The Halloween curse seems to be over and we are back on track again. We are all very sorry for the downtime, but now we are back and kicking again. Come visit us!

Dan Friml

Stylegala's comment:

What is it about Eastern Europe that produces great web designers? It seems that when I see a site that goes beyond the norm it usually comes from somewhere in Eastern Europe. This design is stunning. Thanks to Schnuck for pointing this site out. I love the background, I love the type, I love the dual language. This guys artwork is very special too. Great Site Dan.

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Klassiker in Acryl

Stylegala's comment:

Great retro theme, great color, great type. Well commented code, validates. Very useable. Great site. Well executed all round.

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Digimurai

Stylegala's comment:

Gallery sites seem to be like buses lately. Nothing along for ages then three turn up all at the same time. I very much enjoyed visiting this site. The concept of the whole thing is really good and the makeovers they have done do improve on these famous sites. I am still looking for the perfect site and as such this is not it. There are some issues with CSS validation and also the English used throughout the site is not correct. It is of course a second language. For me this is a problem because the site is targeting English speakers. If there is money in the kitty then this would benefit from some native English copywriting. Apart from these issues I think this is one of the nicest designs I have seen in a long time.

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AdaptD

Stylegala's comment:

A lot of great design is coming out of Eastern Europe at the moment. When I look at sites that have been submitted to the gallery for review it can be hard seeing the wood through the trees. I am happy to say that this one just popped out at me. The initial view of the site says this is something a little different. It is not breaking new grounds but what it does do it does well. It is well coded, clean in layout and well presented. Again this is a high contrast site and it seems to me that a lot of designers are favouring this style right now. The accessibility is not great. Some of the text is far too small and some of the contrasting colors a little too dark but having said that it does tick a lot of boxes. I was suprised to see that it passed validation as so many sites I view that say they validate, just don't. Validation is not the be all and end all but the closer to the standards we can get the better for the industry as a whole. AdaptD is a small web design and development firm based in Bucharest, Romania.

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From Scratch Design Studio

Stylegala's comment:

I am not a big fan of flash but when it is done well, it is done well. This is a site that just makes you want to click somewhere else to see what it does. It drives you insane trying to navigate around though and from a usability perspective this site has many shortcomings. I said I was not a big fan of flash and that is true but I am also not a great fan of dark background, high contrast sites. This site throws me though because even though it is flash based in the main and it is pretty dark I love it. This is something unique and for that I applaud you. Usability though needs some work. From Scratch Design Studio is an interactive design and development studio with offices in California and Washington, DC. FS specializes in 3D animation, website design & development, character design and VFX for the advertising, broadcast and feature film industries.

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Satsu Design

Stylegala's comment:

Satsu is back, with a redesign and wider layout than it's previous incarnation. For this version Bob Jones, has dusted off the pages of his scrapbook design annual, complete with pen and ink notes, background doodles, and colored pencil highlights. Mocked up to an impressive degree of realism and placed on a worn looking paper canvas, with various peeling labels and a main navigation that appears to be "stickied in" from the top of a printed page. Validating in the "XHTML 1.0 Strict" arena (we like that), this round appears to be going clearly Bob's way. Exhibiting a certain amount of charisma and aesthetical charm, Satsu wins a double-thumbs-up from this designer. The new digs are spot-on with today's design trends.

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FortySeven Media

Stylegala's comment:

Portfolio and Blog of FortySeven Media, Kick Awesome Web, Print and Media Designers: FortySeven Media or (47m), is making the grade in 2008, with it's new design that resonates a lovely warm color palette and a mix of "ink on paper", ever so slightly grunged, new yet vintage-looking layout characteristics. On the creative side, besides the graphics, the 47m site throughout has some flair in the copywriting and content areas. The right mix of fun, funny, and useful content even makes the blog appear to be a keeper, so you might want to add this one to your RSS reader. On the technical side 47m has thrown in a varied menu of tasty treats including; sIFR (or Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) Head Tags, jQuery slide-toggle elements (click the "Contact Us" beneath each portfolio entry), solid web standard techniques, and bringing it all home with the ExpressionEngine content-management system. These new kids on the block, namely Jonathan Longnecker and Nate Croft, look to be an up and coming young design firm. At least I'm digging there stuff so far in 2008, and I hope you all will too.

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Biola Undergrad

Stylegala's comment:

Time and again I find Biola Undergrad (BU), in the various other Css galleries. It has a wonderful illustrative style, combined with photo elements to create a mixed media jubilee. Somebody surely has a Wacom tablet or a steadfast scanner to capture all of the fantasy-doodle elements, They would be awfully hard to create with just a mouse, and it doesn't appear to be vector illustration. Another plus, that I just love about BU are the PNG foreground elements on the pages where they are positioned over the left-sidebar and right main-content areas to unify the foreground and background, creative background usage seems to be going by the wayside as of late. The casual style, loose grid and variety of layouts on this site make it a one-of-a-kind designer's gem. There's plenty to explore on this site overall, I always enjoy taking another visit when Biola/Undergrad shows up on that next Css Gallery. For more info about the site project there's an excellent write-up at www.davejlowe.com. To go directly to the Project summary click the Designer's name at the top of this review, just below the "rate this site", and oh yeah rate the site also. My apologies to all of the Stylegala fans out there for nothing being posted to the gallery pages in November, we will try and do better.

