tiny images to fill a shape has been done a million ways, Citroen takes an old technique to the next level. Draw your cursor across the world to see the photos dance around it, beckoning you to select a region. An excellent use of a landing page, effectively drawing in users without information inundation.Fender Guitars While you may need to be a guitar player to fully appreciate the beautiful lines and tones of Fender products, you need only a pair of eyes to appreciate the simplicity and functionality of Fender’s website. Unobtrusive navigation at the top and hot links lower down make way for a large stage on which Fender can showcase the stars of its website: its beautiful instruments.Heinz One of the most recognizable brands in the world, Heinz has intelligently focused its website on its consumers. Rotate the globe by clicking on photos to see simple recipes from around the world. A design brilliantly suited to users of any skill level, Heinz has found a new means to engage their customers and entice them to visit more.Prologue Films Any company that designs opening credits and effects for movies needs a keen aesthetic sense, and Prologue Films’ visual dynamic is evident on its website. A clean grid with gray tones puts the company’s custom type and effects (an impressive collection) front and center, the same technique made famous by artists and photographers. Using a pop-up window for the content, though, is ill-advised.Rolex The beauty of this website is in Rolex’ masterful attention to detail. With the gorgeous products on display, the eye almost misses the clever tricks contained therein, such as the clock face that adjusts to your time zone. The intuitive user experience reinforces the notion that great design blends together. When it works right, it’s seamless.Steinway & Sons Lucky for us, Steinway invests as much effort into its website as it does into its pianos. Elegant type and warm subtle imagery grace this design and project an image of quality, undoubtedly the intended effect.The Ones You Should Have Thought OfAflac While a blue and white palette is nothing new, Aflac has mastered the use of subtle gradients to enhance type. Smartly assembled, this site is intuitive and easily digestible. The clever part is the horizontal scrolling frame, a visual hook aptly used here to display customer testimonials.American Standard A gorgeous website; American Standard exemplifies grid design, employing the majority of frame as a news scroller. Intelligent use of color, elegant type and thoughtful spacing make this website particularly easy on the eyes.Avery Dennison At first glance, this might look like the website of any old manufacturer of office supplies. At second glance, though, brilliant little touches leap out:: the subtle grid, the attention to readability, the side-scrolling frame that harmonizes type, color and imagery. Oddly dissonant, the side and top navigations make this website looks almost as if it were a composite of different designs over time, a curiosity.Con Edison While the Con Edison website doesn’t have much to look at, the section for the annual report has been capably executed. Great attention to space, clean type and subtle movement are all used to great effect in this section where Con Edison addresses its corporate responsibility.Grow Interactive Most interactive firms don’t have exciting websites, which makes Grow stand out all the more. Grow demonstrates an expert use of type and illustration, moving your eye in perfect circles over the page, and nuances like the small interactive animals along the footer make it stand out among its peers.PGI (formerly Premiere Global) Here is another rare instance of a Canadian version surpassing its regional siblings. A playful take on the boxed blog/corporate theme, the website for PGI puts an interactive panel into the fold, an attractive way to draw users further into the website. The layout and color elements are evidence of authentic design acumen.Rohm and Haas This Fortune 500 company knows how to engage visitors online, with interactive features coming from every angle. The innovation in its products is reflected in the playfulness of the website, which encourages users to explore. Careful, effective use of otherwise familiar textures and themes support an engaging concept, to good effect.Society for Environmental Graphic Design While the inclusion of an organization of graphic designers in this showcase is no surprise, SEGD shines in its presentation of simple yet powerful elements. As any designer can attest, bold colorful shapes can easily run a design off course, but that isn’t the case here. SEGD has married vivid color with effective usability, creating a website that is smooth and wonderfully user-friendly.Virb Recently rebranded and redesigned, Virb demonstrates a capable grasp of visual elements even in this placeholder page: good typography, ample white space, soft shapes and forms — akin more to social media than standard corporate toadery, excellently indicative of the target demographic.The Ones You Might Not Know AboutAcro Media A Web development firm that knows exactly when to stick to the grid and when to break boundaries. The most impressive parts of this website are the way certain elements react to hovering, such as the company name in yellow at the top left. Mousing over it flips the logo around to display a toll-free number. Clever.AgencyNet Interactive The spirit of AgencyNet is clearly the team of creatives behind its work. Showing the team at work (and play) behind the scenes in the office is refreshing, well executed and a great way to engage viewers to learn about the company.AmoebaCorp A small creative firm, AmoebaCorp shows expert use of type on its website. The type establishes a strong hierarchy, enabling the content and navigation to coexist on the left without confusing the user about functionality.Imaginary Forces Less is more with Imaginary Forces, which displays its brilliant work as prominently as possible by cluttering the screen as little as possible. Even without the showcased work, the website would stand out: take away the grand images, and you’d still have a clever arrangement of type and navigation, which is more than can be said of most websites.Kurylowicz & Associates This Polish architecture firm has produced a website that bleeds inspiration from every pixel. Elegant in its use of gray tones, this website combines line, shape and space in a way no other website does. Perhaps it took an engineer to think abstractly enough to design with such abandon, but the result is brilliance online, from start to finish.Vancouver Convention Centre Aside from the harmonious colors and subtle grid that frames the content, the Vancouver Convention Centre succeeds by going the extra mile to make its website visitors feel local: the “Cheers!” factor in action. Not many websites impart a sense of belonging with their welcome; that this one does makes a strong case for using heart as a design tool as much as shape, color and texture.What Have We Learned Today, Bobby?Finding beautiful corporate websites proved to be quite a challenge, and we had to make a number of unusual choices along the way. We sought regional versions of international websites, for instance, because multi-national companies present a number of differences among their sister websites. Bizarrely, did you know that many Fortune 500 companies don’t even have websites? Or worse, have non-working ones?Admittedly, the word “corporate” is pretty loose in definition here. For the sake of impartiality, we did not discriminate by industry or field. We were more interested in collecting websites that employ interesting techniques. Because innovative and fresh stand out on the Web whatever the industry, putting aside traditional definitions is crucial.For further reading on corporate websites and design, you may be interested in Corporate Blog Design: Trends and Examples, published August 2009.Would you like to see more similar showcases on SM? Would you like to see more similar showcases on Smashing Magazine?customer surveys (al)© Bobby Foley for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: showcases

  

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  August 25 2010, 1:51am | Comments »

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  Showcase Of Delicious Coffee Websites

  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SmashingMagazine/~3/TpVsag2w2MQ/

