Web sites protest by going black. A little over 100 web sites have bandied together to go black on this international day of protest. Some with interesting art, some with personal notes and others with strong words. Are there other web protests going on that you've heard of? Links?
posted by DragonBoy on Feb 15, 2003 - 16 comments

Bom is some sort of project management company, but I'm more impressed by their whiz-bang cool design on their site. Kinda like the HabboHotel, Eboy (their town), and k10k aesthetic taken corporate.
posted by mathowie on Jul 9, 2002 - 8 comments

The Magnifier. What a great way to present visual detail and overview at the same time. Why can't Mapquest do this?
posted by luser on May 7, 2002 - 16 comments

Interesting The guy who wrote Your CSS Bores Me(previously linked and discussed here) has decided to accept his own challenge. For the month of February, he will be applying a different stylesheet to the index page of his site, with no manipulation of the HTML document itself. This is one to watch, if you're also a code geek.
posted by Su on Feb 5, 2002 - 21 comments

The biggest web design myth is that screen graphics should be 72dpi. Sorry if this counts as a self-link (it's a long discussion that I sparked on a forum devoted to a vector graphics app called Xara), but I thought it might interest designers & programmers here.
posted by grumblebee on Dec 10, 2001 - 59 comments

Design Not Found is 37signals' latest work. They highlight the very best and worst of online contingency design, the design of pages presented to users when things go wrong. It's looking like it could quickly become a killer resource for users to report examples and web application designers to learn from those.
posted by mathowie on Nov 28, 2001 - 19 comments

One of the most amusing Javascript special effects I've seen in a long time; brought to you by Nestea Phillipines. What other Javascript tricks brought a smile to your face?
posted by SilentSalamander on Nov 21, 2001 - 28 comments

GINORMOUS banner ad at download.com. From what I can tell, it only auto-expands on the first visit, presumably cookied, but I was still pretty annoyed. If you click to view, it blows up again, runs a little commercial at you(sndtrk by Madonna), and shrinks again. A little better than the layout-destroying monoliths other sites are using?
posted by Su on Oct 25, 2001 - 20 comments

I Forgot about Grey Day did anyone else?
posted by dangerman on Oct 1, 2001 - 13 comments

Transmission - this is the best (storming use of bog standard - works in Netscape - javascript) site I've seen in ages (via Shift via Play with the Machine) (warning: I'm no web designer, so you trendy people in black out there are free to tell me this is tired old cliche).
posted by andrew cooke on Aug 21, 2001 - 27 comments

Clippings is the GPL-ed code behind IHT's news-clip feature, which has been discussed on MetaFilter before. This is very cool code and I think any site with many front page links could benefit from it. Serendipitously found at smokinggun, which is not the smoking gun.
posted by icathing on Jul 31, 2001 - 19 comments

When arrogant web-masters attack. First it was specifying browsers, then came specifying screen dimensions, and now...

Ok if you are having trouble reading my text on my site, i do appologize. But i cannot customize for the entire world!... I dont have a problem reading my text and neither do most people. Like i said before usually adjusting your contrast helps tons. Unless you are one of the few "important" people out there who have your contrast already set to some "wysiwhatchamacallitwig" or whatever :). And for those people there is yet a solution for you 2! ... read the view source. :).

posted by jcterminal on Jul 2, 2001 - 24 comments

“Nobody needs information architects anymore” “His problem, he figures, is simple: Nobody needs information architects anymore. The entire discipline was overly specialized, a hologram created by temporarily explosive demand for Web-site design, which vanished last year.” (Link sometimes worked and sometimes did not over the course of ten trials in three browsers. ROBMagazine.com → Table of contents → “Crash Test Dummies” will get you there.)
posted by joeclark on Jun 4, 2001 - 21 comments

Yet another design rip-off. This really bugs me. I have no problem with sites stealing layout and code, but actual graphics should be a no-no.
posted by jasonepowell on May 11, 2001 - 54 comments

Warning: useless Flash, animated GIFs, slow loading, annoying, buzzing, warped up piece of work. [Requires Flash and Pepto Bismol to view.] Even though this is a site for a radio station, I figured something was amiss when I was scared to click past the splash page...
posted by hijinx on Mar 26, 2001 - 12 comments

The Web Page from Hell. Be sure to look at the client list.
posted by cfj on Mar 1, 2001 - 20 comments