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Marius Roosendaal

Stylegala's comment:

It’s all in the details. And the details is just what Marius Roosendaal website has. The site isn’t flashy, there’s no need to be. The site isn’t filled with fluff. It’s just his portfolio. But what you’ll find is that this site has that little extra something that sets it apart. Like I said before it’s all in the details. The major one being the two different styles you can view the site in. One style being the day view while the other is night. What particularly stuck out to me were the colors schemes for each view. The Day view uses a nice cream with accents of red and blue and the green to highlight the portfolio piece. It’s a very welcoming color scheme. The night view doesn’t stray far from the same approach. Using mostly shades of brown with accents of red gives a nice “homey” feel. Another aspect that I also enjoy is that it’s a one-page site with everything you need to know about the site easily displayed. Now some might not find the “night version” very accessible since since the contrast is not very high. But the option to switch the styles is always available. But like I said in the beginning, the site isn’t flashy or shiny or big. It’s a beautiful site with just the right touch that really makes it great. While you’re there, check out Marius’s portfolio he’s a very talented designer.

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Mozilla Store

Stylegala's comment:

What's not to like about the new Mozilla Store?
The tagline says it all "Support Mozilla. Get Cool Stuff!", that's something I can go along with.

A cheerfully casual and loosely gridded design, with a tangible paper and inked-up lightly worn look that is easy on the eyes. There's no sales pressure or hype in this design. The focus on community building is present in the design, and the store sites interactive features. Picture yourself sporting some of the casual wear or gear with a story to tell, and you just might find yourself in the Community Spotlight bragging on your own design skills and web standards superhero status.

There is a nice blog write-up on the redesign of the Mozilla Store by John Slater, Mozilla's Creative Director. John has covered many of the features and focus of the new store site, thanks John.

The curious thing is why the good folks at Nobox.com have designed such a user-friendly piece of work for Mozilla, while their own site remains flash-based and much less accessible.

If you have any comments on the design and/or it's code, please let us know what you think.

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Cravattificio.com

Stylegala's comment:

This website is simply gorgeous. From the outset it's clear you're looking upon the result of many hours labour by a seriously talented individual/team. Rarely will you see a site encompass as many features as this, and yet still retain its clean, minimalist form. That alone, as you probably well know, is a tremendously difficult goal for a designer to achieve.

At no point whilst browsing Cravattificio.com does the site ever feel bland or boring. Everything is placed exactly where it works best; from the text resizing and print buttons, to the colourful masthead images that work so well in contrast to the largely monotone branding and content. Don't worry if you don't speak Italian either; the site has also been made available in English, French and Spanish.

A major brownie point here goes to the excellent navigation demonstrated. All the page links can be found at the head of each page, elegantly categorised under three clear headings 'Who we are', 'Our work', and 'Contact us'. And for those golden surfers out there who tend to get lost easily whilst shopping for their formal attire, the site also provides a crumb-trail navigation to boot. But again, at no point does this site ever feel cluttered.

The main content has been well thought out, jumping seamlessly from a three-column layout on the homepage, to two-column layout on interior pages. The masthead image also shrinks on these interior pages, allowing more space for the content above the fold. Various elements have also been added to improve the aesthetics and user experience, including Google Maps, sIFR, and a flavour of Lokesh Dhakar's Lightbox.

From a techie perspective Cravattificio.com doesn't disappoint. The markup, whilst not perfect, is still very clean, and the site validates to XHTML Transitional throughout. Semantics are in place to a good degree and the majority of the site works fine without Javascript. The only real problem I could find was with the contact form, which unfortunately does require Javascript to operate correctly - a little disappointing given that this is such an easily avoidable blemish.

Nevertheless, with all this said, and if you've taken the time to read this far, then I'd sum Cravattificio.com up as the best example of a great all-rounder website I've seen in a long time. It's a working model of excellent design that we can all be inspired by.

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Rikcat Industries

Stylegala's comment:

From first impressions, Rikcat Industries is simply a beautiful site. It is the portfolio site of Rik Catlow, who also runs a site with his illustration work as well rikcat.com. What immediately sticks out to me with this site is the great use of whitespace. With the contiual rise of "web 2.0" it's great to see someone do something light and simple. Rik Catlow pays nice attention to the typography of the site, making it the main visual impact. Another great aspect, which some might not see is the simple color usage. Black, White and Gray works, I almost forgot how well it works. With this simple color scheme I'm not getting a sensory overload from all the colors. My only beef however is the portfolio page I would expect a little easier view of the portfolio work. Maybe making the pictures clickable as well. If you have time make sure to check out the portfolio which is very nice. But other than that it's a beautifully simple site. Plus it validates perfectly. Rikcat Industries is one of those simplistic sites that offset the often chaotic world of the web.