    For designers approaching a deadline, coffee is a delicious necessity. Lucky for us, having a coffee break is not really difficult. But it’s more than just a 3am fix. With every late-night run to the local coffee house, we contribute to a populous network of coffee trading, sales and experience.And in fact, coffee houses and suppliers are quite a business, with online presences ranging from simple layouts with striking typography to advanced layouts with remarkable photography. Coffee websites: how do they look like? What do they have in common? What metaphors, visuals and typography are they using? Well, this is where this showcase comes handy: let’s take a closer look at tasty coffee websites and examine their distinctive features and peculiarities.[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that there is a Smashing eBook Series? Book #1 is Professional Web Design, 242 pages for just $9,90.]ShowcaseFar Coast Rustic oranges and blues are at play Far Coast’s website, with hints of distressed textures for an even more vintage vibe. The top navigation bar complements the large images that span the bottom, and the size of the centered text balances these for a pleasing look. Contrasting the richness of imagery is a neutral background, as well as low-opacity shots on either side.Gorilla Coffee Thick lines, a dark two-toned palette, heavy shapes and an urban setting remind the user that coffee can be just as enjoyable when sipped in a fast-paced city as in the mountains. Flash in use.Ipsento Coffee Instead of working with generic templates, Ipsento Coffee provides truly professional photography, displaying various navigation options in a quite unusual but attractive way. No links, no pages, no frustration with poor navigation. Ipsento shows that you can be complex and professional in design without having to indulge in equally complex development.Coffee Club It’s no accident that the word “Indulge” emphasized in this design. With the aerial view of the natural setting, multiple areas of primary and secondary focus and beautiful balance of features, you’ll be indulging in this design as much as the Coffee Club’s menu.America’s Best Coffee Roasting Company Balance is key in this design, and in many ways. America’s Best balances the abundance of gray tones in the big background image with a few shots of bright blues and rusty reds. In the same vein, the small text on the right side of the text area is balanced by the large focal text on the left. Overall, this text and link area is centered in the design. There are subtle balances as well: the “heavy” part of the picture is the top right, balancing the logo on the left.Pura Vida Lime green isn’t an obvious tone to associate with coffee, nor with a website. But Pura Vida uses it to embody the qualities of its coffee: fair-trade certified, organic and shade-grown. The tone is cooled down by the rich browns, crisp whites and suede neutrals.Seattle’s Best Coffee The most interesting part about Seattle’s Best Coffee website is its interactivity. You can rotate the cup to reveal different information about the company, its partners and the coffee. As the website says, “Go ahead. Take it for a spin.” Your design taste buds will be satisfied.Café Henrici With a simple “flip” of the menu, you get all the information you need about Café Henrici. Café Henrici’s use of perspective in the layout image draws users into the scene, making them feel as though they are sitting at a round table in the Café, sipping a steamy cup.Sweet Sallie’s Bakery & Cafe Though Sweet Sallie is as much a cafe as a bakery, its website exemplifies the cute-cupcake vibe found in many bakeries. With various blues, lavenders and teals and a feminine background pattern and type, this website’s all about baked-goods deliciousness. The cafe is simply the cherry on top.Influx Café With a design as modern as the furniture in the photo, the Influx website is sure to please. On the home page, we are first presented with a sped-up video of goings-on in the cafe, giving us a fly-on-the-wall look at the cafe… and some tasty-looking muffins. From there, users can navigate to the sub-pages, which continue the clean palette.Tapped & Packed Coffee The Tapped & Packed website combines the beauty and simplicity of modern design with traditional charm. A simple yet elegant palette of deep grays, crisp whites and soft yellows is combined with crisp lines to give a modern touch, while the serif fonts and roman numerals lend traditionalism.Caravan Caravan’s website (or rather “Coming Soon” page) is decadent in rich grays and browns. Crisp whites bounce off the dark tones in both serif and sans-serif fonts, giving the typography a professional look. The background image gives us a view of its modern product design, which reflects the website itself, with its sparse text and neutral color choices.Cilantro Café With drawn images dancing about a meditating man, impulsive swathes of paint and a variety of colors and objects, Cilantro Café reminds us that coffee can be both impulsive and relaxing. Reinforcing this contradiction is the radial balance of links that are off-kilter.Kicking Horse Coffee The classic black and white palette of this website reflects the product design of Kicking Horse Coffee’s cups. The website uses splashes of bright tones to (ahem) kick it up a notch, and it adds slight textural elements for intrigue. The large focal point anchors the design, allowing the designer to make the links and text area large. It’s big, in your face and effective.Robust-ah! Robust-ah’s large photo could have easily overwhelmed this space, becoming a distraction from the information featured below. Instead, the design actually benefits from the large photo, which anchors the rest of the information by giving the structure clean lines and the information a hierarchy. Robust-ah’s design is not what you would expect from a coffee website, with its deep-purple and light-blue tones. However, some things need to be improved here: larger font-size would help, and so would removing text-shadow from some parts of the text.1369 Coffee House This coffee house website may look generic and simple, and that’s because it is. But the generic vibe and simplicity ensure that the large photo and generous information remain clean and organized.Park Avenue Coffee Park Avenue Coffee gives a playful feel with all the vintage charm of its busy patterns, whimsical logos and strong color palettes.Greyhouse Coffee & Supply Co. Greyhouse Coffee emphasizes its menu so much that you have to hover around the bottom or top for the sleek sub-navigation bars to float into view. Design-wise, the menu’s cork background lends organic relief to the modern feel of the other pages.Tre Amici Reminiscent of I Spy books, Tre Amici’s links are scattered across the various photos of its coffee house. With images that skate in and out upon link clicks, Tre Amici shows an interesting, interactive take on the stagnant photo tours of other websites. The transitions in the Flash-based navigation could be certainly improved, though.Dunn Bros Coffee The Dunn Bros Coffee website has multiple textures, including burlap, paper, and photography, to exude a cozy vibe. The aerial view is also quite nice, giving us a few extra textures to enjoy: the blackness of the coffee, the shininess of the mug and the roughness of the coffee bean.Marley Coffee Marley Coffee’s website is aesthetically pleasing, with a simple yet modern palette, lovely Flash and a simple point of focus. But don’t be so quick to click, not until you see Mr. Marley close up, sipping a cup of coffee and peering over the mountains and wilderness.Jones Coffee Roasters Jones Coffee Roasters has a simple website with a simple layout, but the colors are bold and comfortable, and the textures add coziness and warmth. Easy navigation and a homey feel: a workable, beautiful combination.Blaser Café Blaser Café’s website features crisp whites and a no-nonsense, user-friendly structure, which reminds us that coffee isn’t just about sipping brew and enjoying a break. It’s a business. But we all know what all work and no play leads to, and so Blaser Café adds a fun touch, too, with whimsical image transitions on the home page.A Chacun Sa Tasse A Chacun Se Tasse lets us take in rich screen-wide images of its coffee house while reading information in an elegant gray information box. Sifting through images requires only a quick hover on the right side of the page, with no jolting image or page transitions.Turquoise Coffee At the opposite end of the color spectrum is Turquoise Coffee, which uses calm neutrals, muted turquoises and subtle splashes of unexpected tones to grab the user’s attention. The website may not be as flashy or inspirational as some others we’ve seen, but it’s pleasant, easy on the eyes and user-friendly, and it gets the job done. It reminds us that simple isn’t so bad. The line-height and padding could be increased though.Looney Bean Roasting Company Nothing says decadence quite like red. And nothing is a more perfect match than red and subtle khaki neutrals. Reds and beiges may not be the go-to colors for coffee products, but here they play off the large coffee-swirl background to emphasize the coffee’s creamy delectability, rather than its high-energy potency.Storyville Coffee Company This website is tasty enough on the low bandwidth option, but go high bandwidth if possible. Here, everything says rich: the warm tones of the large transitional images, the rich grain in the borders, the page transitions, the balance of information on the secondary pages, the decoration upon link-hover and the elegant, deep-toned pattern background. The coffee is “artfully roasted,” and the website is certainly artfully crafted.Bean Exchange Coffee House History comes alive on the website for this old Philadelphia coffee hub. The coffee house communicates its rich history in the look and feel of the website, with every bit of ornateness, palette and structure contributing to the theme.Java Cabana There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and certainly in the case of color. But Java Cabana’s heavy use of brown—typical of coffee websites—isn’t overbearing, thanks in part to the texturing of most of the brown elements, which help to break up the monotony. In addition, the steel accents bring a gray neutral that breaks up the brown without becoming an overt accent tone. Add in some great illusions of dimension, and you’ve got yourself a delicious website. Flashy transition effects in the footer of the page could be achieved with CSS3; you don’t really need Flash for that any more.Cuvée Coffee Roasting Company This company boasts, “We take our coffee seriously. But we don’t take ourselves seriously.” It may sound like a cliché, but if its design is any indication, Cuvée Coffee is being honest. With fun cheesy yellows, handwritten fonts and playful graphics, the website feels as whimsical as it is professional. The palette stays grounded in warm hues, helping to maintain professionalism and hint at Cuvée’s birthplace: the arid state of Texas.Café Britt An abundance of imagery is on Café Britt’s website to stimulates several of the senses. The stainless steel logo against the rich gray background convey the professionalism of the company. The wood and plant imagery in the navigation bar and footer brings a natural aura. We also get an intimate feel from scrapbook-like elements such as the handwritten fonts, old-paper textures and painted scenery on sub-pages. The website is wide, but that helps to accommodate the abundance of content.Paul Dequidt Torrefacteur Soft plays on opacity and drop-shadows give texture to the large white information areas at the center of the page. The large background contains the palette from which all tones are pulled. The dimensions could be overwhelming, stifling any smaller images in the text area, but the large image in the white section maintains equal proportions. In addition, we get a definitive sidebar and two-column balance, adding stability to the layout.Cafeshop Especial Dimension, texture and the colors in the links and sidebar ensure instant recognition of important sections, while the soft background adds a neutral base and subtle interest.Swiss Water In the rotating pictures, you’ll find women talking to one another over a cup of coffee, women enjoying a solitary cup of coffee, women sipping coffee while working. These scenes highlight coffee’s status as both a vehicle for social interaction and an occasion for brief solitude, and they form the largest part of the website, above the fold and in your face. The soft blues and whites minimize the distraction of the top links, search box and the like. Even the logo takes a back seat to the driving concept: coffee’s friendliness and warmth.Café Théâtre de la Marionnette It’s not often that a torso with a coffee-cup head descends from above on strings and slides down the page, but with a name like Café Théâtre de la Marionnette, the sight is not surprising. Neither are the rustic textures and intriguing images (such as the doll-like dresses). But what keeps this website in the modern era is the beautiful development, which gives us a realistic bounce as each page loads.First Colony Coffee and Tea Using a mix of old and new design, First Colony Coffee and Tea definitely breathes new life into tradition. The serif fonts, black and white imagery and crest in the logo create a colonial vibe and take the edge off the stark modern yellow in the image and background. With the expansive space along the right side and abundance of text, this website could easily have been boring at first glance; but the focal point comes to the rescue, with the smooth sway of steam from the coffee cup and the soft scrolling of the background image.Juan Valdez This website gives us more than a warm welcome. Here, we are personally greeted by Juan Valdez, we traverse the rich countryside scene, and we enjoy all the animated goodness that this design has to offer. And if you don’t have time to take it all in, you’re in luck: the easy navigation makes the content extremely accessible, an advantage that many heavy websites don’t have.Lavazza Lavazza’s neutral brown background emphasizes the big links of rotating coffee cups that occupy most of the page. The neutral background also accommodates bright tones that run the spectrum. These whimsical touches are balanced by a simple white font for navigation and darker browns for drop-shadows and highlights.Café Rouge Various textures create a warm, entertaining vibe on Café Rouge’s website. The textured background, rough paper, old stickers and supple light are just a few of the touches that make this website cozy. The movement in the photos and scrolling images below add flare.Anodyne Coffee Anodyne’s website is simple. Its coding is basic, and its design is line-based and simple, which might cause some designers and developers to cringe. However, with the Web now so obsessed with bells and whistles, seeing a simply coded, simply designed website is a breath of fresh air. The traditional serif fonts hearken back to simpler times. What would be really necessary, though, is to replace an image used under the header to display opening times and the address with simple text that would have higher contrast against the background.Dôme Café Like Café Rouge, Dôme Café uses a variety of textures to make the user feel cozy. The rotating images add excitement, and elements such as the white ribbon in the logo and the trim around the links instill tradition.Double Coffee Double Coffee matches its big imagery with big text, big text areas and bold white fonts, achieving proper balance. Red runs rampant across the website in different hues and tones, bringing consistency and cohesion to the website. Adding to the cohesion are white cups, dishes and creamers that mirror the font. It’s proportionately spot-on and features interesting touches, such as a credit card. The consideration for all of these basic design principles make the website appealing and make us want to stay for one more page.Kaffebrenneriet Like the Far Coast website, Kaffebrenneriet balances big rich imagery at the top with a neutral brown and taupe bottom, as well as focused images and simple fonts. Shadows set off the logo and two navigation bars, and the play on opacity and light make for an overall professional feel.Mugg & Bean The dominance of one color, the balance of the large imagery and text areas, the traditional white font and the accent tones make this website easy on the eyes. Drop-shadows, reflection effects and beautiful image movement make it look even more professional.Old Town Old Town plays up its name in this design, with its yellow-sepia blend in the background, the old village nestled in the countryside, the italic serif fonts and the flock of birds in the sky. We also get a touch of modern, with scrolling videos on the billboard and an animated delivery truck. The heaviness of the billboard is balanced by the town, and together they are balanced by the six links along the bottom, which reveal sub-navigation in white boxes upon hover.Copper Door Coffee Roasters A multitude of textures, along with paper, wood and nails, give this website its natural look. The nice handwritten font for links and page headers and the drawn lines under hovered links punctuate the naturalness. Warm greens and oranges bring out the equally warm hues in the textures.ROM Coffee Bar The circle of ROM Coffee Bar’s logo is reflected throughout the website, providing continuity and visual interest and giving the crisp whites and steel blues a softer feel.Quills Coffee Big images, fonts and links provide balance, while the contrast of font types adds variety to this big neutral design.Melitta There’s no better way to involve a user in your product than by simply throwing them into the scene. Most coffee websites do this with a close-up of coffee or a large static image of customers enjoying the atmosphere. Not Melitta. Melitta puts us at eye level with the rest of the coffee shop’s patrons, making us feel as if we too are sitting and sipping. We get a large view of the coffee shop’s charming exterior, and we can even watch as the patrons move, change and enjoy the experience. What’s best is how large the graphic is, giving us a full-on view of the perfect Melitta experience.Related PostsYou may be interested in the following related posts:Showcase of Sweet Chocolate Websites“Meet the Team” Pages: Examples and TrendsShowcase Of Beautiful Vertical Navigation DesignsBeautiful eCommerce WebsitesThe Unusable and Superficial World of Beer and Alcohol WebsitesWhat If Oscars Were Given To Movie Websites?Principles Of Minimalist Web Design, With Examples(al)© Katie Thompson for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: showcases

  

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  August 10 2010, 6:58am | Comments »

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  Showcase of Sweet Chocolate Websites

  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SmashingMagazine/~3/0RQhha26d5w/

