Good Stuff.

Splash Page

I found this magazine while browsing through HOW April 2009 issue.  This is an agency called The Design Agency (I know, not a very creative name).  But I really loved the layout because the splash page starts out with a Flash video talking about how creative their work is by using very enticing pictures of desserts and saying they have the right ingredients to make a great design.

Inside Page

It then goes into the inside page, where the links are placed on the sides of the box, each link having their own Flash element (which can be quite annoying if looking at the page for a long period of time).  The right hand side of the website has a small section containing all of the information the user needs, the bottom side having additional information pertaining to the section of the link.  I believe that the website could've been centered vertically and horizontally so the user didn't have to worry about the scroll bars.  Overall, I would say this is a very nice, simple site.

So Many Questions, So Many Answers

Home Page

This is the March of Dime's website called "What Are You Wondering?"  I found this website in Communication Arts September/October 2008 issue.  The target audience was for those that had questions or concerns about pregnancy, taking care of a baby, or anything pre-pregnancy and I think that this idea serves the purpose well.  Though at first it may look confusing because you see all of these questions on the screen and the gray baby moving around on the back of the screen.

I think what made it very successful was the search tool, asking the user what they were wondering about.  They would pull down the drop-menu, selecting the topic at hand, and then get the highlighted questions that are throughout the home page.

Inside Page

Afterwards, the user would click on the question, which would lead to a pop-up window with the answer to the question from the March of Dime's official website.  This was definitely a very unique and amazing idea.  The baby in the background isn't too distracting, very affective with highlighting and searching for the questions at hand.  The only item I don't like is how the questions in the pop-up window don't correlate with the theme.  Then again, how can you correlate another window with this sort of theme?

Nifty Navigation

Home Page: True North

I found this website in Computer Arts February 2009 issue and it is, once again, all using Flash.  I really like how the homepage is very simple, with a really nice logo (although it's rare to see just a logo for the splash page).  What makes this really interactive is the yellow bar that says "Hello, welcome to the website" and then it goes into the different pages of the website.

Inside Page

Once you get there, you choose the selection and then the drop-down navigation bar goes back up to the top to show off the work.  I believe that it's very simple navigation with very little scrolling on each of the pages of the content and has a very nice color scheme that goes along with it.  The only negative is that for some of the pages, it flashes the background with it as well and on the client's pages, it's hard to scroll through the pictures with the arrows.

Inside Page 2

Flashy!

Home page

Inside Page

This is a website for Catchfire, a graphic design firm.  I found while looking through the HOW April 2009 issue.  I think that it's a really simply put website, where it has the least amount of content on it and, yes, it's a Flash website.  It gives it a simple depth into it.  Especially if you were to click on the HELLO link, it then gives you two options in front of the word.  Also, when you click on one of the squares from either of the three works they had done so far, it takes you to the main page where it then shows the work on the website via a horizontal scrollbar, as shown below:

I also like the color scheme (black, white, dark pink), is resizable so any browser can view it properly, modern, and a great way to show off!

I'm Needing Some Medication

Splash Page

Inside Page

I found this design firm while looking through Communication Arts November/December 2007 magazine.  When I first went to the website, it was boring because it had just the latest updates of the company and seemed to have lots of information in a little space.  But why I picked this as an inspiration is because when you dive into the content, it's very uniquely organized; using pills as a navigation bar and tying all of the elements (background, logo, etc.) together.  It sort of reminds me of a 1950's advertisement.  The only thing I really don't like about it is there is no way to scroll through the pictures like a slide show.