Last night was another one of those nights where I was distracting myself from sleep with site, after site. There was some work going on as well, and I might of made a few changes around … here.. but yes, one of the things I particularly enjoyed reading was Frank Chimero’s writings on Advice to a Graphic Design Student.
A cute site with illustrated text. The fact that I’m crushing on it has nothing to do that it happens to have my favourite colour featuring prominently throughout the site >_>
I don’t normally like to post about amazing sites belonging to web designers and developers, preferring to find my inspiration and crushes amongst their creations. Here though, this gorgeous vertical sliding one-pager is an exception: http://www.jamesgarner.co.uk/. Do click through and visit the actual site to see the full effect, it’s worth it.
It’s been a little while since I last saw something that truly inspired me, but thankfully the drought broke a few days ago when Me & Oli appeared in one of the inspiration blogs I follow.
What I ♥ about this site? It’s quirky. Illustrative (just a bit jealous of people who can do this sort of thing). It’s textured. Layered. But above all, very different from anything else out there. Lately it seems (to me) that there is a bit of a sameness about everything I come across online. Definitely kudos to anyone who dares to break that mould.
What I’m not loving about this site? My only real criticism is that on first load, it’s a bit confusing about where/what/etc you need to do. Navigation could be a little more straight forward. On site load, there’s nothing anywhere on the page to even state the company name! Oh, also, paypal the only payment gateway? Really? Okay that’s two criticisms… here are the pics:
I know. Animated GIFs? Awesome? An oxymoron right? We all no doubt remember the hideous gifs that populated the internet so frequently in the 90s, you know the ones, the construction site animations, or the turning logo. They were everywhere, and every now and then even know you’ll come across a site with an animated gif on it and inwardly cringe. I can’t even bring myself to put one here in demonstration… the thought of doing so makes me just a little bit sick!
But no, GIFs have had a bit of a makeover courtesy of pioneers Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg, and now termed Cinemagraphs:
I also rather ♥ the From Me to You site the above is from. Layered AND clean.
Want to read more about Cinemagraphs and see some more amazing examples?
He seems to capture the personality of the cat all too well. I am very careful not to show my kitten this video, just in case he picks up any new tricks and evolves his waking techniques to include a baseball bat!
I’ve had a bit of a crush on Feedly for a while now. It’s slick, clean and just does what it should and well.
What is it and what does it do? It is an extension for Firefox and Chrome and it allows you to keep track of all those blogs and sites that you bookmark, and really want to go back and read and keep track of what’s going on, but never remember to do so. Instead, you have a little floating icon that sits on the bottom right hand corner of a page. When ever you find a blog that interests you, you click on this little icon and add it to your feedly.
Reading it is as easy as opening the feedly page and going through all your sources. You can categorise then, and adjust your settings to include flickr, twitter and facebook feeds as well. You can like an entry, save it for later, and share it with friends.
All this and looking good too, it’s no wonder I’ve been using it for a good year or so now.
