Tony Stephens / Simian Design

Roger Black has just relaunched with a great new design.  Red, white and black, big and bold.  It’s very pleasing to the eye.

One thing I really like a great deal is the way the pages load.  When I click on a highlight, the center most column loads with the new content.  But while it looks like a quick-load, in fact the entire page loads.  You get a new URL with that content loaded.  The URL is user friendly and the page loads transparently.

I don’t think I like the weight of all the headings.  They seem to conflict to one another, and the visual hierachry isn’t as clear as I think it could be.

But all in all it’s a great design.  Nice and clear, open and inviting.

Get Google Ajax Search. A nice and easy post, well written with code examples that will give you a nice google search of your site in a fancy Ajax box.

I haven’t implemented this yet, so I can’t comment as to how easy it is, or how well it works.  But it looks nice, the implementation on his site is nice, and looks well worth checking out.

Vertua Studios is a gorgeous site. Simple, yet evocative. The colors are great, nice and warm. The stretchy header is fun. The font-size is pleasing to the eye. The portfolio is good. All-in-all, a great site.

Sooner or later you’re going to need to code a [bar chart][1]. It’s just a fact of life. And [Ryan Nichols][1] has posted a great starting point for you, complete with [gorgeous examples][2].

Now his examples aren’t dynamic. But if you look down through the tons of comments, you’ll see links and code snippets to acheive this various different ways. Someone even coded a Ruby On Rails Helper.

Nice stuff. ([via][via])

[1]: http://apples-to-oranges.com/blog/article.aspx?id=55
[2]: http://apples-to-oranges.com/blog/examples/cssgraphs.html
[via]: http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2006/01/links_for_20060_6.html

The [CSS Table Gallery][1] is pretty much what it sounds like. A Zen-Garden type of resource for tables.

Now, I’m not saying use tables for layout, or any of that jazz. Nope. But there needs at times for tables. Data Tables. And this gallery is a showcase of tables that use CSS to acheive usable and nice results. Some nice samples in there. Worth checking out.

[1]: http://icant.co.uk/csstablegallery/index.php

Wow. [A List Apart has relauched with it's new design][1], and it’s stunning. [Jason Santa Maria was responsible for the look of site][2], and it’s great. [Zeldman talks about the reasons why][3], and they are solid as always.

Just a really stunning redesign. This might be the best relaunch I’ve ever seen. It’s subtle, strong, powerful, professional.

Kudos to all involved. I’m just really enjoying it.

[1]: http://alistapart.com/
[2]: http://www.jasonsantamaria.com/archive/2005/08/23/a_list_apart_redesign.php
[3]: http://alistapart.textdrive.com/articles/ala40

Well, the [CSS Reboot][1] was this past weekend. I have two favorites, [davyvandenbremt.be][3] and [benjaminadam.com][4]. The [original reboot][2] also launched this past weekend, so you can go browse some flash-based sites. (they’re not all flash-based, but they lean heavily in that direction.)

[1]: http://www.cssreboot.com/
[2]: http://www.may1reboot.com/
[3]: http://www.davyvandenbremt.be/
[4]: http://www.benjaminadam.com/

Niggle is the site of “an experientially-trained designer”, and it’s quite nice.

The focus of this site is the content. And it shows in the presentation.

The home page doesn’t show any branding, any navigation. Just the post and a big headline. It’s clean, and _tight_. The text is large, spaced and easy to read. There is a close-proximity photo.

Now scroll down. Under this beautiful large white post we have a dark gray area. Oh yeah, the navigation. the sidebar. The branding. That’s all subservient to the content.

This split is brilliant, and I love it. And I wish I thought of it.

I also like [the archive page presentation][2]. It’s just a base categorical list, but the categories are slim, and _tight_. It’s a clear delineation. (As opposed to my categorial mess.)

Good job.

[1]: http://www.penandthink.com/niggle/
[2]: http://www.penandthink.com/niggle/archive/

I used to provide more examples of sites that I thought were well designed, and that I liked the look and feel. Those started to move to [link-fu][2], but I’m moving them back. I like being critical, and this way I can blather about the design as much as I like. It’s pretty much about self-indulgance.

I ran across [moxiecode.com][1] today, and thought I’d share it with you all. I like this site.

I love the numbering of the headers. Even the treatment of the numbers, with the black half-curves are nice and bold.

I also like the degredation of the content-importance down the page. It’s a one-two-three level approach. (Although I’d have put the graphic on the one or two level areas, rather than the three level.)

CONS: I almost like the colors. The black, light grays and blue are nice. The green doesn’t work with it. I think it’s the blue and green that don’t play together.

I also think the nav is too small. The titles and numbers should also be links, rather than just the read more. In fact, why is read more the only links on this page (outside the nav?)

Once you move inside the site, the navigation gets worse I feel. There is no sense of location.

But overall I like the design of the site. I think most of my objections are more in terms of using the site.

[1]: http://www.moxiecode.com/
[2]: http://simiandesign.com/link-fu/

[Visual i|o][1] has some nice things going on. I really do dig the navigation. It takes the word navigation, and crosses online site nav with a map in a very nice way. My only complaint is that it almost seems too subtle, but maybe it’s that closeness to ‘almost’ that makes it so nice.

I also dig their info-graphic work on their [baseball visualization tool][2]. While it contains complex charts and graphs that I just do not understand, it’s due to the fact that I don’t get baseball rather than their work. Granted there would be a learning curve with this tool, but I think their dissemination of the data is nice.

[1]: http://visual-io.com/
[2]: http://visual-io.com/baseball/