One of the major changes in this course series is the added emphasis on best practices in web design. Although most of the design learning modules begin in the Intermediate Dreamweaver course, it is never too early to start learning design principles. Next session, we will cover some basic design rules. Once you know the rules, then you know when it makes sense to break those design rules!
In the Intro course, we start with examining effective designs. Don’t worry about the rules behind the design. The goal here is to identify designs that you think are attractive and effective. Spend some time thinking about what is it about the design that works for you.
- Is it the colors?
- Is it the typeface?
- Is it the sizes of the fonts used?
- Is it the organization of content?
- Is it the layout of the site eg. columns, header, footer etc
- Is it the balance between whitespace, text and images?
- What is the feel or general impression of the design?
- How does your eye move across the site?
Add a comment to this post about one of your favorite web designs. Write a brief paragraph about why you think this design is effective. I also encourage you to check out the web sites that your students recommend and add your own input to each other.
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OK, Maybe this is cheating, but I really like my own website design. I based…the use of white space, colors that are neutral and soft, ease of navigation (I think) and the soothing music. I based the design on the RolandMorgan.com. His photographs are larger, sharper and transition better than mine…its a very sharp, clean and simple site.
Other favorites are mountainphotographer.com and widerange.org.
Both also use clean simple colors and text so the site does not detract from the outstanding photography.
Hi Terry,
Can you add your web url?
Ellen
I can finally view the posts! Yes, Here is my URL:
http://www.armstronggraphics.com/
Hope you enjoy the site.
terry
Thanks, Terry. Your site is beautiful! I love your photographs, also.
Ellen
I loved your website. Very nice & clean. I also do websites and one of my favorites is http://www.judybihary.com. Take a look at the gourds pictured there.
One of my favorite web designs is: http://hovie.com/
I like its clean look and calm colors. The text is simple and minimal yet effective. The web site says more with its use of strong beautiful images.
My favorite web design is Jennifer Murphy’s website:
http://www.jmurphybears.com/home.html
Even though it is all images, I think the design is charming and inviting. I like the white and black color scheme with color coming from the photographs.
There is a lot of white space and doesn’t look too busy to me. The fonts used give a personal feel to the site and the drawings add personality, too. I like the way the site is organized. There is a lot to see on the site – it is multi-layered in that clicking on certain pages give you more pages to view.
I think the general feel is charming and fun.
I also like http://www.akirastudios.com/ . I like the unusual color scheme and the simple, but sophisticated look of the site. It has enough blank space to look spacious rather than crowded, it is easy to navigate, and the photography is beautiful.
I think it has a calm, but sophisticated feel.
Ellen
How did you upload your photo?
Terry
It’s my blog avatar. I think it just followed me to my self-hosted blog from my Wordpress.com blog. There you had the option in the admin pages to add an avatar. It shows up if I comment on any Wordpress blog or on my blog. I thought there was a way to add it also in the admin pages for Wordpress.org, but can’t find it in settings or profile.
I think you have to get a gravatar first – here:
http://en.gravatar.com/
I think Bean or Anita can give you more info.
Ellen
Does anyone know where we see these comments?
I have one more website that I absolutely love:
http://www.shootthelight.com/workshops/brown_bears_katmai_2009.htm
This site is VERY clean, well laid out, easy to navigate and read.
I hope I can take one of these trips someday!
I very much like the Blogspot page here:
http://stefsketches.blogspot.com/
I found this because some of Stef’s sketches were done on his iPhone, about which I am writing in my own blog.
The sketches appeal to me, and the page is beautifully proportioned and designed with lots of white space. Yet there is plenty going on.
I also like very dark pages, but the trouble with those is that quite often I can’t read the text.
My very favourite is the Aardman site, but that is a flash animation so not suitable as an example here. You may enjoy it though at:
http://www.aardman.com/
Valerie Beeby
Again, this time around one my favorite websites is http://www.pogo.com. I think the coloring and fonts are perfect. The material is organized in a way that makes and is friendly.
The colors make the site look lively as a gaming site should. The graphics used add to the feel of the site.
A website I enjoyed looking at was http://www.barackobama.com/index.php. Though chock full of enough items that you could spend six hours daily just on this site, the layout is fairly easy to navigate. If anything, there are too many image map links. Still……
For the colors and the wow factor I do like the web site at
http://eyeonafrica.net/safari-photography.htm
The browns and yellows jump out at you and you want to go through it to see more.
Bob Fox
Looks like I mistyped the web site in my previous message. It should be
http://www.eyesonafrica.net/safari-photography.htm
I think this was the hardest part of the assignment, finding a website I liked. I found a ton I disliked though!.. I peeked at all the aforementioned websites and I have to agree with almost everyone. I like organized professional sites with harmonious colors or colors that do not fight with each other.
