My Choice

Title: Awkward Zombie

Site: http://www.awkwardzombie.com/index.php

INTERFACE:

The navigation is bold and stands out, like a lot of web comics, it's easy to navigate from first to latest. For someone with a background in flash, you'd think there'd be a bit more interactivity.

DESIGN:

I love the colours. Burnt orange and yellow. Also the centrally aligned structure empahsises the comic which the site is about. Since the forum is hosted on an external site, it doesn't really mesh with the orignal site but it functions fine.

Rating: 2/5

Movie Promotional Website

Title: The Thing Movie

Site: http://www.thethingmovie.net/

INTERFACE:

This site is awesome. Very entertaining. Clearly made with a flash engine like most movie sites, which allow it to do interesting things with interactivity. The main site is controlled with mouse movement, with hotspots all along a panoramic view of a scene in the snow. Each hotspot shows a tagline from the movie, or a short clip of the movie which is presented beautifully.

DESIGN:

Obviously a big budget site, done by a professional studio. They implemented the movie graphics, and colours wonderfully. The grey, black, and red is surprisingly atmospheric for a web page. All the while there's an animated layer of snow flying around the screen. Also one of the few times a splash page might be appropriate.

Rating: 5/5

Web Design Studio

Title: Kendra Schaefer

Site: http://www.kendraschaefer.com/

INTERFACE:

It's refreshing to see a portfolio with a sense of humour. The navigation is so simple. Only 4 buttons. In the portfolio page, the mouse over animations for Schaefer's work are fun although, like many mouse overs can be frustrating when things move when you don't mean them to.

DESIGN:

The design is gorgeous. In some ways the design of her own site actually overshadows the work she does for her clients. Her photography backgrounds are the centrepiece of her website. Desaturated with some kind of a bloom filter, they really stand out. The bad thing about this however, is that the page takes a fraction more of a second. Which is website-suicide.

Rating: 4/5

Online Magazine

Title: Layers Magazine

Site: http://layersmagazine.com/current-issue

INTERFACE:

Horizontally designed navigation with a blog style information container on the left.

I love the massive Adobe products buttons at the top button, arranged in a rainbow. They stand out, and it makes it easy for the information to be divided into categories. It's got a search bar.

DESIGN:

As expected of a magazine about art and design, the design is very pleasing to the eye.

It's slick, and clean and visually stimulating. The only problem is the column on the right. It's so busy, it's hard to tell whether it's advertising or part of the site. It's messy and disorientating.

Rating: 4/5

An Online Store

Title: Fangamer

Site: http://fangamer.net/

INTERFACE:

Really simple. The navigation on the left with all the categories of shopping items, new products on the index page and a search bar. Makes searching for items easy. But it's almost more fun to just browse through the items. The navigation is mainly through images.

If there's something bad, it's probably that there's not much satisfaction from the UI. It's static and plain.

DESIGN:

The design is really all business. Which is odd for a store that stocks such original and artistic products. It's a restricted colour scheme, nothing really pops. But it's functioning and the important buttons are all emphasised.

Rating: 3/5