    The word chocolate can be associated with many words: dark, white, milk, hot, sweet, spicy, etc. But have you tried to combine it with the word web design? We did. We searched the Web for websites in any way related to chocolate and what we found is worth to be collected in this showcase. The interesting thing is that you would probably never stumble upon some of the sites, so the overview below may provide you with a unique perspective and get your creative juices flowing.As one would expect, chocolate website often use an appetizing brown dominant color. If you take time to look at the panel of colors associated with it, you will find out that there is a lot of combination working really well. Apart from this component, each site is unique and features an original identity, depending on product presentation and given information.Feel free to explore the designs featured below. Some of them are nice examples for Flash used for product presentation. Some designs are very classy while others are more artistically designed. But they all have in common this fascinating sweetness everyone loves.[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has one of the most influential and popular Twitter accounts? Join our discussions and get updates about useful tools and resources — follow us on Twitter!]Similarities In Chocolate Website DesignsWe found out that there are three common techniques that seem to crop up over and over again on various chocolate-related websites. A vast majority of the sites use a horizontal top-navigation, brilliant product and ingredient images as well as a dark brown color scheme which is often combined with vivid, strong colors.CharlesChocolates: the bright blue color scheme here is fun and fresh, but the thick footer navigation is what really makes the CharlesChocolates’ site stand out.The navigation patterns are mostly common and convenient, however we’ve noticed quite a few uncommon navigation menus as well. The interesting part is that we’ve seen only a couple of typical boring stock templates. Apparently, most chocolate and confectionery website owners do care about their branding and their unique presentation on the Web. In fact, many sites try to be playful, creating an engaging, interactive and memorable user experience. That’s not something you will see in every industry, e.g. certainly not among medical websites.Horizontal Top NavigationBecause chocolate websites vividly highlight product and ingredient images and therefore fill a large part of the layout with visuals, the choice of horizontal top navigation seems quite appropriate. The number of navigation options varies from five to nine links per navigation menu (excluding sub-navigation links). The most common navigation links lead to pages describing the manufacturor of the chocolate, shops where the chocolate is available and “gifts” pages where users can order business gifts, wedding gifts etc. Sometimes the navigation also contains a link to the recipes page.Jeff de BrugesOffsetting each navigation element with it’s own double border makes each link stand out and adds visual interest to the header.Godiva ChocolatierPlacing the navigation directly under the header works well on the Godiva Chocolatier site.Jacques Torres ChocolateHaving the top navigation highlighted by a thin orange border makes it more visible to new visitors.TCHO: Buy Dark Chocolate and GiftsThe top navigation here is simple and a bit on the minimalist side. Placing it above the bold header text makes it stand out a bit more.Chocri chustomized chocolate barsClassic tabbed navigation works well with multi-colored text and a subtle gradient.The Chocolate Bar – Reno, NVA minimalist top navigation bar directly under the header is made more interesting through the use of transparency. Notice that there’s also secondary navigation in the footer.Cadbury: Cadbury ChocolateA simple, traditional top navigation bar is user-friendly and almost always looks good.Product and Ingredient ImagesThe quality of product photography on chocolate websites is remarkable. Images are often large and dominant and are given a lot of both horizontal and vertical space. In fact, chocolate, especially gourmet chocolate, is often very visually interesting. The ingredients that go into it can also be very aesthetically pleasing. So it only makes sense that a lot of designers are opting to include mouth-watering images of the chocolate being sold on a given site.Festival Internacional de Chocolate de ObidosThis site of a chocolate festival uses a striking background image as well as a nice chocolate photos on its main page.Green & Blacks Organic ChocolateThe broken chocolate bar used here gives a casual look to the site, while the embossed logo helps reinforce the brand.Dagoba Organic ChocolateThe combination of chocolate with blueberries and lavender reinforces the organic nature of Dagoba’s chocolate bars.Mindy’s Hot ChocolateAn almost-macro image of chocolate shavings in a chocolate martini, combined with other images of their offerings sets apart the Mindy’s Hot Chocolate website.Patrick RogerTobleroneToberlone opts for limited product images, but including just a couple of well-placed images can have a positive impact.Haigh’s ChocolatesA large, close-up image of the product adds a ton of interest here without overwhelming the otherwise simple and minimalist design.ChocomizeShowing the variety of possible chocolate bar customizations can go a long way toward enticing visitors to create (and order) their own customized chocolate bars.Brown Color SchemeObviously, dark brown color scheme dominates on chocolate websites. However, very often the scheme is complemented with vibrant, dynamic colors such as bright green or red. In general, most sites do stick to the dark scheme, often with tiled or photographic backgrounds which are closely related to the main theme.Dove ChocolateThe Dove Chocolate site has an almost exclusively brown website design, with varying shades used to offset different parts of the site.Divine ChocolateThe Divine Chocolate site uses brown in limited quantities, but it’s still prominent in the design.ValrhonaDark brown used throughout the design of Valrhona’s site makes one think of dark, high-end chocolate.HemmankonditorVarying shades of brown, from the very dark brown (almost black) of the background to the lighter browns of the navigation and header are all evocative of the many varieties of chocolate out there, and what can be made with them.Promise Me Chocolate…The combination of dark brown and pink works really well together, especially on a site specifically targeting brides-to-be.The Cocoa TreeUsing brown as an accent color sets apart The Cocoa Tree’s site. It feels fresh and light, something that’s often hard to accomplish while still bringing to mind chocolate.Brookside FoodsThe Brookside Foods site brings together various shades of brown with black and gold to create a high-end looking site.Unique DesignsSome chocolate websites fight for user’s attention with striking design elements and unconventional navigation schemes. Some of them are presented below. In these cases, (for site owners) the engaging and memorable user experience seems to play a very important role.Max BrennerThe Max Brenner website is set apart for a few reasons. The right-hand vertical navigation is one reason. But also the retro, grungy design with the animated eye (you’ll have to visit the actual site to see it).BloomsberryThe animation used on the Bloomsberry site is interesting and very well-done. The navigation is also atypical, with links easily identifiable but scattered throughout the main part of the home page.Pierre MarcoliniThe Pierre Marcolini site is very minimalist, with not a trace of brown showing up in the main part of the design.WispaAnother site that uses no brown in the main design, but instead opts for colors reminiscent of the product’s packaging rather than its contents. The hand-drawn elements also make it stand out.Chocolate Research FacilityThe animated chocolate dripping onto the screen is a bit gimmicky, but also adds a lot of interest to what would otherwise be a very simple site.More Chocolate Website ExampleszchocolatKommunarkaPionirChocolate EditionsIcamSpartakChocolatfreyKambly SAAskinosie ChocolateRelated PostsYou may be interested in the following related showcases:Showcase Of Beautiful Vertical Navigation DesignsBeautiful eCommerce WebsitesThe Unusable and Superficial World of Beer and Alcohol WebsitesWhat If Oscars Were Given To Movie Websites?Principles Of Minimalist Web Design, With Examples(jb) (cs) (mm) (cc) (vf)© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: chocolate, showcases

  

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  July 15 2010, 1:36am | Comments »

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  Showcase Of Web Design In Poland

  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SmashingMagazine/~3/OVd4eOCAV_4/