Here is what I know I do not like
Fonts- Don’t shout at me with all sizes and colors of fonts. I created and manage our town’s website and I have the help of a friend to help keep it updated. She would use strange indents, obnoxious multi color large fonts and lots of “tabs” to move and position. It drove me nuts so…. I created a CSS style sheet and told her to use it.
Music. I find music annoying unless I am visiting a music site and choose it myself. I ususally have my own “sounds” playing in my studio and don’t want to hear someone else’s
Flash Home page- I came for whatever information is on the site, not a slow slide show. I love some flash inside the site, maybe in the header that really makes the site stand out but not all of it
I like easy to navigate and non cluttered.
Favorites are http://www.pendarvis-studios.com
http://www.digitalpaintingforum.com/
My favorite, and very useful website for variety of design is:
http://www.csszengarden.com/
I never fail to learn something useful whenever I go back.
Harry Goldstein
One of my favorite sites is The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
http://www.metmuseum.org/
The colors for the home page are subtle and different with a warm clay like color for the background. The use of the photography taken from the upper balcony inside museum shows a beautiful view of that space with a feeling of looking inside the museum from above. They use pictures like this of inside spaces throughout. And of course, I love the content.
I like the typography, both the font and the way the design and layout is used. The H1 head is a an elegant serif font with space between the letters spread out a bit, adding to the readability. The smaller texts are in sans serif, giving a contrast to the overall design. I find web pages that are dark with white text so difficult to read that I usually click away from them. In this case the designer uses white text and makes it work.
While the background colors change from page to page, there is consistency in that they are all of a similar tone. And I enjoy the fact that a page devoted to centuries of artists uses color in every background page and manage to do so without being glaring or difficult to read. The use of fonts in the many pages is also consistent.
I like the website of the University of Illinois. I work at the U of I and the site has a lot of information that is broken into different areas by colors, background images and fonts that pull your eyes to the various areas. The links and drop down menus take you to clean clear pages with just enough color and crisp text to keep you interested and able to find the information you need.
the URL is http://illinois.edu.
I agree with Dani’s comments about music. I find it annoying and usually mute it when I am on site.
I find it important that the colors of a site match the purpose and content of the site. I love the bright colors and WOW factor that the colors bring to the digitalpaintingforum site and the Classic look and warm colors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art site.
The simplicity and the craziness of the aardman site also appeals to me. There is just enough on each page for your senses to handle, but enough fun to want to go back and see what you didn’t see before.
One of my favorites sites is http://www.artisticdistinction.org. The main page is uncluttered and well designed. I like the look of nested tables. The color scheme is soft and inviting. I enjoy browsing the featured artists sites as well.
I have read the previous posts. Terry-I like your photos. From one photographer to another capturing great photos is not an easy task. I have looked at the sites that everyone has posted and they are all nice. I choose this website by Internet dreams http://www.netdreams.co.uk/ because I like the amount of time and effort that went into the site. I like how they laid one screen on top of another background and introduced video into their page to capture one’s attention. This site has captured my attention without making me spend too much time trying to figure out if the site is for me.
This was difficult. I really like clean, modern websites that are easy to follow. I was trying to find one that was also super visually compelling. I couldn’t find the stunning aspect that I was looking for, but I do really appreciate these examples:
Lotta Jansdotter is nice because the categories are easy to view and choose. I like that once you visit that category, the others are still present and you don’t have to go looking for them. I also appreciate the simple colors. http://jansdotter.com/index.php
I also like the website site of Otto Design Group in Philly.
http://www.ottodesigngroup.com/
It has a really nice modern feel and is easy to navigate.
I visited several websites, but one that caught my eye was http://www.farmcreditmaine.com. I liked the simple text with a faint picture in the background. Then on the right the solid light background with a darker text is a nice touch as well.
I really like this web site… elegant
http://www.nelsonfineart.com/
One of my favorite web sites is http://www.dianemaxey.com because of its dynamic content. I like the flash book pages.
I love elegant, clean designs with lots of white space and a site that epitomizes my idea of beautiful is suzannekasler.com. Not only is it easy to understand but it loads quickly. I particularly admire the opening screen where the black-and-white images change to color as you hover over them.
That is a very nice looking site. The color scheme you choose can say a lot about the subject of the site. Some basic Design ideas transfer across all forms of Art
This was hard. I don’t normally think in terms of what I like but I do notice things I do not like.