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Taproot Creative

Stylegala's comment:

Taproot Creative applied a little TLC (tender-loving care) to their latest redesign. One of the main features, and most innovating IMO is the sites ambiance feature. The site offers a daytime design and a nighttime design look, depending on the time of day in sunny Tallahassee, Florida. The daytime design loads a flash background movie with lazy summer skies and song birds and wind chime sounds fill the air. The night design loads a clear and starry night background, with a far off cricket providing the night's concerto. The nighttime images are loaded from a separate folder, with the version being switched via a simple path call according to the time on the server clock, possibly done in the flash movies action scripting? This is all of the details on the dual design I could coerce from Taproot's Sean Doughtie, as I would love to implement something like this in my own designs. For image replacement techniques in some cases a background image is assigned, and then a paragraph with class="invis" is used, with display property none making the text invisible in the screen version. A print version style sheet would have been a nice addition to the site. At first I was not a big fan of the "What We've Done" page layout, the thumbnails are a bit ambiguous. But after clicking on a few of the items in the portfolio, and seeing the resulting page where they've done a nice job giving a brief overview for each project, I say bravo. The one screenshot tells the story use of the lightbox, fade-in - click - fade-out, is getting a bit stale, as seen on other sites. Finally I was somewhat impressed by the use of the curvy corners javascript on the contact form, it just looks so right-on with the design. The digitally rendered black and white version of the Taproot's physical address in this Southern locale, make me yearn to visit this multi-disciplinary creative studio. If you don't agree that this site has the right stuff to make the SG gallery, the please let us know why. Your comments are highly valued.

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Team Viget

Stylegala's comment:

A new school of design is emerging, one that involves heavy CSS, javascript, and (x-d)html web standard skills. A new school of cutting-edge designers is emerging as well, one who is not afraid to dabble in javascripting to do some wonderful and amazing things, leveraging javascript libraries such as jquery, prototype and others to lighten the load. To be successful many things must be considered: • The target audience and their browser of choice. • Screen width and height available in pixels, with some of the best designs extending well beyond the 800 pixel width range. • Processing power –also figuring into the overall scheme of the design for optimal performance when pushing the envelope of what is possible. • Finally optimization and load order considerations for taking full advantage of the bandwidth available and smooth loading of all web site pages. Does it sound overwhelming? Sometimes it is! A team of players in all of these skills and disciplines is sometimes the best answer. Take for example the site at hand teamViget.com. This site was specifically designed to cater to high-end designers and developers, for recruitment purposes, as well as showing off the vigetLabs.com portfolio of recent work. The sliding navigation, when you have the processing power to view it as smoothly as possible, rivals any flash site out there, and without the inconvenience of sitting and waiting-watching the oh so nifty & annoying flash movie loading sequences, only to have to sit through another such delay after subsequent clicks –arghhh. What to look for on the teamViget site, if you are in a hurry? It is loaded chock full of sliding navigation mastery, showing and hiding divs mimicking pages, and easing transition calculations (provided by jQuery if you are keeping score). Click any of the list of "Top 5 Reasons" items on the piece of paper, and a div slides from the right into view, without any of the other divs before or after, just one smooth slide. How smooth depends on your processor power trust me, if it's not smooth check it on something with more power. Next once you've begun to marvel at the flash-like smooth horizontal sliding, click the "See Our Positions" green post-it sticky at the top of any of the inside pages, and presto-change-o the navigation on the page is now a vertical one. Go ahead click an available position. Now the really sweet part with a job opportunity open, say Web Designer for example, scroll down if necessary and click the << Back button next to the green sticky. The vertical and horizontal div movement simultaneously slides back towards the homepage. This dual hierarchy of navigation is what blew me away! There's more see for yourself.

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Oxford Hotel

Stylegala's comment:

When first visiting the site I initially thought it was another flash website, but a further investigation shows that it is rather a great use of JavaScript to get the same effect. The site itself is clean and easy to use, which is a great place to start. The navigation is clear and easy to understand, even though I don't speak the language. The site uses a sliding door approach to display their content in an small space and on the same page. My favorite part of the site has to be the "Garlerie Foto" page. The gallery is really intuitive, fun to play with, and an amazing showcase for the Hotel. It is a little buggy without JavaScript enabled, but it still works. Even their form validation is cool. The best part of this site, for me, is that even with the cool features and nice uses of JavaScript the site still validates and even works without JavaScript enabled! A great job all around by the people that created it.

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