Good design sites?

[Frogleg]

Frogleg wrote:

LOL
Thanks, but I'm not explaining anything about it on my site.

You got *that* right. Even an image-hunt only gets one a mild
admonishment.

So if you're 'just' looking for examples, I like these ones
quite a lot:
http://www.cinnamon.nl/

Yes, this *is* very attractive.

http://www.technohippie.com/awwregs.html

It may be interesting, but it's way too wide and too long. At 800x600
it's scroll, scroll, scroll. It cerrtainly is a clear and unambiguous
presentation, however.

http://republika.pl/puchan/best/foto.htm although there isn't
too much design in there, I like the title/logo on the left
and the division of the thumbnails.

But no alt tags and no info on the expanded photos. I think the
attraction is simply the really good photographs in the album.

 

[Andy Dingley]

Here's why:

A Comparison of Popular Online Fonts: Which Size and Type is Best?
http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/41/onlinetext.htm

It's a bit of a cop-out to be so dismissive of long articles with
short Usenet postings, but those studies are terrible ! However I
have deadlines, so get over it...

Those studies are simplistic empirical studies with no understanding
of typography (you don't get to sit at this table until you've at
least read Tschichold) and pretty crude analysis of the stats. Most
significantly, they have minimal understanding of how real-world
screen typography is achieved, and how this affects its usability.

My comment on Fourier is basically only relevant to high quality print
media and the sort of screen devices we're still only dreaming of.
None of it contradicts thse studies.

Any crap font is unreadable. A small on-screen serif font is often
poor, if not downright crap. A study that presents Arial as the
solution to everything small because the users liked it is valid, but
to extrapolate to the conclusion that this is because sans-serif fonts
are clearer than serif fonts is bogus. They're using what are fairly
low pixel resolutions, on an unspecified screen, through an
unspecified font renderer, and they expect us to accept that a serif
font was visible with equal quality to a sans-serif font ? You might
as well advocate 9-pin dot matrix as the most readable, because it
suffers least from poor-resolution renderings.

And when was Times Roman ever chosen for compactness, or Schoolbook
chosen for clarity ? When they clearly just don't know typography (and
I'm not claiming that I do) there are limits to how detailed a
conclusion you can draw from this.


Anyone know how to design a web page in decent Arrighi italics ?

 

[Els]

You got *that* right. Even an image-hunt only gets one a
mild admonishment.

Second English word I had to look up this week

Definition
admonition
noun [C] (ALSO admonishment) FORMAL
a piece of advice that is also a warning to someone about
their behaviour:
The most common parental admonition must surely be "Don't stay
out late".

Still don't get what you're saying though. Image-hunt as in
looking for the pictures? What kind of advice were you looking
for?

Yes, this *is* very attractive.


It may be interesting, but it's way too wide and too long.
At 800x600 it's scroll, scroll, scroll. It cerrtainly is a
clear and unambiguous presentation, however.

True, it's the colour combination and the look of the borders
that I like.

But no alt tags and no info on the expanded photos.

Hey, you were looking for the *looks*, not the code! ;-)

I think the attraction is simply the really good photographs
in the album.

I agree, but there are far worse ways of displaying really
good photographs

 

[PeterMcC]

Andy Dingley wrote in

And when was Times Roman ever chosen for compactness,

1931

 

[Mitja]

I've been there and looked at the variations. "Littering a dark and
dreary road..." seems all too descriptive of many versions. Perhaps
the term "Zen" directed too many toward an introspective minimalism
that is professional but awfully dark. There are a couple of pages in
the archive children's section that are very pleasing and light.

Also, many of the pages are very slow-loading. Is this a side-effect
of all CSS or the rather large graphics some use?

Could be both or any of them, theoretically, but I'd bet they're improperly
compressed images.

 

[Mark Parnell]

Could be both or any of them, theoretically, but I'd bet they're improperly
compressed images.

Also consider that csszengarden has a lot of additional elements in the
HTML, especially <div>s, to allow the designers more freedom when
creating their designs. A normal site would have a much smaller HTML
code base.

 

[Andy Dingley]

1931

OK, that's a fair comment

Compared to Plantain, it's more compact. Compared to most similar
typefaces (and in this case, especially Schoolbook) though, it's not.
All of these "Roman" faces, at least in the majuscule, trace their
ancestry back to Trajan's column. They're impressive display capitals,
never originally intended for dense body text.

 

[Frogleg]

Second English word I had to look up this week

I actually looked it up,m too. My first thought was "reproof," but I
wanted a word that included both warning AND a sense of "don't go
here."

Still don't get what you're saying though. Image-hunt as in
looking for the pictures? What kind of advice were you looking
for?

I wanted to look at the daisy pics you use. To compare 'raw' with how
they show up on your pages. Maybe the page for locusmeus.com/images
should include a mail form so I could have answered the question.

True, it's the colour combination and the look of the borders
that I like.

I'm going to tape the graphic intro to 'Queer Eye for the Straight
Guy' to study. There's a b/w background that's successively colorized
with pastel sections. I'll bet that could be worked up into a pleasing
scheme.

 

[Els]

I wanted to look at the daisy pics you use. To compare
'raw' with how they show up on your pages. Maybe the page
for locusmeus.com/images should include a mail form so I
could have answered the question.

Good suggestion. Have a look again ;-)
But you do know how to get to the images you were looking for,
right?
Just in case you're too lazy ;-) :

http://locusmeus.com/images/spring.jpg
http://locusmeus.com/images/spring2.jpg
http://locusmeus.com/images/springtop3.jpg
http://locusmeus.com/images/fin.gif

 

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

http://locusmeus.com/images/fin.gif

Is that a genuine Fin?


Matthias

 

[Els]

Is that a genuine Fin?

No, it's 2 countries westwards, and then 3, 4 or 5 to the south,
depending on your route.