    Vodka, pickled cucumbers and Pope John Paul II might spring to mind when someone mentions Poland. Obviously there’s more to Poland than that. On the world map of design, Poland is marked by creative agencies that produce high-level design and employ some of the best programmers in the world. There’s also a crowd of freelancers and visionaries who have received worldwide recognition.For the people I interviewed, Web design is life. The art directors and freelancers highlighted here work in all sorts of environments, and they answer questions related to our field. You’ll have the opportunity to see Polish Web design from a number of perspectives — and to form your own opinion while browsing selected productions.[By the way, did you know we have a brand new free Smashing Email Newsletter? Subscribe now and get fresh short tips and tricks on Tuesdays!]The State Of ThingsQuestion: Can you name some of the milestones in Polish Web design? What are the biggest and most important productions in recent years?Jacek Opaluch of K2 Internet: If milestones are things that have changed the perception of Web design, we have to mention Internet locations, events and designs. In my opinion, the locations would inlude mocnweb.pl, a forum that no longer functions and is probably only remembered by people over 30. It was a place where people could share their initial experiences and which, if I remember correctly, had the first carefully selected catalogue of Polish Web designers’ websites.Then there was the everlasting webesteem.pl, steadily breaking records as the website with “the layout that never changed.” There were always several people around — some significant, like Bartek Gołębiowski, Jędrek Kostecki, Bartek Rozbicki, Wojtek Krosnowski, Wojtek Piotrowski, Piotr Łupiński and Łukasz Twardowski — whose attitude toward the Internet undoubtedly had great influence on thinking and design. There were many more people whose names I don’t remember, unfortunately, for which I apologize.Chopin2010.plCertain designs are stuck in my mind. These were well known, not just in Poland, and sometimes they were great examples to follow. Some have been replaced by newer versions, so giving the URLs here might be pointless, but they definitely include: Max Weber’s pdk.pl, a Flash portal with much character (probably the first in Poland); Nokia (created by K2 Internet); plama.art.pl and its subsequent versions; feta.pl; Sullivan’s Productions; click5.pl; Ars Thanea; cookie.pl; and recently, StudioKxx and huncwot.com. These are all first-class websites. Unfortunately it’s impossible for me to name every excellent website.In my opinion there were two other crucial events that gave shape to things: agencies went public (a sort of goodbye to the formative years of Web design) and eBay debuted in Poland. These events showed the quality of our service and proved that the Polish internaut had been highly underestimated abroad.Question: Are there any significant differences between Web designing in Poland and in the rest of Europe when it comes to artistic development?Jacek Opaluch: There are differences in budget, in the attitudes of clients and in understanding the Internet’s potential. Statistically, I don’t see any difference in the quality of the things we do: we win awards, we are jurors and we build among the best of the websites that present outstanding design — just like the rest of the world. Zakochaj się w kolorze.Kamil Kaniuk of Merix Studio: Polish programmers and coders are generally well regarded, which results from our observations and experience — often in cooperation with foreign firms. Numerous highly skilled Web developers are in Poland whose code is of world-class quality. Here at Merix Studio, we are searching for such people. The skills of our coders have been appreciated by the British company Independent News and Media, which prepared a series of test tasks for us before they decided to commission us to work on their leading brands (The Independent and Herald, for example).We are less inspired by Flash achievements and augmented reality (so popular right now) than are other interactive agencies in Poland. We are more interested in the productions of smaller flexible firms such as 37signals, nclud, Reactive and Clearleft. We invest in flexible and cost-optimal open-source software (Drupal, WordPress, Magento), because it can easily substitute for expensive commercial solutions.Open-source software is regarded slightly differently in Poland than it is in Western countries; the opinion that any self-respecting interactive agency should have its own original content management system (CMS) still prevails here, but this is not so. Just look at the US government: Whitehouse.gov is based on Drupal.In the current period of economic slowdown, Western companies are looking for ways to reduce costs while maintaining good quality. Many companies outsource to such countries as Poland, and these companies often have funds at their disposal that allow them to be more open to creative ideas. This is encouraging for Polish Web designers.Warszawska Jesień 2008Question: When was the starting point of innovative Web design in Poland? When did new media settle in Poland for good?Łukasz Twardowski of Cookie.pl: The first thing I remember from the Internet was an interactive advertising campaign for Frugo juice. The campaign was created by an agency, and it was the first Polish viral ad. It probably significantly increased interest in the Internet as a medium for advertising, and it collided with the so-called “Internet bubble,” which burst before any innovative design came into being.Still, this was the time when most designers I admire became active. Some independent websites on Web design were created, like Mocny Web or Webesteem. They attracted people who already thought of themselves as designers for new media. Looking back, I see that what pushed us forward was energy and optimism rather than skills and knowledge.I think we became aware of both (i.e. skills and the role of Web design) about three or four years ago, but the awareness wasn’t strong yet. The major problem with Web design in Poland is that the best interactive agencies give priority to advertising, and design is a secondary issue. Small clients such as photographers and architects, who might desire and deserve the best designs, often don’t have enough money to employ professionals. It’s great to see, though, that cultural institutions have more money to spend on the Internet, and they spend it wisely.Question: Is it possible to identify specific patterns in Polish Web design? Is every significant website really different from all the rest?Łukasz Twardowski: I wish Polish Web design had German discipline, Scandinavian simplicity and our knightly imagination. Polish designs are often much more daring than those of our neighbours. Still, if we want to develop our philosophy of design and be visible to the world, then we have to make more effort.The economy in Poland has been improving, and the only thing we need now is more energy and optimism. Mocny Web died naturally, and Webesteem is on its last legs. What we lack is a central forum where young designers (in a sense, all of us are “young”) can see the spectacular Web designs and discuss them.Flirt CampKamil Kaniuk: We think that in Poland there are still no styles in Web design that would distinguish our country from others — that is, that any styles are unequalled. Although one could fairly easily enumerate some common features of designs created elsewhere (the meticulous detail and profound illustrations of Russia, for example, or the graphic-rich interfaces of the United States), no specific style dominates in Poland. However, the “transfer of ideas” (say from West to East) is much faster now than it was a few years ago.Too often a design is a compromise between the vision of the designer and the requirements of the customer. Such designs tend to undergo amendments by the customer, which can change their original form. In our opinion, the openness of customers to modern solutions (e.g. non-standard interfaces based on JavaScript, like Xpiritmental) is less common in Poland than elsewhere. Foreign customers seem to be more open to our ideas and give us greater freedom, and they are ready to make use of technologies like JavaScript and AJAX.That opens the gate to creativity and gives the freedom to implement interesting solutions. In many Polish agencies — including those that work with big brands and budgets — some cheap and mediocre designs are created out of necessity.Kula.gov.plQuestion: What is it like to work as a freelancer in Poland? Is it drudgery or a stress-free job? Is it about keeping loyal clients or constantly searching for new ones?Jan Stańko: We shouldn’t generalize; every freelancer is different. Starting off is definitely difficult. Without a strong position in the market, you have to look for clients on your own, and you have to convince people that you are trustworthy and deserve opportunities. There are plenty of freelancers, but unfortunately the majority of them are young and immature and have no idea about the business. They finish school and immediately call themselves professionals. It can end badly: very often the honest designers who treat the profession seriously and think of it as their future have to suffer the consequences.In time, the serious freelancer gets clients and agencies start knocking on their door. Then you can choose the tasks you like the most, and that brings more money. Work gets difficult when you want to earn more money; it can mean sleepless nights, gallons of coffee and in my case, unfortunately, plenty of cigarettes.There are moments of anxiety as well, usually brought on by people who pretend to know everything about the Internet but actually know very little. I guess the best solution is to cooperate with agencies on a regular basis. Agencies can take the burden of work overload and stress off your back. Also, their complex services give you the opportunity to meet more interesting clients. As for the future, time will tell. I’m not even halfway through my career. Trophies are still a long way ahead!BuboleRafał Nastały: Earning one’s living as a freelancer in Poland without a recognized name can be incredibly tough. Independent clients often don’t want to sign contracts or pre-pay. They also think that preparing a layout is a piece of cake, so when they hear the price, they often back out. It’s very frustrating. It’s much more pleasant to cooperate with several agencies that can give you a fairly constant number of orders.Piotr Biernawski: I have five or six regular clients. Sometimes a client withdraws, and it’s usually because of money. It’s never a disagreement about the terms of the contract but about actually sticking to these terms (payment can be long delayed, etc.). But when some go, others come. I’ve been working with longstanding clients for five years now.Drudgery or a piece of cake? Definitely not a piece of cake. If it wasn’t for my strong connection to the mountains, which I love and where I do my hobbies, I would probably move to a bigger city and look for a full-time job. I also have a wife and child who are not very keen to move. However, I don’t think freelancing is drudgery; I can’t afford the latest model of BMW, but I work only about two hours a day. Even though you need to be psychologically strong to work like this, the lifestyle is great.Łukasz Bronisz: I think it depends on the individual. Everyone arranges their time and work environment differently. Some people prefer working at night and waking up at dusk in order to meet a deadline. Most of us, however, try to work during regular hours. It allows you to be in touch with agencies, allows you to make light changes and corrections and lets you have a private life too.I imagine that freelancing in Poland is similar to freelancing in other countries. It can be hard sometimes because of tight schedules or having a number of projects going at the same time. On the other hand, you always have the opportunity to relax or even take a break for a couple of days. No one arranges your time or dictates your schedule.Also, though, no one checks on you. If you choose to freelance, for which your income depends on how much you work, it’s reasonable to cooperate with several agencies. Doing this usually gives you enough orders that you don’t have to worry about the next month and can concentrate on your work. Of course, it’s always good to look for new projects so that you develop and diversify your designs. Łukasz BroniszKonrad Wysokiński: It’s still quite difficult to get by as a freelancer in Poland, although there are probably some people who don’t have to worry about work or can be picky about contracts. I often get the impression that people still don’t know what good design is or know that it costs money. For many people, the Internet is still a must: “People are talking about it, so let’s make a website — but make it as cheap as possible.” Some company owners have this attitude. As a result they ask someone, anyone, who knows a little bit about Photoshop (a brother-in-law’s daughter) to create the cheapest website possible. Thankfully, this has been changing steadily, like our society in general, and I hope that our sensitivity to the profession of Web design will increase with time.Mateusz Jakobsze: The Web design market in Poland has been gradually expanding. A lot of people freelance to get rid of the constraints of working for agencies. They want creative freedom and to earn more money. Undoubtedly, an advantage to freelancing in Poland is the opportunity to work for clients abroad who pay in Euro or American dollars. The ability to choose which clients and agencies to cooperate with is a big advantage as well. I always try to look abroad for new clients and to network. I have some regular clients as well as a couple of interactive agencies that I often collaborate with. We socialize not only at work but also at parties and unofficial get-togethers. It’s good to maintain informal relationships with your clients. Mateusz JakobszeQuestion: How does the Web design and development market look in Poland? Is it possible to earn one’s living from freelancing alone?Jan Stańko: It is possible, definitely. Many people are self-subsisting freelancers, including me. There are quite a lot of agencies and enough clients, and whether we get by depends on our hard work, consistency and responsibility. When it comes to cooperation with agencies, it usually goes smoothly; it’s the clients who are the weak link. But even that has been changing. The Internet is still a brand new thing for many people. Non-professionals find it difficult to catch up with the news that keeps popping up in the field, and sometimes this can result in misunderstanding.Rafał Nastały: Freelancing is not for everyone. You need to be self-disciplined and consistent to work as a freelancer. When you collaborate with agencies that know how to communicate with clients and that pay generously, you can have a relatively high standard of living.One negative aspect is the lack of credibility at the bank (getting a big loan is difficult), so if you’re not a high-profile Web designer, the best option is to have a full-time job and take additional work from other sources now and then. This creates financial stability. A bonus like that — a well-paid creative task — is actually very nice. There are of course some freelancers for whom one layout is worth more than the monthly earning of others.Warszawska Jesień 2009Piotr Biernawski: It is certainly possible to earn a living from freelancing. I know some people who earn more than ten thousand a month. I’m not talking about famous names here, but about people from small towns, “unheard of” names in our line of business. Considering the time I devote to work, I am not an example of this, but I can afford everyday living: mortgage, alcohol and cigarettes!Łukasz Bronisz: I think that the Polish market is pretty good. It’s a young market. Actually the whole business is young. Polish clients have become more aware of the Internet in recent years. Plenty of talented people are in the trade in Poland. If you know how to organize your time effectively, talk to people and sometimes work more than the standard eight hours, then freelancing is enough to earn a living. The important thing is to be consistent and up to date.Konrad Wysokiński: I’ll quote part of a conversation I had with a colleague, a designer. I asked him once, “Can you earn a living from freelancing?” He said, “It depends on your standard of living.” You can get by, of course, but you probably won’t make a fortune. I often get the impression that in Poland this type of work is considered a craft and is not treated with respect like other “professional” work. We are very far from the image of the Web designer you see in Hollywood movies, who has a five million dollar house with a swimming pool, has his own agent and who is the top Web designer for the most famous brands. Konrad WysokińskiMateusz Jakobsze: It’s not much different from what you see in other countries. We have many arenas where graphic designers can display their work, like themed blogs and Internet forums. The majority of creative agencies and independent clients look for employees that way.Freelance Web designing has been developing in Poland: about a quarter of agencies outsource on a regular basis, and more than a third use freelancers for selected projects. So, there are opportunities to work on different brands for different companies, which is good for both present and future freelancers.Special workplaces and offices have gradually emerged where there is no boss and all the workers are freelancers. We have such a place in Poznań. It’s a great idea to have freelancers from different professions gathered in one place. I hope for more initiatives like that.Question: What inspires you? Do you approach every design differently and enthusiastically, or is it sometimes like mass production?Jan Stańko: Mass production kills creativity, so I avoid it as much as I can. I prefer to do less work better. Then you can show a portfolio that you are really proud of. It’s the only way I work.Honestly, my inspiration comes from the work of other designers, both from Poland and abroad. Behance.net is a really amazing source, vast and rich. I don’t have a specific example, but this ocean of artistic ideas fuels creativity and prepares you to bring your own ideas to life. Then it just flows.Rafał Nastały: When I have the freedom of choice and some time on my hands, I try to make something original that appeals to both me and the client. But it sometimes happens that there are several tasks and the deadline is “yesterday.” In this situation, I bear down and work like a robot while trying to maintain a high quality of work. I get inspiration from the Internet. I regularly visit websites devoted strictly to Web design like FWA, DesignFollow and obviously Smashing Magazine. I also visit DesignYouTrust, FormFiftyFive and FFFFound. You can find plenty of great art and designs from many fields.Piotr Biernawski: Sometimes a free mind, a break from work and lack of inspiration are the best sources of inspiration! I work most effectively after a two-week break in which I do absolutely nothing — but such breaks happen only once in a while. This is why a freelancer needs to be psychologically strong, otherwise getting depressed is easy.As for inspiration, I have bookmarked several links. They are mostly Polish productions, and I visit them now and then. Given how much I work, this may sound strange, but one’s attitude to design makes a difference. Unfortunately for me, the majority of my recent projects were due “yesterday.” A client pays for fast work, and standards have to be met. There isn’t always a sense of achievement when you work quickly, but as long as the client is satisfied, I’m happy as well. Some interesting projects require more involvement. Usually these are not assigned by agencies but by independent clients who come directly to me. Maybe this tells us something?Reserved.plŁukasz Bronisz: I treat every design individually and use new ideas and techniques. When I start a project, I try to get a sense of what the client likes, but I also aim to be satisfied with my own work. It’s nice when everything goes smoothly and both the client and agency like your idea. Working with individuals can be tough; sometimes they just don’t appreciate your effort, which can compromise the result. This is typical both in Poland and abroad — at least, that has been my experience.Konrad Wysokiński: I get inspiration from all around. I sometimes do corporate identity design, which can inspire me. Naturally, I watch the best people at work and keep up with the trends. I’m a fan of grunge design, but very rarely can I use it. Every project is a new challenge for me, so I give my heart and soul to each and every design. I’m never convinced by lines like, “Do it quicker and simpler for a lower price.” I believe it’s impossible to make something look professional without taking a professional approach.StrzygMateusz Jakobsze: Like every creative job, graphic design requires participation. To keep up to date with all the news in both Web and graphic design, I regularly visit the important portals and blogs devoted to this line of work, be they Polish or international. The crucial ones include Behance, Smashing Magazine, DeviantArt, the FWA and New Web Pic. Additionally, I find reading and browsing books on advertising, typography, designing for the Web (including for portfolios, Flash websites and e-commerce shops) and graphic design useful. It can also be a good way to relax and get away from the digital world to some degree.The last (but most important) sources of inspiration for me are sleep and having a life outside of work (away from my computer). Socializing with friends and going to parties, cinema, opera and other cultural events renew my energy for creative work.When it comes to designs, I treat every project differently, but I always try to have a plan, an idea of how to do the project, from beginning to end. I make some sketches, and when know exactly what I want, I get down to work. Every design is a new challenge. I set higher standards for myself every day, and I strive to be the best at what I do.Showcase Of Beautiful Web Design From PolandLech.plTeatr WybrzeżeSony WalkmanModna NokiaMcDonald’s Happy MealBigstarAllegro za kulisamiThetokeMały GłódEurekoGrey WolfCarlsberg LiverpoolSkoda YetiFiat 500 DieselHappiness FactoryBest PhotoRokkaboyFestiwal FetaŻubrOkocimZając MrokuAmica ScandiumKakao PuchatekKalinowe PolaProfiPartnersKFC Longer MixJustyna KowalczykBiblioteka NarodowaNowy TeatrMediations BiennaleMastermCommon WealthPawel LenarFotokodyGreenlineGellweHoralkyFajne ChłopakiShowcase Of Interactive And Creative Agencies In PolandClick5CookieOS3Ars ThaneaArtegenceAdvHuncwotOpcomBlueberry180 HeartbeatsChange ConnectionsHipopotam StudioGolden SubmarineSo InteractiveHonkiPro-CreationHypermediaArt FlashChigo DesignEura 7Infinity GroupInsigniaNetizensStudio SynergiaXoe StudioMedia AmbassadorHotmindDesign-Related Websitesinteraktywnie.comwebesteeminternetmakercsseliteucssfreszkiwebhostingwebinsideRelated articlesYou may be interested in the following related posts:Showcase of Web Design in ChinaShowcase of Web Design in IsraelShowcase of Web Design in RussiaShowcase of Web Design in The NetherlandsShowcase of Web Design in GermanyShowcase of Web Design in MexicoShowcase of Web Design in IrelandShowcase of Web Design in Lithuania(al)© Przemek Matylla for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: showcases

