What?

I visited several of the links provided to us in the assignment sheet and the resourses link on the class website. I discovered I was consistently drawn to the same elements of a website. Color played a big apart, as well as the site being a a little unconventional in design. I especially liked the designs that incorporated a hand drawn feel by incorporating sketches and scribbles, even coffee stains adds to add to the overall appeal. I like the antiqued, worn, or grunge look, but a little goes a long way. Never thought I would say that, but it is true. I discovered the sites that I enjoyed had a little of those elements, but still maintained a nice clean feel; not cluttered. So, with that all said, the first site I visited was www.okaydave.com. If you have not seen this guy, take a moment and visit, it is well worth it. I really enjoyed the site, I liked the look, set-up, and  navigation. It was informative, took you through his process, just a very smart site in my opinion. This was a link left as a comment to my final project ideas, thanks for the link, just awesome!

The next site was www.cattosgraphics.com. I liked this site because it had the touches of grunge, but a very simplistic and clean style. It is not overdone and presents the work in a very concise way. I think by using white and a muted blue color for the design, it allowed the work (which is full color) to speak for itself. The designs were not competeing with the website and vice versa.  I liked that very much, and would like to keep that in mind while designing my identity site.

Third, was an identity site for www.jasonsantamaria.com. I was initially attracted to this site because of the color schemes. I like how the brown, yellowish beige, and red work together. Again, it had just a touch of grunge but clear information. What I really liked, was how he presented his work. It looked like iframes, it just didn’t have the typical thumbnails I’m used to seeing. That was pretty different to me, so it made it more interesting.

 The fourth was www.danielmclaughlin.com another identity site, but this time, for a musician. This one again attracted me for by simplicity and color. I am a fan of the brown color family…lol…Anyway, I really liked how he displays his pictures on the home page. I also enjoyed the gallery, however, I wasn’t a huge fan of the picture animation when you clicked on the thumbnail, but that’s just me.

The fifth is www.kinoz.com. This site empoys the ideas I was talking about earlier, using the hand drawn elements and coffee stains. That was the part I liked. What I didn’t care for was the fact everything appeared on the homepage and in the navigation bar. Also, I didn’t like the way the thumbnails opened to this independent page, it was okay, just a little uninteresting.

Ok, that was just a few of the sites, I am continuing to do more research. I know I will now begin to keep in mind the simpicity of design I have seen, while incorporating those things I really like. I may look into the way jason santa maria presented his stuff in the iframes or the cattosgraphics presented theres on a canvas of muted colors. All of these site have provided great insight, and spawned a great deal of ideas. Now it comes down to translating those ideas from my head to paper, and finally a website. So, the work continues….