Segno

Segno is a design studio based in Italy that is involved primarily in promotional material, advertising, photography and communications. They aren't particularly involved in web design, but Riot Design, a separate design agency, has built them a wonderful site. Completely dynamic, structurally interesting, and clearly designed by professionals.

Motion and navigation is a huge part of why I'm highlighting this site as one of the better on the web. It uses an old style of placing the links to other parts of their site in the corners of the page. Not something we ordinarily see for usability reasons, but that hasn't stopped them from making it work. The colorful and blocks forms make them instantly noticeable, and prevent any misconceptions the viewer might have when interacting with the site. Smooth transitions between opaque and transparent, small and large, give the whole site a warm and welcoming demeanor. It holds some stylistic allusions to the Apple digital look, but is simplified enough that it will appeal to that and still other audiences.

I don't consider the site to be an outstanding achievement of graphic design, but it is conceptually and tactually well made. Take a look if you haven't seen it already.

Stinkdigital

Stinkdigital is an award-winning multifaceted digital studio handling everything from live-action films to phone apps, and of course site design. Originally started in London, it quickly expanded to New York, where it continued to maintain its excellent quality regarding web design and development.While most may recognize them more for their use of Flash with the "My Time is Now" Nike page, some of their outstanding work which are without Flash, far outshine it.

The CNN Ecosphere would be one of their crowning achievements, a 3-D image built on the js-canvas and linked to a thousand + sites and twitter accounts organized into digital trees on a rotating earth. Nonetheless it was built using the js canvas which, for those of you non-techies, is kind of like trying to draw the Mona Lisa in Paint. But it's not just about the technical solutions that other companies wouldn't dream of attempting, Stinkdigital's home site is in every tradional design sense a stunning experience.

The home page loads with a simple hierarchy  that isn't standard for page loads and appears to be timed. The fonts and spacing of text are elegant and not as abrasive as some of the other web based fonts. It even has a super minimal color palette, which isn't obvious at first when the background is in place, but most pages of the site use only black, white, and one other color dependent on which page of the site is being visited. They use a very simple parallax scroll on the main page to smoothly transition their sample works. The heading of each page collapses and moves with the scrollbar so visitors always know what page they're on. But most importantly, their content is displayed crisp, and there's not a bit of it that gets lost. Check out this site and their creations when you have the time.

Frequency

Dropshadows and the ipod rounded edge look isn't exactly what I would normally write about as brilliant web design, but something about Frequency caught my interest. Frequency is a video sharing site, but unlike those gaudy and space-confined sites like Youtube and Vimeo, Frequency has modeled itself on the foundations of music sharing sites like Pandora and last.fm. By using channels, the user can filter and categorize the incoming feeds posted on any of a number of locations.

In addition to having so many options and an enormous amount of data to sift through, the site maintains a cutting edge look and feel. This alone is a bit of a marvel, not to say Pandora is particularly ugly, but that the site manages this whilst handling video, which is fairly difficult. Does it look truly marvelous? No. But sometimes content is integral to the impressive nature of the design, and this site boasts content from all across the web, it's fully interactive, and more than intuitive.

With Art Philadelphia

Today I'm featuring a site that's a little different from my previous selections, being a site that in no way was built by a single developer. The site is With Art Philadelphia, or withart.visitphilly.com, and was built in collaboration between award winning web design team Bluecadet and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corporation. The site was built in July of 2012 with several awards, and even gaining a slot in the New York Times just for being that sleek. This is nigh revolutionary when regarding government sites, even those for tourism (which this is) tend to use outdated templates that haven't graduated to CSS3. But this site has everything from modern selection techniques to a slider plugin and web based font.

The site uses a Helvetica inspired font called Pragmatica which opens up the space on the page and makes the site feel less overwhelming even with all its content. Beyond typography the light blue color scheme was the first thing that attracted me, but I had to take a moment in reflection to figure out why. Blue surrounded by white is utilized for the design of the branding, but then used inversely for everything else. It's also used in moderation, unlike any number of blogs and social media sites which seem to love their in-your-face dual tones. This is just the CSS though, and while the visual design is flawless, there is more to be discovered.

With Art is organized brilliantly, I would say one of the best, but it lacks an organic feeling navigation on their event pages. But what it does have is access to booking arrangements at the bottom of every page, a well integrated search, and a beautiful slider that serves as the primary navigation. But they also give the option of using a secondary or tertiary navigation further down on the page, or when accessed by a different means. Everything on the site is fully cross-browser compatible while remaining intuitive and interactive. Even the map has enough information and interactivity to keep you wowed. Altogether the site is gorgeous, and deserves your attention if you haven't given it already.

Nick Jones

Last week I stumbled across Nick Jones site while looking for inspiration for my own. Which, by the way is finally complete for most browsers. reisswebgraphics.com I would be happy to get feedback from any of you. But enough about me, this post is about Nick Jones, designer and developer of over a dozen websites, several of which have received recognition in the field. Currently, Nick Jones works at the McKinney idependent agency. The site of which was his first to be awarded an FWA (free web award). I would consider this the turning point in Nick Jones career as he left behind a history of Flash for the universal mediums and did so without losing any of his aesthetics through working in a team. But his own, personal site is what I really find attractive.

Narrowdesign starts with a splash page, something I have many times argued is an unnecessary tool for a website. An archaic introduction mimicking the success of book covers. But the splash page in this case is wholly welcome as a means to quickly explain the navigation system with little more than a hover-animated circle and a down arrow. If you couldn't figure it out from that, maybe the cursor change was enough of an indication for you, and even if you didn't get it then, scrolling up and finding a bounce animation tied with a message of correction is more than enough to make you understand. Brilliant, clean, and effective.

This sets the stage for the main navigation of the site, the image viewer. It has a crisp new feel despite having rounded edges and a drop-shadow, which comes partially from the display of the content. He has hidden content everywhere in addition to the obvious links. It adds information where necessary without detracting from the overall, and by transitioning relative to the rest of the page is perfectly dynamic. My only negative view of this site is that it lacks a solid 'about' page, and that it doesn't work well with a small browser width. Not that I can claim to do any better. Be sure to look up Nick Jones, and keep posted for updates next week.