  

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  July 5 2010, 4:26am | Comments »

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  The Ugly Showcase of Military, Intelligence And Defense Websites

  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SmashingMagazine/~3/cvv-p_J2FPE/

    Members of military and intelligence forces around the world risk their lives daily to defend their countries and assist in peacekeeping and aid missions both at home and abroad. The men and women who make up the world’s defense forces make sacrifices that most civilians wouldn’t consider to serve their countries.So, with everything they do for us, shouldn’t they be represented online by website designs that reflect the honor and responsibility they undertake every day? Unfortunately, that’s not the case in many countries out there. Many military websites out there are some of the worst designs in any industry. Whether they’re outdated, broken or designed by amateurs, some of the websites showcased below are bad enough to make you cringe.There are some good ones, though. A number of countries have obviously dedicated the time and resources necessary to project a professional and polished Web presence for their members. A number of other websites have obviously put in some effort and are pretty close. If you know of examples of other great military or intelligence websites from around the world, please add them in the comments! [By the way: The network tab (on the top of the page) is updated several times a day. It features selected articles from the best web design blogs!]The OutdatedThe websites featured here might have looked great 10 or more years ago (which was likely when they were created). But either their designs haven’t been updated in a very long time or their designers are still borrowing conventions from the late ’90s.Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Argentina Everything from the color scheme to the header image to the skinny three-column layout dates this design.Royal Bahamas Defence Force This website wouldn’t look quite so dated if it weren’t for the drop-shadows behind the content blocks.Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela The overall layout of this website screams early-2000s.Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Belarus Very minimalistic website with a solid background, gradients, tiny links and many &nbsp-empty spaces.Colombian National Police Here’s another great example of a website that would have looked right at home in the late ’90s or early 2000s.Hellenic Navy The thing that dates this website the most is its width: it would look right at home on a screen with a resolution of 800×600.Macedonian Ministry of Defence The layout, the partially rounded corners and the drop-shadow against the background all date this website.Pakistan Maritime Security Agency Using an image like this one as a background was very popular in the ’90s.Serbian Ministry of Defense The layout here is almost grid-like, but it doesn’t quite make it. The color scheme is the most outdated, though.Slovenian Armed Forces Another website that would have been current 8 to 10 years ago.Spanish Armada The rounded colors and glossy buttons would have looked great a few years ago, but now they just harken back to the earliest days of the Web 2.0 style.The Russian Federation Ministry of Defence The design has a striking resemblance to traditional Google AdSense blocks, and the line-height property for the content area certainly should be increased..Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence The color scheme and typography here are definitely reminiscent of Web design 5 to 10 years ago.U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation The skinny layout, color scheme and overall look of this website feel at least 6 to 7 years old.U.S. National Reconnaissance Office This website screams late ’90s and early 2000s, especially the navigation and typography.Uruguayan Air Force This looks like it was based on a standard template from 5 to 10 years ago.The Poorly CodedThese websites might not have been so bad if they were cross-browser compatible and adhered to Web standards even a little. But they are all so poorly coded that they don’t render correctly in browsers such as Firefox or Safari.Luckily, there aren’t too many of them.Brazilian Army The coding on this website isn’t noticeably horrible… except for all the thin white lines running through the backgrounds and borders of the content blocks.Pakistan Navy I don’t even want to begin figuring out how they got the rounded-corner background to repeat like that in the main content area.South African Army This website wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the giant gray bar running down the main column, effectively blocking half the content.United States Special Operations Command The headers for all the content blocks here are fine, except the one for the news feeds, which prefers to be higher up on the page.The Poorly DesignedThese websites are just poorly designed. Some look like they were based on stock templates… bad ones. Others look like they were designed in programs aimed at hobbyists or those needing to set up personal websites (in any case, definitely not appropriate for government agencies).Bolivian Army Between the color scheme, the header (which doesn’t come close to spanning the whole design) and the broken icons, this website just doesn’t look good at all.Cuban National Defence I’m not sure where to begin with this one…Egyptian Armed Forces It looks like they couldn’t decide whether they wanted a minimalist website.Republic of Fiji Military Forces This looks like your classic template website, with minor modifications.Ministry of Defence of Georgia This wouldn’t be so bad if the content areas weren’t so disjointed.Indian Air Force This might have been salvageable, except for the horrible alignment.Kenyan National Security Intelligence Service The padding and margins in this website aren’t adequate, and the alignment is off in places. The concept is sound; it just needs to be better executed.Lebanese Army This website might not have been so bad if the colors complemented the camouflage background, rather than clashed with it.The Philippine Marine Corps This is another one for which I’m not even sure where to start.Polish Land Forces Forget for a moment how amateurish this one looks. Notice how the text doesn’t even match up with the navigation buttons.Portuguese Army From the header alone, it’s not so bad. It’s the lower area of this website that doesn’t seem to have any aim.Romanian Land Forces I’m still trying to figure out if that white bar across the top of each column is supposed to be there. Beyond that, they should have paid more attention to how the header colors go with the rest of the color scheme.Royal Thai Army There’s just way too much going on here, and no focal point to grab your attention.Turkish Air Force This almost made it into the “Not So Bad” category below, except that it doesn’t have any focus, and the alignment of some elements is off.Ministry of Defence of Ukraine The ads on this website should be better integrated in the overall design. Other than that, the design looks very dated.United Arab Emirates Ministry of Defence Where’s the content?Zimbabwe Ministry of Defence There’s no color scheme here, and the entire thing looks like something a kid did in class.The Not-So-BadThe websites here aren’t terrible. In most cases, only minor things hold them back. Most of them could be great with just a bit more work.Ministry of Defence of The Republic of Armenia Other than the width of this website (which is a bit narrow for even an 800 x 600 display), it’s not a terrible design.Australian Secret Intelligence Service This design is just fine, other than being a bit boring. And the text could be slightly enlarged for easier reading.Ministry of Defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina If more attention was paid to the baseline or vertical rhythm, this would be a reasonably good design.British Secret Intelligence Service The angles in this design should either be better incorporated into the other elements or removed altogether. Other than that, it’s not bad.Brundeswehr This is one of those websites that doesn’t have anything particularly wrong with it. It’s just underwhelming.Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China The elements on this website don’t quite have enough continuity, but the color scheme and overall layout are good.Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Croatia This website is also underwhelming. Nothing particularly “wrong” with it, but not impressive either.Ecuadorian Army The header here is great, but the rest of the website doesn’t quite match up, and it feels a bit like a generic template.Ecuadorian Navy Parts of this website are great (the slidehow in the header, for instance) but other parts don’t quite match up, particularly the buttons on the right-hand side and the off-center navigation elements.Armed Forces of Honduras This website isn’t bad. But again, nothing makes it stand out.Norwegian Ministry of Defense Another example of a website that doesn’t do anything to stand out.Peruvian Air Force The idea here is good, but the result isn’t very interesting.Portuguese Ministry of Defense Another inoffensive yet unimpressive website.Portuguese Navy This would be great, but it has just a little too much going on. Some negative space would make a huge difference.Saudi Arabian Ground Forces This website is more interesting than some of the others here, but it doesn’t quite pull it together.Sri Lanka Navy Here’s another website that looks like a template. The use of white space could be better and makes everything look a bit disjointed.Swiss Army Another underwhelming, uninteresting design. At least it looks professional.US Air Force A professional yet boring design. But maybe that’s how military websites should look?US Central Intelligence Agency This website is way too narrow, and overall it’s just not eye-catching.US Department of Defense Too much is going on here, and the social media links (the icons especially) on the left look out of place.US Navy The icons and banners in the header don’t really fit the rest of this design.A Few Good SitesThe websites below are the stars of this post. They are well designed, easy to use, professional and worthy of representing the armed forces and intelligence services.Austrian Armed Forces This one’s clean and well laid out, with plenty of white space and a great color scheme.British Army A professional-looking website, with a background that’s more interesting than most.British Royal Air Force Another website with an interesting background and a clean overall design.British Security Service MI5 The color scheme here is great, as is the overall aesthetic, which is a cross between minimalist and magazine-style.Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria A clean, well thought out design that makes good use of textures and gradients.Chilean Navy The header here is fantastic, and the rest of the layout works well.Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces of the Czech Republic Another great header design: this one doubles as navigation. Each section of the website has a different color scheme, while maintaining the same basic look.Defence Command Denmark A minimalist layout that leaves plenty of white space.The Finnish Defense Forces A clean and organized design, with double-tabbed navigation bars.Netherlands Ministry of Defence The purple color scheme here is unexpected, but it works well and sets the website apart.Polish Ministry of National Defense This is one of the nicest designs in this post, especially because of the header.Swedish Armed Forces A good clean design with a minimalist aesthetic and great typography. The transparent titles over the images on the right really take it up a notch.US National Security Agency Professional, easy to use and coherent: everything an intelligence website should be.US Army The US Army website brings together a lot of content of various types while maintaining a usable and consistent user interface.US Marine Corps This website stands out mostly because of the grid used for the main content area and the ample white space everywhere else.(al)© Cameron Chapman for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: showcases