Powazek on Metafilter Not sure if this has been posted before, but I just found it on a new sub-site of Communication Arts that appears to be more focussed on web design. Derek is writing a book on online communities, but I still got the impression that the interviewer didn't know who he was.
posted by jmcnally on Feb 26, 2001 - 13 comments

Wanted: Web Designer for 'egg': must like startlingly honest employers who don't beat about the bush.
posted by barbelith on Feb 22, 2001 - 3 comments

This by far is the all-time worst use of flash ever. Boring, long, and utterly unimportant. It blows -- the competition away!
posted by rschram on Jan 10, 2001 - 17 comments

Greenspun on Neilsen. Damn if that don't sound like the Thrilla in Manila. I just stumbled over this piece on ArsDigita's Systems Journal site, formerly Web Tools Review. If you enjoy watching one so-called expert pick apart the opinions of another, you'll probably enjoy this. If you're sick unto death of both of them... skip it.
posted by baylink on Nov 29, 2000 - 1 comment

Steal a design, win an award. Sumerset Custom Houseboats won several awards in the 2000 Inc. Magazine Web Awards 2000, including the top prize in the General Excellence category. According to a company press release, the site was chosen for its "simple, functional, yet elegant design". The only problem is, they stole the design from IBM's site.
posted by jkottke on Nov 22, 2000 - 33 comments

marchFirst circles the bowl... Too bad. I thought it would be cool to work for them but now analyst are predicting the demise of the company. I wonder if they will have a great deals on Macs when they go bankrupt?
posted by Brilliantcrank on Nov 21, 2000 - 7 comments

what will be supported now that browsers are a-changin' again? handy resource from a Netscape product manager.
posted by patricking on Nov 18, 2000 - 0 comments

Did anybody else notice that? Speaking on behalf of .com design interns everywhere, there's really no incentive to try and come up with hot graphics - ours is a thankless job. However, there's still no excuse to be completely lame.
posted by NickBarat on Nov 15, 2000 - 11 comments

10.am redesigns...but forgets to use the spell checker.
posted by fatbaq on Nov 2, 2000 - 0 comments

IKON's Website Ranked Among Top 200 Business Sites By BtoB, Advertising Age's Marketing Newspaper Your stock's in the toilet, you're being slapped with a class action suit, and you've been put on CreditWatch with negative implications. But your web site shore is purty!
posted by ethmar on Oct 24, 2000 - 7 comments

Effective Web Design and the Tao of Plinko all this time I have been reading the wrong web sites to figure out the web. What I needed to be doing was spending some quality time with Bob Barker and friends on The Price is Right! Oh yeah, rumor has it that Bob Barker is set to retire next season (the shows 30th).
posted by DragonBoy on Oct 17, 2000 - 2 comments

NYTimes.com asks for feedback on its new home page
The New York Times on the Web previewed a new design for its popular home page today. The page widens the content areas to over 750 pixels, up from around 500. The page now presents special feature teasers, and links to NYT's hideously unpopular Internet "knowledge network" venture, Abuzz.com, along the enlarged right-hand margin. No word was given as to whether the site would abandon its free registration requirement. "Surfers" may register their opinions about the new design at newhomepage@nytimes.com
posted by rschram on Oct 3, 2000 - 16 comments

New Go? Either Go.com really, really sucks, or I am just unable to find where the "new" go.com design is residing. And why doesn't c|net ever put related links in their articles? Do they assume I will just stay within c|net all day long?
posted by Brilliantcrank on Sep 15, 2000 - 12 comments

Jesus freaks make unattractive websites: Came across this while looking for some old Nintendo ROMS. You'd think he'd at least try to make his message legible . . .
posted by aladfar on Sep 13, 2000 - 13 comments

Is it just me? Or does Mark's new design "element" just seem a tad phallic? I hope it's not just me.
posted by silusGROK on Aug 25, 2000 - 24 comments

Web art is more than just pictures - take this cool site for instance, with its strange sounds and flash movies. What I really like about this one, as well as eneri.net is the the emotional aspect, which is very rare on the net. Especially, I recommend you to check out the "contagion" link.
posted by joedrescher on Aug 20, 2000 - 1 comment

The Background image is a little off, but.... here's a page created entirely on a Commodore 64. Nice to know that everyone's in the web design loop.
posted by Cavatica on Aug 7, 2000 - 8 comments

Submethod gets a facelift. Creepy, but nice as always.
posted by skizz on Aug 2, 2000 - 3 comments

wow. balthaser has a new concept...forget jakob nielsen, THIS could be the end of web design as we know it!
posted by centrs on Jul 28, 2000 - 19 comments

Arrgghh! Yuck! I guess orange is the new white.

