Studio Brief 3: Looking At Other Websites

I wanted to look at some well designed websites to see what they were doing correctly that I could do too. I found a great website with resources called 'The best designs' which you can see here. It has links to beautifully designed websites. I have taken a few screenshots of my favourites below and analysed them.

 Elephant Restaurant

The first that caught my eye was this website for a restaurant. The teal and orange colour scheme works really well with all the white space. The layout is very simple and almost makes the page minimal with a simple centre aligned text on the front page.

The full width photo really works in contrast with white space as well and is very visually appealing.

Further down the page the layout changes slightly but still with a very simplistic grid.

The page is more or less split down the centre. Information on the left and images on the right with lots of white space. They balance the layout out with pieces of text on the right including the menu in the top left.

Even further down the page a very basic symmetrical grid adapts for purely images. I am not fond of how the margins are smaller though. I don't believe that the arrangement of images below fits with the rest of the website. The one smaller image looks out of place, but without it the page may look too white.

 Abduzeedo

Abduzeedo is yet another simple looking website with lots of white space and an overall clean look. It makes the page easy to navigate. At first the website looks completely symmetrical with a 3 column grid. I liked this about the website, unfortunately it changes as you scroll down.

The website changes to a 4 column grid that aligns its content to the left. I think this gives an unbalanced look and makes the right sight of the page look too blank. I think the original 3 column grid should stay consostent throughout the website.

Frances

The colour scheme of this website first attracted me to it. The colours work very well together and the links arranged on the right and side of the page is very unique. The homepage is set out in a fibbunacci layout. you eye is first drawn to the top right then down and round to the title on the left and the round the person in the photo.

The main website has more of a conventional layout that I isn't as interesting. The two pages almost don't look as though they go together.

 Maven's Bar Leeds

The style of Maven's website is based around the look associated with the prohibition period. I like that their style is inspired and also fits with the look of the bar. As with some of the other websites I've looked at, the website initially has a centre aligned look. and then splits into a 3 collumn grid that fills the page.

There are certain things that I like about the page. The logo header minimizes when you scroll down to allow more space and focus your eyes on the content rather than the logo.

All Essentials

This website has probably the most simplistic layout out of the lot. Again it has three columns and has photos that fit to a modular grid. This style is very modern and very easy to navigate. It may be a bit too crowded at times depending on the content of the images.

Adobe Muse

The Adobe Muse website is interesting. It's interactive with the way that you scroll and changes as you make your way down the page. This affect can be very engaging but sometimes can be disorientating and confusing. Here they have a few too many things moving/changing at once.