  

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  June 23 2010, 3:52am | Comments »

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  100 Years Of Propaganda: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SmashingMagazine/~3/lRTjqctMrDw/

    Propaganda is most well known in the form of war posters. But at its core, it is a mode of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Although propaganda is often used to manipulate human emotions by displaying facts selectively, it can also be very effective at conveying messages and hence can be used in web design, too.Notice that propaganda uses loaded messages to change the attitude toward the subject in the target audience. When applied to web design, you may experiment with techniques used in propaganda posters and use them creatively to achieve a unique and memorable design.In this article, we look at various types of propaganda and the people behind it, people who are rarely seen next to their work. You will also see how the drive for propaganda shaped many of the modern art movements we see today. Notice that this post isn’t supposed to be an ultimate showcase of propaganda artists. Something or somebody is missing? Please let us know in the comments to this post!William Orpen: England, 1917Orpen studied at the Slade School in London alongside the likes of Augustus John and Wyndham Lewis. He produced some of his best work while at the school and became known for his portraits. A friend of Orpen then arranged for him to paint the pictures of senior military officials, such as Lord Derby and Churchill. In 1917, he was recruited by the government’s head of War Propaganda to the Western front to paint images of war-torn France. It was there that Orpen painted his most famous piece, “Dead Germans in a Trench.”Dimitri Moor: Russia, 1917–1921Dimitri Moor (or Dmitry Stakhievich Orlov) changed the face of graphic design in Soviet Russia back in 1918. His work dominated both the Bolshevik Era (1917–1921) and the New Economic Policy (1921–1927). The main theme of Moor’s work is the stark contrast between the oppressive evil and the heroic allies. A lot of pressure was put on Russian workers to rise up against imperialism.A lot of Moor’s artwork was restricted to black and red. Black was generally used for the main part of the poster, and all of the solid colors for the capitalists. Red was used for socialist elements such as flags and workers’ shirts.This is a lesser known poster by the artist, appealing for help for those staving from the Russian famine in 1920. It features the single word “Pomogi,” meaning help. The drawing is of an old man who is just skin and bone. The last stalks of barley are barely visible in the background.El Lissitzky: Russia, 1920El Lissitzky spent his whole career absorbed by the belief that the artist could be an agent for change and good, and his work in a lot of respects shows this. He himself was a huge agent of change in the artistic movements of the time. He was one of the fathers of suprematism, along with Kazimir Malevich; and along with many of his peers, he changed the look of typography, exhibition design, photo montage and book cover design. Most of the modern techniques we see today and that appear in film and modern Kenetic typography are the product of Lissitzky’s work. Beat the Whites With the Red Wedge, 1920One of his most famous pieces, shown below, really embodies Lissitzky’s work. It is so avant garde that even a lay person could recognize the style. The abstract geometric shapes and clear color pallet scream of modernist art, and yet the poster has a real message. It describes the Russian revolution that took place in 1917. The white circle represents the royalists from the old regime, and the red triangle represents the communists moving in and changing opinion. It has been described as a stylized battle plan for communist victory.You might also recognize it from Franz Ferdinand’s album cover:Then in 1921, El Lissitzky accepted a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Germany. His work influenced a lot of the iconic designs of the Bauhaus and De Stijil movements. His last poster, seen below, was a return to propaganda, with a poster encouraging the Russian people to help Russia build more tanks to win the war against Nazi Germany.Strakhov Braslavskij: Russia, 1926Braslavskij was known for his posters that promoted the emancipation of women. During this time in Russia, the idea of gender equality was growing. Emancipated women were seen to be supporters of the communist agenda, and so they needed to be freed from their so-called duties as wives and mothers.The emancipation of women and the socialist movement went pretty much hand in hand. In the poster below, we see almost a confluence of the sexes. The woman is drawn somewhat androgynously, wearing masculine clothing that hides her female figure, and a cold hard stare that hides her emotions. Behind her is her place of work, showing that women can do the same hard labor as men, and she carries the red flag of the communist movement.The curious thing is that the image shows not so much the emancipation of women as it does a way to turn women into men, dressing them in men’s clothing, showing them as working in factories, and hiding their femininity. It seems the real reason to emancipate women was simply to increase the workforce and thus strengthen the communist movement.Hans Schweitzer: Germany, 1930sIn Germany in the 1930s, propaganda was in full swing and being used by Hitler’s advisers to call the German people to arms and spread lies about the Jews. One of the most famous artists behind Nazi propaganda was Hans Schweitzer, known as “Mjolnir.” This poster by Hans Schweitzer shows the typical pro-Nazi theme of the German army’s strength, depicting an S.A. man standing next to a solider. The text reads, “The guarantee of German military strength!”This next poster by Mjolnir, titled “Our Last Hope: Hitler” was used in the presidential elections of 1932, when Germany was suffering through its great depression. Nazi propagandists targeted the German people who were unemployed and living on the breadline, and they suggested Hitler as their way out, their savior.The propaganda then used the scapegoat of the Jews, blaming them for all of Germany’s problems and the war. Many posters were entitled, “He is guilty for the war.” This was the key message of Hitler to start his campaign of terror and for the ethnic cleansing that ensued. Almost the entire campaign from beginning to end was driven by the artist Mjolnir. Just as the media molds public opinion today, Mjolnir most definitely molded the opinion of the German people through his designs. There is no doubts about the immorality and emotional deception of these designs; they are still worth mentioning because they were extremely powerful and effective at the time.Valentina Kulagina: Russia, 1930Kulagina was one of the few female poster artists to emerge from the 20th century. Her art was heavily influenced by suprematism, and you can see the similarity between her work and that of El Lissitzky. This poster, called “To Defend USSR” was created by Kulagina in 1930. It takes a cubist perspective in its multi-dimensional shapes, and it shows the Red army as huge almost robotic figures, marching from the factories to fight the war. They are surrounded by the tiny white airplanes of the royalists, which appear to have no effect on them at all and in fact seem to be flying through the figures.Phillip Zec: England, 1930Phillip Zec was probably best known for his depictions of Nazis as snakes and vultures. At the time, Nazis were usually drawn as bumbling clowns or buffoons. But Zec brought out the more sinister side of the German regime in his drawings. Hitler reportedly hated Zec so much that he added him to his black list and ordered his arrest following the invasion of Britain. He blamed Zec’s Jewish ancestry for his extreme ideas.This poster by Zec was a call for women to join the war effort by working in the munitions factories.This ugly toad is former Prime Minister of France Pierre Laval, who decided to work closely with the Nazi command during World War II.This illustration is about the French Resistance, telling Hitler that it was very much alive.Gino Boccasile: Italy, 1930Gino Boccasile was a supporter of Benito Mussolini and produced a lot of propaganda for him. His posters became increasingly racist and anti-semitic as his support for the German puppet state increased. After the war, Boccasile was sent to prison for collaborating with the fascist regime. The only work he could find after his release from prison was as a pornographic artist and working in advertising for Paglieri cosmetics and Zenith footwear.He became well known for his advertising and pornography.Pablo Picasso: Spain, 1937Picasso painted Guernica in response to the bombing of the town by Germany and Italy, which were following orders from Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937. The giant mural shows the tragedy of war, using innocents civilians as the focal point. It became a huge symbol of anti-war, and upon completion it was exhibited worldwide to spread the message. The piece also educated other countries about the horror of the Spanish Civil War, which till then most people had never heard of.Norman Rockwell: US, 1939Norman Rockwell is probably one of the best known of the propoganda movement. He admitted that he was just a propaganda stooge for the Saturday Evening Post. The newspaper paid many artists and illustrators to whitewash American news with patriotism and propaganda for around 50 years.His work has often been dismissed as idealistic or sentimental. His depiction of American life included young boys running away from a “No swimming” sign, and happy-go-lucky US citizens going about their business unaware of the crumbling world around them.Rockwell’s famous Rosie the Riveter poster is shown below, representing the American women who worked in the munitions and war supplies factories during World War II. This was a call to arms for the women of America to become strong capable females and support the war effort.J. Howard Miller’s “We Can Do It!,” commonly mistaken to depict Rosie the Riveter, conveyed the same message:Rockwell was always unhappy with the politics of the Saturday Evening Post, so in his later years, he took up the controversial subject of racism in America. He became respected as a painter for these hard-hitting pieces of American culture, much more so than for his work for the Saturday Evening Post. The piece below is called “The Problem We All Live With.” It is not known whether this painting is based solely on the Ruby Bridges story, because it was also thought that the idea came from John Steinbeck’s book Travels With Charley.The subject was the integration of black children in American schools. Little Ruby Bridges was filmed making her way into the William Franz School at 8:40 am. At this time, a gigantic crowd of 150 white women and male youth had gathered. They threw tomatoes and shouted vile comments at the tiny girl. It is hard to look at this picture without being affected.Xu Ling: China, 1950It is hard to find details on these Chinese artists, but we can focus on what they intended to convey with their artwork. This piece is a caricature of the American commander in Korea at that time, General MacArthur. It shows the US as an aborrent evil, and Macarthur is shown stabbing a Korean mother and child. Bombs labeled US are being dropped on cities in China in the background as the US invades Korea.Ye Shanlu (???): China, 1952Again, little is known of the artist, but we do know this piece told people to get immunized against any epidemics to combat germ warfare. The Chinese were convinced that the US was planning to use bacterial weaponry against them, so they set about organizing massive inoculation drives to protect the Chinese people.Ning Hao: China, 1954Along the lines of Rosie the Riveter, this Ning Hao piece reflects women being asked to work in the factories alongside men, partially to support their emancipation, but mostly to increase the labor force in China.Jim Fitzpatrick: Ireland, 1968Jim Fitzpatrick was a well-known Irish Celtic artist of his time, but he is probably best known for his Che Guevara poster in 1968. It is said that Fitzpatrick took the death of the revolutionary personally. He had once met him when Guevara flew into Ireland in 1963 and checked into the Marine Hotel pub in Kilkee. Fitzpatrick was only a teenager at the time and had been working there over the summer. The poster became a global icon during the anti-Vietnam war protests and is now the symbol of F.A.R.C. in Columbia and the Mexican Zapitista who are fighting for their freedom.The image was also used during the violent Paris student riots in 1968. Across the rest of the West, the Marxist Che Guevara image is overused by any kid suffering from teenage angst.Huynh Van Thuan: Vietnam, 1972I could not find any information about Huynh Van Thuan, but I found this piece reminiscent of 1960s movie posters about the Vietnam war and so decided to include it.Micah Ian Wright: US, 2003After Micah Wright graduated, he worked a while for Nickelodeon and wrote for The Angry Beavers cartoon. Then in 2003, just before the invasion of Iraq, Micah published his anti-war protest book. The book was filled with satires of old war propaganda posters that Micah had reprinted with modern war messages.Brian Lane Winfield Moore: US, 2009Brain Moore is a modern propaganda artist who exhibts his work on his blog. He lives in Brooklyn and is probably best known for his promotion of net neutrality and his work during the 2009 Iranian election protests. The posters are based on old WWIII propaganda posters but updated in their message to match today’s technology and Web culture.This poster was a comment on the 2009 Iran election protests. He borrowed the old “loose lips” refrain and replaced it with tweets.This next one was about the proposed Internet regulation that would supposedly curb illegal activities on the ‘net and help fight the “war on terror.”Unknown artist: UK, 2010I could not identify the artist behind this one but had to include it for its clever use of old Tory values and the play on the Scooby Doo gang’s unveiling of the monster. The Tory party now occupies 10 Downing Street, and David Cameron is now Prime Minister of England. This poster shows the lack of faith in Cameron’s promise to be a force for change and not just another Thatcher.[Offtopic: by the way, have you ever visited Smashing Magazine's List of tags? There might be something interesting for you.]Last ClickNick Griffin is not an artist, he is the chairman of the British National Party (BNP). Just as most other national parties across the globe, BNP is a good example of propaganda techniques being used to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. BNP has used them to build their hate-filled ranks for years. BNP is extremely good at speaking to people in plain, emotional language and affecting those who experience personal problems and want to find someone who can be blamed for these problems.Just like many other national parties, BNP is blaming foreigners for these problems and uses strong religious metaphors to deliver the message. Very powerful, yet extremely unethical. This is an example of propaganda being used to manipulate people in a very deceptive, unfair manner.(al)© Claire Stokoe for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: Graphic design, propaganda, showcases

