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October 15, 2005
Rampant
We have been busy. Busy we are. Since we were told we're going to die by the nastiest and most untenable bird flu. We've got into overdrive. Birds. Take them out and the sky will fall. Leftover stars, Venus and black holes waiting for better mathematics. So before we stop breathing we redesigned Coruscus. For those not in the know, the site will change ever so slightly in the coming weeks (unless body temperature gets really high) based on feedback, guilt and girlfriends. But if you dare, it's there.
So behave!
Shiseido is a respectable brand. I deal a lot with the letter "S" in my design work for some devilish reason and good time is spent for inspiration on their unique mark. Their official website, au contraire, is a nightmare. Massive, with a wide range of techniques and styles, all intermixed, of languages and strategies. And an army of sleepy webmasters, cracks are under the eye. Exquisite corpse rotting in a lousy state of confusion.
I have Nate Williams site open (www.n8w.com, cool?). Nate does not have an army of stalkers and takes care of the business himself. His site sports a terrific search that is tag-based. Dig his place if you have time. Remember that he's a precursor and a prolific one; tons of materials to browse at his place and each piece a unique blow after an obstinate layer of over-consistency. In the past the elements in his portfolio were tiny. Now he has added a very satisfactory "enlarge feature". Good job.
David Ostrowski, the founder of weareporn.com has a decent horizontally oriented portfolio where each piece is surmonted by the following: "scroll to the right or enter site". This goes on for a while all the way to the right edge. Funny. David sells paintings. If you have ever bought anything from him cry your tears and use a dump.
Another website that adds nostalgia to deception is maldesign. Portfolio a size that fits mobile phones. Pretty fast and pretty meaningless. What about a redesign?
And redesign is for lounge72. Finally! Colorful, shaded, usable and, for now, crowded just enough. Forums are integrated and the overall backend work is admirable, with a working event calendar (not to forget their classic PDF calendar). But do they really need to rename their home page "root"? That is a disturbing geeky trend. On a similar venue and style and bigger-bigger advertising you may dig newwebpick.
In conclusion, before the birds bring Apocalypse closer to real and our test chicken falls dead on the floor, I must confess that the above lot is nada when I think that I have seen just way too many rampant creatures: lions, mean cats of all sorts and colors (black) used in websites and marketing materials and shirts (and never a little rampant pig). Too many blood-dripping hearts (red) and crown of thorns and screaming kids with a punch ball face and in tears. I guess it's time that someone clears that up. Or the birds will.
Posted by lck at October 15, 2005 05:33 AM