I cheated a little and went to look at the award winners for 2008 web designs.
http://www.webaward.org/winners_result.asp The awards are based on many different industries. I didn’t look at them all but they have hundreds of excellent sites. My favorite was one of the first that I looked at. http://www.biggs-gilmore.com/ It is an ad agency and the graphics, animation and the way everything is presented is just amazing. Another site that I liked within that group is http://www2.kelloggs.com/ I like the lines, crispness and the general user friendly interface. It contains everything that I could want to see on one page without having to scroll down a lot. It also has an option to allow the user to increase the font size. As I reach the end of my 50s, I find this option more and more appealing. I absolutely HATE the websites that use dark colors as background with colored fonts…. My opinion is that font colors are either light colored on a darker background or black on lighter backgrounds. Arial seems to be the best font for us aging folks for readability and crispness but I must say that I like Trebuchet MS and Helvetica also.
Hey Wayne, Read you comments. Knowing what you don’t like is good also most as good as knowing what you do like but the big question becomes what does the web viewer like to look at. Is the site easy to navigate, can they easily get the info they need whether its a product or a document.
Personally, I think that it is better for a site to have a clean look, minimal vertical navigation. Strong bullet points supported by text that complements the points. Clearly defined sections…..header/footer….sidebars and main content.
For cross-browser compatibility, it is best to have a lighter main background…..darker headers/footers and sidebars provide emphasis.
I like the look and feel of the following sites:
http://www.anniesrhymetime.com/
http://www.judithheft.com/
http://www.klswebsolutions.com/
Those are some good ideas but try not to get locked into one way of thinking. Sometimes a dark background works better because it is visually different from the rest.
I am trying to learn to make a website for my blog and photo gallery. Of all of the photo websites I have seen, my favorite is this one.
http://www.smallestphoto.com/index.php
I like the photo in the middle with the little details tab. When you click on the details tab it shows the commentary about the photo and the comments section. I would also put my exif information there.
In terms of colors, I tend to like dark like my home page and my current photo gallery which I pay an annual fee for.
http://www.elleciecarmouche.net/
http://www.pbase.com/lcphotography
I would probably spice mine up with a little red.
I like easy to read pages, not cluttered. Also I love picture album pages, as thats my main use of the web.
I chose this one as one I like.
http://www.friendsoffalmouthdogs.org/
This site here is a local site for our dog pound, its easy to read and navigate.
There are tons of really fancy sites out there, and they are amazing, like the Apple sites, instructions from Adobe, and many others that are beautiful.
But I think that its fun to make your own pages like we are learning here at LVS, and my classmates have some of the best!
Beth and Chuck especially, as they are both very artistic and are great photographers.
I am enjoying taking the Dreamweaver class and hope to make some pages of my many photos with it, and not have to hand code them any more like mine above, as they never validate.
Its all fun! Thats why I’m here at LVS.
http://www.evelynembry.com/
I really like the colors this artist used and the layout of her website.
I’m loving the Dreamweaver CS4 class. I am learning soooo much!
I am seriously considering using Dreamweaver CS4. We have been using FrontPage, which of course is discontinued. I have heard many favorable comments regarding Dreamweaver. I have looked at some of the websites people post here and love them.
I am not a professional web designer, but have taken some online classes to learn in order to manage my husband’s web site.
I have heard that this would be “fun” for me to learn, but am wondering if it is much more complicated than FrontPage was? Has anyone here switched from FrontPage to Dreamweaver?
If we get it, then I will take the class from LVS…
Ann,
You might want to check out this post that I did comparing Expression Web, Dreamweaver and Front Page, http://lvsonline.com/online-dreamweaver-classes/dreamweaver-cs3/whats-the-difference-between-dreamweaver-and-expression-web/
Is your husband’s website a personal or a business site? Do you envision working on more than one web site? If you are working on a business site or planning on working multiple sites or working with multiple designers, go with Dreamweaver. If you are only planning on working on one personal site, Expression Web may be a better fit.
One site that I particularly like is eBay. I think the color scheme is good and pleasing to the eye. It doesn’t scream at you and it is not annoying. I really like their symbol as well. Simple defines the page and it makes you focus on the important part which is what is for sale. The navigation is pretty simple and intuitive. These characteristics serve the purpose of the business well. I like this page so much that I designed one of my high school science lessons like it. It turned out really well. As a high school teacher I am also interested in school sites. I know I am supposed to only write about one site but there is a high school site that I think is great in terms of looks. It is the Assumption High School website. It has great color with a really neat picture rotator. Both these sites have the information in a smaller width but centered in the middle of the open browser window.
