It is time for another Friday Focus. Sorry that I am a bit late today, but I have been busy doing some blogging and development work elsewhere that has been keeping me super busy.
I have some great picks for both design and articles I found on Digg. I hope you enjoy this week’s installment of the Friday Focus.
Designs of the Week
This week I am going to try to hand out some criticisms as well as my normal “wow, look at this” banter. All of these designs are great, but there is something a little off about them, at least in my mind.
Simple, effective and easy to navigate. If I had one criticism for this site, it would be that the front page presents me with too many navigational items, thus confusing where I should go next. I love that there is a humorous flair to the site, and the sliding panels on the front page to show more content without taking up more space.
Simple, with a wide range of colours distinguishing different areas of the site. I love the front page, but the rest of the site falls a little flat. I hope they go back and look at their very nice front page and integrate the rest of the site better.
A very dark design with a decent amount of contrast on the elements that matter. Simple looking design and navigation. Definitely not your typical hosting design. The big issue I had with this site is that the logo area feels almost too big. Like they dedicated all that screen real estate to the logo and title of the company and after that, things feel a little squished in by comparison.
Digg Weekly
Design – Seriously Cool Photoshop Explosion Effect
I really enjoy PSDTuts as there are some easy to replicate but beautiful things you can do with Photoshop, even if you are a wannabe designer like myself. This effect covers creating an explosion, and while I probably wouldn’t use it as they did, I could see ways in which I could use the effect, and that’s what makes it great.
Programming – Powerful CSS-Techniques For Effective Coding
I love resource posts, and Smashing Magazine is definitely good at those. The latest one covers a variety of great links that will help you do some stunning things with CSS.
