N.Design

Although not as well known as Mark Zuckerberg or Angelo Sotira, Nick La has made a name for himself in the niche designer community on the web. N. Design is Nick La's personal studio site, offering links to many of his other personal works, and a number of useful web tutorials. Because he has so many different sites, and a number of sponsor sites which certainly don't diminish the value of his sleek work, he has created a majorly trafficked, and well designed web blog.

When I first came across this site in 2009, it had very little content and was nearly impossible to navigate. Since then, the site has become not only better organized, but also shows off some design tricks that break the standard walls of web 2.0 template. Most notably is his use of gifs, which he has layered on multiple axis lines, with a standard repeated background, but to the casual observer it appears as though he has a single enormous image as his header. Using javascript, and hidden layers, he has additionally created some simple popups which are relatively low in bandwidth, but add just enough interaction in the page to be engaging, without being distracting, such as we find with myspace and its unnecessary habit of highlighting everything a different color.

Needless to say, the site was built for designers with a masterful understanding of the design aesthetic, and the web aesthetic as well. But that's not to say it doesn't have its shortcomings. In the first instance of encountering the site a year ago, it had incorporated some out of place adverts into its sidebar which were too close to the site's aesthetic for comfort, and remain unchanged. While ordinarily I would not complain about stylized adspace, which often the designer has no say in himself, the space mimics, but also fails to incorporate with the overall image. The cartoon look would be better off boxed in, displaying a separation of styles on the same page, rather than attempting a conversion that isn't possible.

That said, such is the sites only fault. It is easily navigable, with links to his network of sites both at the head, on the right column, and at the bottom of the page, each in a way expected by that form of navigation. His other sites, among which are Themify, BestWebGallery, and IconDock, are all decent resources to look at for any web-based needs. As artist sites go, this belongs on anyone's list.