Got a Minute for E.Webscapes?

Elite by Design has a blog post entitled, "Getting Inspiration Wrong: Website Rip Offs," in which the author offers paired comparisons of possible rip offs. I open our Got a Minute for E.Webscapes with the EbD link to get you thinking about the boundary between inspiration and rip-offspiration.

Assignment:

1. Take a few minutes to read through that post.
2. Head over to E.Webscapes.
3. I don't think that E.Webscapes is exactly "ripping off" some other design, but there's a very close family resemblance to design elements used by some big company whose logo is a piece of forbidden fruit. Steve Nojobs has compiled all 27 of this company's ads on his blog page, for those of us who need help figuring out the design "inspiration" for E.Webscapes. Is this out of bounds?

Think that "borrowing" a silhouette logo idea and repackaging it in a different format means it can't be a ripoff? Check out youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com and think again.

Need to create silhouettes for yourself? Check this out!

Got a Minute for One Hat Designs?

One Hat is a studio that offers integrated media solutions. I posted the studio in Got a Minute because they include video projects in their portfolio. I like the limited use of Flash on the site. It adds some animation and dynamism to the home page without distracting the reader from the real content on the site.

Assignment:

1. Take a look at the effect on the buttons and the graphic effect at the bottom of the key images on each page. What do you think?
2. Look at the key images again. Why do you think they chose to put a red border across the top? What about the black border at the bottom?

Got a Minute for Bluewater?

Bluewater Web Development has a clean, minimalist website. Take a minute to poke around.

Assignment:

Choose a website you like from the portfolio. Write up a brief interpretation of what works and what doesn't in the site.

Got a Minute for Sacha Dean Biyan?

Sacha Dean Biyan, a photographer (or so it seems), has a very engaging website called Eccentris, if you have Flash installed on your machine. (The "no flash" version is just a one-pager. What's that tell you?)

You’ll probably want to spend more than a minute exploring the Eccentris site. Trust me. It’s worth the time. Eccentris even has a wallpaper pack for the iPhone. What the...?

Assignment: Find something specific about this site that you think it interesting, or perhaps even offensive.

Got a Minute for 4 Guys Interactive?

Check out 4guys.com This is an interesting little design house that illustrates how one might use icons for navigation.

Personally, I think the careers icon looks more like a sign for the men's room than a jobs link.

Assignment:

1. Find the essay, "Real world 'lessons learned' about designing effective Web sites," and read it. (Hint: It's in the Essays section, under Education. If you can't find it, perhaps the icons aren't working as nav.)
   
2. Pick one of the 4Guys "discoveries" and comment on it here.
3. Don't comment on a discovery already discussed by another student, until all 9 discoveries get treatment.
   

Discovery #7

Discovery #7: watch your competitors and leaders in other industries so you can stay ahead of their innovations.

Discovery#7 is about learning what you can do better in order to keep people visiting your website, also it's a way for you to see what your competitors are doing and use it to enhance or upgrade your own web page. This discovery has a link to cool homepages.com which provides inspirations that can be gained from top web designers. I checked out this site and I thought it was awesome and an inspiration to motivate my creativity with seeing thousands web designs.

Got a Minute for Newark1?

Newark1 has a great website/portfolio. What makes it great is that it is a real web design resource for budding web developers. You can find help on choosing a color palette for your website, on layout and the ordering of visual and textual elements, and a whole bunch of generally very good tips. With all this help, you can do a lot worse than spend some time taking lessons from the folks at Newark1.

Assignment:

1. Pick one of the brief lessons or tips at Newark1
2. Choose a website from the Internet (there are a few available)
3. Use what you learned in the Newark1 lesson to interpret a piece of the website you chose.
4. Write up a 200-word overview of the lesson, the website, and your interpretation as a comment.
   

Got a Minute for Deena?

Deena’s portfolio is an example of a site that you can imagine surpassing before the end of the term. It looks like Deena is making some real money as a web designer, and this might prove quite encouraging to you!

Assignment:

1. Look over Deena's portfolio.
2. Find one constructive change you'd make.
3. Post a comment describing why you think the change would improve the site.
   

Got a Minute for BTmplates?

BTemplates has 60 pages of Blogger templates. For those unsatisfied with the basics provided by Blogger, and willing to take a few minutes to figure out how to upload a different template, BTemplates may be just the ticket.

Organized by categories, BTemplates helps you find what you want. And once your template is in Blogger, you can add your own customizations. (Don't be shy; give it a try. Be sure to post a comment with a link if you decide to upload a template.)

Aren't we talking about interfaces and operating systems? Check out the Retro MacOS theme (page 60, on the day I went to the site).