  

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  June 13 2010, 4:26am | Comments »

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  Showcase Of Web Design In Lithuania

  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SmashingMagazine/~3/rN5Ze_2yxo8/

    It may be small, but Lithuania is the geographic center of Europe, and the meeting of Western and Eastern culture is evident. Lithuania is one of three Baltic countries, so-called for its proximity to the Baltic Sea. In 2009, it celebrated the thousand-year anniversary of its name.Lithuania is known worldwide for its love of basketball, but today we’ll acquaint you with its Web design industry. In Web design, Lithuania is still a young country; the Internet boom began only about five years ago, and the country doesn’t have a good Web design school.Most Web designers have studied in Western countries or are self-taught. Most work is done for hotels, rural tourism and real estate websites. Lithuania quickly adopts new technologies, and demand for Web designers and developers is increasing. While preparing this showcase, I noticed that many Lithuanian Web designers like Flash technology. Many websites have Flash elements, which can help present a company’s goals, services and prior work. Flash can help websites look professional, modern and dynamic.Lithanian web design at its best: Šturmu Švyturio Žuvys[By the way, did you know we have a brand new free Smashing Email Newsletter? Subscribe now and get fresh short tips and tricks on Tuesdays!]State Of AffairsTo better understand the Lithuanian Web design scene, I interviewed two professional and experienced freelance Web designers about their work.I spoke with Donatas Vainilaitis, a freelance designer who has worked with companies from Lithuania and Europe, and Osvaldas Valutis, another freelance Web designer and student. Both are based in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital city.Donatas Vainilaitis is a freelance Web and graphic designer. His career began in 2003; since then, he has worked for a number of design studios, advertising agencies and corporations. Donatas’ favorite tools are Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash.Osvaldas Valutis is a 21-year-old front- and back-end Web designer and developer based in Vilnius. Valutis is working as a freelancer while finishing his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at Vilnius University.BohemieciaiQuestion: Describe the life of a freelancer, developer and designer in Lithuania.Donatas Vainilaitis: It’s complicated because you are also an accountant, manager, director and so on! But it’s a lot of fun. Everything depends on you and you alone. When something goes wrong, the blame is yours, but when you make something beautiful and useful, it’s so satisfying. It’s also a huge responsibility. Some people like it and some don’t. I love it.Everyone thinks that when you freelance you sleep until 2:00 pm, and you work solely with clients you like. That’s not true; you must work a full day to be successful. The client must know that if he calls you at 9:30 am you won’t still be in bed and you will be able to answer all his questions with a clear mind. Of course, when you finish a big project or you’re waiting for feedback from a client, you can have a couple of days off—even in the middle of the week. That’s one advantage to making your own schedule. In fact, there are many advantages that have probably already been covered in thousands of other articles, so I won’t mention any others.Osvaldas Valutis: Designers design, and developers develop. To each his own. Although I don’t design for print or the Web, I enjoy coding, experimenting with CSS3 and enabling functionality in my own designs (I’m sure I’m not the only exception to the rule). Believe it or not, the thrill of being able to do everything, from A to Z, is like a drug; this is a passion. And filling it up with caffeine increases the thrill!Yes, you’re right: there is a world outside. I’m also a student, and basketball is my second religion (along with three million other people). I can’t say that I differ greatly from a typical inhabitant of Earth, but we are all unique. (Have you seen the movie K-Pax?)Mes laimesim 2009Question: Are there any regular meetings or events?Donatas: I usually try to meet clients face to face. Of course, if he’s in another country, then it’s more complicated, but not impossible. This isn’t necessary, but it’s how I like to work.Of course, there are necessary meetings, like when you are working on a big project with a group of people. It’s much better to meet somewhere in person than to hold Skype conferences or write long email threads.Osvaldas: I wish individual designers and developers had more opportunities to participate in events related to Web design and development, but the offline life isn’t that dynamic yet. I’m not saying nothing is going on in public, but we lack specific events. Bloggers, for example, have a real festival for themselves every year. Should I start blogging or buy a ticket for “The Future of Web Apps: Miami”? Or both?Funkyart.ltQuestion: Where do you get inspiration from?Donatas: Usually, I’m as far away from the computer as possible when I get inspired. Books, people, events and exhibitions are inspiring, especially when I’m struggling with a project. I turn off the computer and go out for some fresh air. Sometimes I don’t turn it back on for a few days. The Internet is a good source of inspiration, but only when you know what you’re looking for. Browsing websites aimlessly overloads your brain with useless information.Osvaldas: I don’t have a specific inspirational source. I’m inspired by various subjects: people and their creations (no names—I’m speaking generally); nature (if you check out my website, you’ll see what I mean); pixel-perfect designs; tasteful and carefully chosen colors and fonts (while strong shadows and awkward borders have the opposite effect—they throw me off track). Some avoid recalling the Web design habits from the last decade, but for me it’s dark humor.Dia BitesQuestion: What’s the situation with the market? How much do designers earn?Donatas: Designers will never earn enough, that’s for sure. I can’t speak for other designers. There are so many of them, and they work at different levels and all have their own principles. For some, the priority is money, and for others it’s the quality of their work. For me, I feel successful when I can eat what I want to eat, live where I want to live, buy things that are necessary and go on vacation more than twice a year.Osvaldas: Earning a living as a professional designer isn’t an inexplicable phenomenon. Its feasibility depends on your business style and how intelligent—not rich!—your clients are. Personally, I aim for quality, so I will never support cookie-cutter websites. In a capitalist system, there will always be two types of workers: those who fight to survive and those who are financially successful and stable. Freelancers vascillate between these two states until they find their own place under the sun, so to speak. Be brave and find yours!Title.ltQuestion: Is being a Web designer considered high-level, sophisticated work?Donatas: I think there are too many Web designers right now. Let’s say I meet ten designers today. Only one of them could I call a high-level, sophisticated professional. But I think this has more to do with character than with the profession itself.Osvaldas: The more experienced you are, the better the results you are expected to produce. Sophistication in this field has to do with personality, with a person’s ability to manage him or herself. Of course, life forces you into all kinds of situations, and one more skill will always make the way easier. It’s hard to believe, but learning something new every day can positively affect your life! MaltosaQuestion: Do designers still use tables for layouts?Osvaldas: Yes, it happens sometimes. I’m really surprised when some of the top-rated Lithuanian Web agencies use tables for layouts, but I think it’s only a matter of time before <table> is used only for tables. Coding culture is geting more positive all the time, which is good. I know that Lithuanians care about their code.Question: How do Lithuanian designers handle typography? Are any particular font-embedding techniques widely used? Are many fonts available? How vivid is typography in Lithuanian Web design?Osvaldas: Typography on the Web in Lithuania is tidy enough. Content is easy to read, so the best word to describe it is “simple” (although I don’t want to leave out “courageous”). Designers aren’t sure (and I have to admit, neither am I) about how to use font-embedding techniques. Typography here is, in a way, static. I believe the inability of CSS2 to embed fonts is one reason for this, but waiting until CSS3 works for all Web browsers is not a solution. From now on, I promise to be more universal. Are you all with me? KonkursasQuestion: Are any features unique to Lithuanian Web design?Donatas: I don’t think so. There is no Web design school in Lithuania that could teach you more than average Photoshop or Flash skills. Most Web designers here are self-taught. They browse the Web and read tutorials—which, of course, are not Lithuania-oriented—and everyone develops their own style over years of working at the job.Osvaldas: I touched on this topic in my answer above. Briefly, a few shortcomings are vibrant fonts, forms and textures; these techniques are typically avoided, although I have spotted some changes recently. So the situation is getting more interesting every day. Conclusions? Don’t be afraid to innovate. The first reaction is usually skepticism, but in time people adapt and find benefits.Moma.ltQuestion: How does it all work? Is the situation currently comfortable or difficult? Do most customers want English-language or Lithuanian-language websites?Donatas: It depends. What do you call a comfortable or difficult situation? If it has to do with money, then yes, you have to work more to earn the amount of money that you earned two years ago. However, there are some good things about the way the business has changed: people have become more careful about the money they spend, and people have to be more serious about the products they sell. The customer comes with a certain amount of money to spend on their website, and they need a good project, a good designer and good service. This is the time to show yourself off and also to evaluate your own skills. If you can make it through this hard time on your own, then you can truthfully say that you are a specialist in your field, and you will have gained a lot of confidence.Osvaldas: When the economic recession caught us, I thought, “Oh no. Will my income get too tight? Will I lose my current clients, not to mention the possibility of new ones?” Believe it or not, nothing like that happened. Rather, things turned out better than I thought they could. Some say God saves us, but I say everyone is the master of his own destiny.Lithuanian-language websites are, of course, the priority, but clients in most cases do not refuse a second or even third language on their website. Handling multi-language technologies and concepts isn’t actually that difficult to do.Showcase of Web Design in LithuaniaBiggest GraphitiPadekmums.ltNfq.ltTrakai MuziejusZiedas.ltInterjet AibesaikoSodyba TeviškeVilnius – mano namaiKaledu stebuklasLopšiniu radijasEstrella NaturalsAugink.ltsuelektradraugauju.ltLoweageOmnitelTuro prekybaSaugus vartojimo kreditasPildyk BonaiEcoserviceAlgirdas City HotelsSPA Vilnius SANAMeškafonasValdyk ITVesa.ltPolivarkasŠviežia kavaEžio stažasTapatybe.ltTavo barasOzo parkasTraku istorijos muziejusEvitaPlazmaPavasarisRomantic HotelPieno žvaigždesAgotea prioriBendri krantai Domino teatrasTamulynasPramogos be narkotikuVilniaus degtineBaltijos prodiuseriu grupeVichy vandens parkasSKCPizza JazzFloralitos dizainasDomus MeaPildykIndanceGeros nuotaikos generatoriusBelvedereWeb AgenciesKryptisTAPE dizaino studijaArtogamaIndigo kidsKryptisTAPE dizaino studijaGauminaCoral SolutionsIndigo kidsMediaparkITEMAM2DeformArtogamaFor such a small country, Lithuania has more Web agencies than you might think. The best known are Gaumina, Kryptis, Itema, Profis and Artogama.FreelancersMost freelancers in Lithuania are young and self-taught. Some do really great work and are professional enough to represent Lithuania. Not all freelancers have a self-hosted portfolio; most of them use Behance, DeviantArt, Flickr and other networks to display their work.osvaldas.infoDesignbox.ltdaco.ltDual.lt33.ltLithuanian Design GalleriesBest Lithuanian Websites galleryMenoDuobeA Lithuanian Art blogWhat Do You Think?What do you think of the Lithuanian Web industry? Have any exceptional websites not been included here? Share your thoughts.Related PostsYou may be interested in the following related posts:Showcase of Web Design in ChinaShowcase of Web Design in IsraelShowcase of Web Design in RussiaShowcase Of Web Design in The NetherlandsShowcase of Web Design in GermanyShowcase of Web Design in MexicoShowcase of Web Design in Ireland(al)© Tomas Laurinavičius for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: showcases