The site for Assumption High School is http://assumption.groupfusion.net/
Here are three websites that I especially like:
http://www.skaffs.com (I love the dynamic site and the use of creative flash)
http://www.neumann-health.com (great art and wonderful sounds)
http://www.danzmusic.com (music for film and television and good movie stuff)
I think what I like about these sites is their creativity in the use of art, music, and images.
Here are the websites I’ve enjoyed:
http://www.skaffs.com
http://neumann-health.com
http://danzmusic.com
I like the first for the colors, the second for the dynamic quality of the site, and the third for the music and the movies!
Joe
11.12.09
In order to minimize the risk of spending years trying to determine my “favorite” site, I’ve just selected one that I find impressive. It has a pleasing, non-garish color scheme and design, and includes several effective features. Some of these features include rotating/ repeating images on the home page; drop-down menus from the home-page menu bar; click-to-enlarge photos of particular products; and a zip code area to locate local dealers. I was able to easily search for and find a variety of information in a very intuitively way.
I look forward to seeing your choices of sites!
/\/\
Here’s a link to that site: http://www.ecotimber.com/
One site I like the looks of is Judy Niemeyer’s site: http://www.quiltworx.com/index.php. The colors are soothing and form a nice background for the displayed quilts. The layout is clean and it’s easy to find what you want. I like the consistency of the design throughout the site.
Two web sites I came across that I like are http://www.plantwithpurpose.org/ and http://wisergirls.org/ . I like the use of color and compelling photographs. Generally, I like soothing colors, readable/non-fussy fonts, and most importantly, a site must be easy to navigate. I’m not a fan of lots of things moving on a page or sound.
I mostly notice things on site’s I don’t like. -Flash long-loading slideshow usually with audio turned on. -Print too small. -Print faint, without sharp contrast, without good line height. -Information unreadable over a graphic background page. -Poor information. -Illiteracy. -Difficult navigation. -Broken links. -Under Construction. -Busy patterns and colours. -Pixelated images. -Snapshots. -Images the size of thumbnails without enlargements. -Pages that don’t open in their own window or allow you to return. -Too much crammed into a small space. (grin)
I guess I like standard white bread pages if the information is readable and the print large.
But then again, I don’t care if all the rules are broken if there are some wonderful photos or graphics to admire: see Shaolin Yokobue at http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=171/171.css or others with Zen Garden’s CSS found at http://www.mezzoblue.com/zengarden/alldesigns/
Since I love hamburgers, I find the following website as an interesting website: http://www.fatburger.com/home/
The website http://www.laureus.com because it is easy to search on and it tells you right away what the website is about. It also has a sharp and clean look about it. It gives you a list of the news topics right down from the top which make it very easy to navigate.
Here’s my link to a site I really admire. Check out the time traveling you can do here by simply clicking on the arrows.
A lot of thought went into the details. It’s a piece of art.
http://www.sensisoft.com/
Dreamweaver Intro Class of May 2010
I like the site its a good flash based site. I has some cool stuff but its also rather easy to navigate. Don’t under estimate the importance of easy user navigation.
I have several websites which I like for different reasons. However, one that stands out is the Classical KUSC Creative Kids Central website. This is an excellent website and resource designed for kids but it is great for adults as well. It is colorful, eye-catching, and easy to navigate. The typography and the shapes of the buttons that link to various portions of the website are well-designed and creative. The music is also beautiful. The link for the website is
http://www.classicalkusc.org/kids/index.asp
I also checked out the sensisoft website recommended by fellow classmate Katinka. I thought it was great and I like the spinning column that allows you to travel back in time.
Dreamweaver CS3-CS4 Level 1 class
I like amazon.com because it is so easy to move around in and it does what it does very well and does not try to be too flashy.
tony
I find this website for a restaurant, well-designed and with great images:
http://www.villagerkent.com/
Check the whole page and not only the header, and you’ll notice that is well-done.
Fernando
My first thought on what website is the best was Google, but then I then reread the instructions. I then spent the next 30 minutes looking for a site I liked the color and typography and I came up with nothing. It seemed that the more stylish it was , the less useful and hard to navigate it was. So I guess my choice is remains Google because I like the color (white) and the typography (Google).
This is quite a difficult challenge due to the amazing amount of web pages out there.
I like similicity – no flashing banners or animations twisting and twirling, and very few are without this today. They seem to think everything must move in order to grab your attention.
However, this is not answering the question……. what did I like about ‘a’ web site.
http://www.moluv.com/index.php
It’s clean, neat and easy to read. Very informative and enables one to browse through a number of styles of web pages.
I also have to agree with above that Google is a neat clean site also.