Wrong Way! Go Back!
posted by baylink on Jul 24, 2000 - 9 comments

Roger Black on Design. MacAddict put up an interview with Roger Black from their August 2000 issue. There are a couple of interesting points as in his take on transitioning from print to web:

"I think that the main thing is pretty much to work as you would in print design. A good designer always focuses on the reader or the customer, the viewer, whatever the end-user is. You just have to do that on the Net the same way you do in print.... I do not believe that the technological hurdles are that big. It doesn't seem to me that big of a deal.... Most of the stuff we do on the Web is not particularly difficult. Almost anybody, particularly anybody under thirty growing up in our society has enough technological culture to work with it. Don't get scared. It’s not that big of a deal."

posted by leo on Jul 20, 2000 - 7 comments

Laurel Mountain Technologies, Inc.
Is this really what "web design" is coming to these days?

Try Phenom Tek or Circle Graphics.
posted by Eric_Reid on Jul 19, 2000 - 10 comments

I like this Web site but its design is just a tad too similar to this one.
posted by tranquileye on Jun 16, 2000 - 33 comments

A spin-off of a previous thread: "The folks at firms like Kioken, who are known to fire their clients if they do not follow them down their ego led path...".

Uh, not to put down Kioken...but does the phrase "The customer is *always* right!" still apply to web design... Or did I miss the revolution...(again)?

posted by EricBrooksDotCom on Jun 5, 2000 - 25 comments

Thus sayeth Zeldman: "Lately, well-meaning readers have informed us that the status bar is sacred, and JavaScript text messages are evil ... even when they include the domain name."

I, personally, prefer a brief description of where the link is going, rather than a long URL. Just curious, what do you think? As far as I'm concerned, there is no wrong answer or opinion on this.

posted by EricBrooksDotCom on May 18, 2000 - 67 comments

Halcyon! Congratz, bro! Between you and Napster, I *almost* enjoyed the webbys this year.
posted by EricBrooksDotCom on May 12, 2000 - 8 comments

Stealing is bad. These folks seem to think it's okay to rip off another site's design and pass it off as their own work-- right down to the identical manifesto! They even have the balls to post a copyright notice. Unbelievable.
posted by wiremommy on May 10, 2000 - 21 comments

Adbusters' Design Manifesto 2000 is an interesting read. In accordance with what many people believe, and the result of corporations going too far, the question becomes, do we need something like this for web creators? A Pledge to pursue personal interests and experiments on the web, instead of just your daily e-company work? Would you sign such a thing?
posted by mathowie on May 9, 2000 - 12 comments

Readers prefer text over graphics. In much more scientific news a new study by Stanford University indicates that visitors to your website are significantly more likely to read the text on your website (92%) than look at your photos (64%). What do you think? Will this change the way you design your site?
posted by shmuel on May 8, 2000 - 4 comments

The winners of the 5K contest have been announced. Not all of my personal favorites made it into the top 10, but I think that they are all very strong entries, which is all one can hope for in contests like these.
posted by jkottke on May 4, 2000 - 16 comments

If the Roger Black rant thread has aroused your curiosity, you may want to check out Michael Wolff's profile of Black that ran in New York magazine last fall. It covers the print world more than the web, but it explains the (quite real) Roger Black mystique in greater detal.
posted by werty on Apr 25, 2000 - 0 comments

Everything old is new again. I ranted on this a little in my blog, but here is the crux: why does something that looks like a Commodore 8-bit demo program earn respect as a good web design? The font is even a direct lift of the 64's built-in font. I find it kind of funny that we're trying to duplicate stuff that was done well over a decade ago, but because it's on the web, it's good design.
posted by hijinx on Apr 20, 2000 - 15 comments

Alphanumerica's Entries for the 5K Contest I stumbled upon a couple of entries from Alphanumerica for the 5K Web Design Contest. I thought they were cute. Just curious is anyone else here got a preview?
posted by Dean_Paxton on Apr 10, 2000 - 0 comments

Why tab based interfaces suck This site finally fell into interface hell. Originally they used tabs as navigation and still are now... BUT it doesn't work... Watch... every ecommerce company that copied its interface will also fall into the same interface hell... The others include ebags.com, urbanfetch and more....
posted by efader on Apr 8, 2000 - 8 comments