  

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  June 3 2010, 6:49am | Comments »

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  “Meet the Team” Pages: Examples and Trends

  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SmashingMagazine/~3/adLr8sLfskM/

    In any industry where the people behind a company are as important as the company itself, you’re likely to find a kind of expanded “about” page that includes information on individual employees. “Meet the Team” pages are popular among web design and other creative firms, but are also found on sites within various other industries. These pages are a valuable addition to any site where human contact is an important part of the industry. It adds a personal touch to the company and can lend trust to visitors.There’s suddenly faces behind the names, and it becomes a “real” company to the visitor, rather than just another website. This builds credibility for many, especially considering how concerned many people are with online scams and phishing schemes. Adding information to a website on a company’s key employees is a simple but effective way to make that company stand out in the mind of its prospective clients. Below are a handful of trends a couple dozen of interesting examples of “Meet the Team” pages. [By the way: The network tab (on the top of the page) is updated several times a day. It features selected articles from the best web design blogs!]TrendsIn reviewing “Meet the Team” pages, a few trends began to emerge. While some are present on almost every site (employee photos), others are used less often (animations). All were present on at least a handful of sites, though, and are worth mentioning.1. Employee PhotosVirtually all of the pages included here have images associated with each employee. Most opt for photos of each employee, though some opt for avatars or other images to represent each person. This is a great way to let an employee’s personality shine through while keeping the design professional and consistent.Object Adjective has a simple team page, with a photo and brief bio about each member, as well as their contact information and a link to their downloadable vCard.2. Social Media LinksConsidering how many professionals are likely to have LinkedIn, Twitter, or other social media accounts, linking to those accounts can be a great way to let current and potential clients connect with employees. Some of the pages featured include only professional accounts, while others include virtually any account the employee has. Some sites use icons for each social media service, while others use text, or a combination of the two.A word of warning, though: if employee accounts are going to be linked to a professional website, make sure the content they’re posting on those sites is appropriate and won’t damage the company’s reputation.Chromatic only includes profiles for their leadership team. They include a pic and brief bio of each team member, as well as links to their Twitter and LinkedIn profiles. Each team member also has their latest tweet featured next to their profile.3. Unique, Humorous or Campy FeaturesA lot of the sites featured have unique, humorous or even campy takes on the more traditional “Meet the Team” format. For some, this is done through the employee photos, while others have added in additional content that lets team members better express themselves.Be aware, though, of how this information can come across to professionals from different industries. What might be acceptable for a creative site might not go over so well in the finance or legal industries. It’s also important to consider how a site’s visitors will perceive a humorous or campy touch. While it adds personality, if overdone or done in the wrong industries, it can come across as unprofessional.Th_nk uses animated photos for each of their team members, and modal windows to display information about each team member.4. AnimationsA significant number of “Meet the Team” pages have incorporated some kind of animation into their designs. For most, this is done through employee photos or avatars, though some take it even further, with the entire page animated.Ola Interactive Agency uses an animated meet the team page, with each team member’s photo part of the animation. Click on a team member and their profile appears, including links to their Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, and their email. It’s a very casual, fun page design.5. Expanded ProfilesWhile many sites opt to only include basic information about each of their team members, others opt to include extended profile information. For some, this is done through the use of sliders or modal windows, but for others it’s done on an entirely separate page. Extended profile information is a great way to give clients and prospects more insight into the employees behind a company.9miles Media uses photos of each of their members, which, when clicked on, display each person’s profile information, including links to social media accounts. It’s a simple but effective design.More ExamplesBelow are twenty examples of great “Meet the Team” pages.StationFour StationFour has a very clean and streamlined team page, though they inject a bit of personality by categorizing their employees as “The Chrises” and “The Non-Chrises”. They also include links to each employee’s LinkedIn profile, Twitter, and blog posts.Efelle Media This is another simple team page, with a brief quote about each team member. Also included are links to each member’s full profile.MW Design Interactive This is about as minimal as team pages get, with just a photo, name and title for each major member of the team.Wax Creative Design Wax Creative Design keeps each team member’s information organized with an unordered list, but also adds personality to their page by included each member’s favorite cupcake.HBCWeb.com HBCWeb.com keeps their meet the team page casual, with candid photos of each team member as well as a brief bio of each.Arc90 Arc90 adds some punch to their meet the team page by having each team member’s photo change upon rollover from a straight-forward, business-casual-style pic to a candid shot. They also included a color-coded key for determining what each team member does.Wildbit Wildbit shows only one (random) team member’s profile at a time under the list of team members. They also include links to each member’s Tumblr, Twitter, and Flickr profiles, if applicable.AtlanticBT AtlanticBT has a number of interesting features on their team page. Each employee has a photo that, upon hover, slides down to show their name and position. There’s also a drop-down menu at the top that lets you switch between their main photos, action figures, sports teams, movie posters, and favorite foods.Blue Sky Resumes Blue Sky Resumes uses consistent photos for each of their team members, something that isn’t often seen. In addition to a bio for each team member, they also provide links to their Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.MetaBroadcast MetaBroadcast uses a straight-forward and simple design, with icons for social media accounts for each of their team members.2Cs Communications Ltd 2Cs shows photos of their team members just below the header, with low opacity except for the active profile. Images also come into full color when they’re hovered over. It’s a great way to manage a large team, while still giving everyone equal space.glue Isobar glue Isobar uses animated pixel artwork for each of their team members and Top Trumps-style profiles appear for each when clicked on. It’s a really unique and fun design.CampaignMonitor CampaignMonitor uses brief profiles for each team member, accompanied by photos of each. What sets them apart is that in the background of each photo is a map, showing the location of each employee.WooThemes WooThemes uses a simple design that puts the focus on the founders of the company, but also gives plenty of space to the other team members. Links to Twitter and each team member’s blog are also included.nGen Works nGen Works uses a simple avatar/name/campy title format, with a link to more in-depth profiles for each team member. It’s unique and fun while also maintaining a professional appearance.BrightSpark BrightSpark uses a simple, one-column layout for their team page, with pics of each team member as well as a couple paragraphs about each.Etsy Etsy takes a unique approach to their team page by putting different departments into separate columns, and displaying photos of each team member within that department. Each photo then links to more information about that employee. It’s a neat format, since it gives an immediate impression of how large each department is (the Engineering department gets 3 columns, and Support gets 2).SmallBox SmallBox uses a simple grid of employee photos, each with the person’s name and title underneath. What sets them apart, though, are the individual team member profile pages. In addition to the usual bio information, they include each person’s top 5 strengths in “StrengthsFinder 2.0″. It’s an interesting and personal touch.Caxiam Group Caxiam Group is another site where the individual team member profile pages are what make it stand out. On these pages you can find a keyword cluster that describes the team member, as tabs that give information on their inspriations hidden talents, unknown facts, and more.Tumblr Tumblr has the simplest “Meet the Team” section of any site on this list. It just consists of the avatars of each of their employees, with a link to each person’s Tumblr blog. It’s simple but works well, considering what the company is all about.© Cameron Chapman for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Be the first to comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: showcases

  

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  June 1 2010, 4:17am | Comments »

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