The talented David Corti (AKA Mr. September Industry) has informed me that he just finished up some work for photographer Erika Pham. David designed a sexy business card as well as an elegant and simple site with some interesting navigation.
Spread The Love :
del.icio.us | Reddit | Digg | Facebook | Technorati | Google | StumbleUpon
Mr. Semiotic Monkey
To be honest with you I’m not a complete specialist in Web design and I realise there are rules/standards. What I didn’t want was to distract the eye with the type. I found that including the menu on the photography caused unwanted distraction, so I opted for the hide menu script. Im not against constructive criticism and I appreciate what you have to say. I also appreciate the compliments, I guess you can say that print is more my element:)
Some points to remarks (you asked for this :).
In my opinion you don’t have to hide something to have focus on the point of interest. An always visible navbar give the user a strong anchor to grab for the main task in a website UI: the navigation. You want the user to enjoy your client’s work. How he can enjoy it if he must learn (a short learning curve, of course, but nonetheless there is one) to navigate. Doesn’t this distracts him?
in fact you have to put a warning on the landing page to instruct the user. This remember me of a Ikea flyer seen some months ago where it was a strong ‘this is important. read’ box to point out a further info box. There is something wrong with this approach.
I suggest you to find a way, you can, to have the nav always there where it belongs and help people interact with the website in a simply way. Let them enjoy your design not noticing it. The better UI design is an unobtrusive one, an almost invisible one (from a HCI point of view, of course). In this way i, the user, can enjoy both the content - the point of interest - and the webdesign - your work.
But not only the nav is the problem. There are some technical problems too.
An example is the 1000px wide fixed layout of the landing page. The 75% of the users has a 1024px wide resolution monitor which translates in a roughly 900px horizontal space at your disposal to lay out the page. You can use a liquid layout to accommodate all the content for all the resolutions (maybe with a max-resolution set in the css to have full control of the final arrangement), if you want.
A direct example of the above is my first hand experience. I followed the aisleone link and on my MacBook - and a browser window, as always, not maximized - i have had problems identifying the enter link on the far right of the page. I was forced to horizontal scroll to see it.
The user was forced to adapt himself to your decision.
The popup window is something to avoid but in rare cases. More and more peole uses popup blockers. Be aware of this.
Avoid the use of inline css (your code, dreamweaver code, is full of these). Thus you will optimise the website (in loading time) and you’ll have a more granular control on all the layout in a central space (the css).
Again, i enjoy your work. i absolutely love the lettering and, well, all 
and bookmarked the page showing off your printed work. I hope my remarks can be of some help to put your print talent on a new media. There is always need of good designers. regards.
Your advice is greatly appreciated semioticmonkey
thanks again :)
Antonio does the black on your screen look a tad bit yellow? I was looking at the blog on a friends Mac and the black didn’t look right, If so, I’ll do a bit of colour correction tomorrow
Cheers :)
It is your opinion Antonio. Mine is stated above and the difference is the salt of life
btw, many tnx for your effort. I find always something interesting and well crafted in your post.
@David
Perfect Black on my MacBook screen too.
Thank god for that!
Thank you for defending me Antonio
You’re a star
I did love the design of the site, BUT i couldn’t find the hidden menu, therefore opted for standard site option…if it wasn’t for that I would have thought the site just did not work. I don’t think is a matter of trends as much as straight forward functionality. But definitely the beauty of the design elements kept me intrigue in the site long enough to work it out.
“Not every print artist is necessarly a good web designer. More often the opposite.”
Couldn’t agree more, especially in this case.
TrackBack URL
Subscribe to RSS feed for comments on this post.
mmmm….beautiful printed work but the website violates the abc of the UI design.
The ‘interesting’ nav remember me of the old web days when everyone and his mother needed the wow-search-clickeverythingtodiscover nav. Days, luckily, gone (except the entertainment industry, for obvious resons). Until today.
Not every print artist is necessarly a good web designer. More often the opposite.
Again, congratulations for the wonderful print work.
Comment by semioticmonkey — May 6, 2008 @ 7:18 am