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Best of the reboots ‘07

Posted by Andrew Faulkner on May 2nd, 2007.

Andrew Faulkner is the admin at fadtastic. Andrew prides himself on standards-based, accessible web design in the city of Nottingham, UK. He believes in aesthetically pleasing accessible design and that 'standards compliant does not equal boring.'

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For those who didn’t realise, May 1st saw the reboot sites (Standards Reboot and CSS Reboot) open their doors to the rebooters. Whether you love or hate the concept, it’s an ideal place to browse for inspiration for both graphics and coding.

This year, I have the honour of being a judge at Standards Reboot. That said, I thought I’d share my favourites thus far:

Todd Silver Design

The most striking thing about this site is the banner. I love Todd’s brushwork using a mix of organic and ornamental styles. The other point of note is the use of italics in the headers. It’s done in a friendly but not cheesy manner. The use of creative touches on a very simple layout appeals to me as I tend to use a similar style myself.

The Good: Pretty illustration used to add personality. Valid code.

The Bad: The menu in the LHS of the footer. A bit boxey for my liking.

XHTML Slicer

Again, the most noticeable creative element here is the banner. Seems to be a running theme so far. I love the textured background in the banner - it gives the design an element of depth by adding richness. Another great little detail is the use of page folds for the testimonials. It again brings some depth to the lower area of the design. And it validates to strict XHTML - a great testimonial to the service in itself.

The Good: Loving that texture in the top banner. Great code.

The Bad: Not too keen on the star badge (Order Now). Maybe use the same texture as the banner?

Matt Northam

Wow. Creativity gone wild but in-keeping with some golden design rules. I love the distressed wallpaper (although you may need a high resolution to appreciate all of it) - this is unique. I spent far too long following those flies around the banner though! A great, innovative design that only perhaps falters on its padding and use of space.

The Good: The wallpaper. Enough said.

The Bad: Feels a little cramped within the content area. Compliancy let down by the Flash usage. Could get around this though.

Tunnel 7

In stark contrast to Matt Northam, Tunnel 7 offer a very clean (but not boring) approach. Character is injected into the design by means of the tree illustrations. This site benefits from a great use of typography, mixing sans-serif and serif fonts effortlessly.

The Good: Layout is as crisp as…well…a crisp. Clean code shows that this site is well crafted.

The Bad: Maybe up the smaller font sizes just a tad?

Design Spectacle

One of the simplest but thoughtful design portfolios I’ve seen. No gimmicks. No succumbing to pointless design faff. A very creative header with a subtle starburst. Not really anywhere to go but a great introduction to Hugh Griffith and his work.

The Good: Imaginative header. Simplicity. Bold headers and complimentary colours.

The Bad: Maybe up the font size of the content?

And so, over to you…

Of course, I haven’t judged nor even seen every reboot as of yet. So this list isn’t exhaustive. Please share your favourites by dropping us a comment. And if you rebooted, why not inform us why you did it and the ideas/challenges involved?

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15 Responses to Best of the reboots ‘07

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I rebooted because the first mock I did of my site was just thrown together, with no concept or anything. I figured the reboot would be a good way excuse to do a re-design.

My site.

I participated in the Standards Reboot, and the site validates to xhtml/css, although it was kind of sad seeing that many of the sites did not validate.

Saad
May 2nd, 2007
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Funny to see so many little red “X” marks in the Standards Reboot. I wanted to make it, but when I realized that I had a design that I was in love with and the deadline so quickly approaching I made the decision. I won’t be done for a little while. I just figured that there was no point in sacrificing the design, the site mechanics or the content just to get a little link love. That is the excuse I back anyways.

Good work to anyone who actually participated in the reboot.

Steven Teskey
May 3rd, 2007
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Well done to all involved. Thanks for the links Andy - love the “good bad” comments.

Matt Davies
May 3rd, 2007
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love the “good bad” comments.

Why beat around the bush? ; )

Saad, thanks for the insights on why you rebooted. Anyone else care to divulge why they have/have not rebooted this year?

Steven, I think your reasons for holding back the new design are fully justified.

Andrew Faulkner
May 3rd, 2007
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Saad, your site is great. Nice work.

I agree with all the sites listed here except for Matt Northam’s. That site is a terrible mess, everything is squashed together, it falls apart terribly when text is enlarged, and the animated flies just distract the user. It’s a failed attempt at a standards-based design.

Montoya
May 3rd, 2007
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Saad,

Apologies. I didn’t compliment your design as I intended to in my last comment. I like the ’stained paper’ effect in the banner and at the top of the body. Subtle, but it adds character.

May I ask why visited links in the menu have a strikethrough?

Andrew Faulkner
May 3rd, 2007
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I was experimenting with visited links as I usually dont use them, but basically all the feedback ive gotten on the site has said to get rid of it. I’ll use visited links in the body.

I have a to-do list of details that I’ll be finishing, but I’m glad that I churned a design out.

Thanks for the comments, really does make one feel good about their work.

Saad
May 3rd, 2007
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My reboot: The Design Canopy

The inspiration for my design came from a Table of Contents layout in a magazine. The entire site design kind of developed around that layout and mood. It was a long, long process though. I have a full-time job, so it was a couple hours here and there, and staying up until 2AM many nights. It was worth it though to see my site alongside all the others.

However, I cringe every time I see the red X next to the XHTML Validation. I had forgotten to delete one line of markup from my index.php … Oh, the shame!! But it validates now.

My favorites are:

Playground Blues
Kosta Mijic
Jason Julien
blog.critical

David Yeiser
May 3rd, 2007
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Oh, I also meant to ask about the contest, is there anywhere I can find information about it? As in what criteria you’re judging and when the results will be announced? Thanks!

David Yeiser
May 3rd, 2007
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I second David’s questions.

On the standardsreboot site, I could not find any rules/regulations. I know someone (no names or sites) who submitted two designs, which werent re-designs, one was just a template, and then rated him/herself with a 5, (the work doesnt merit that, believe you me).

This has got me wondering, if a passionate group of people got together to create an ACTUAL standards based site, do you think that actual standards based web developers would take it seriously?

Saad
May 4th, 2007
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Thanks for the kind words Andrew :) it’s nice to get a review (of sorts) and I’ve now fixed the Flash/compliancy issue so thanks for raising that.

I don’t want to turn this into a tit-for-tat but I couldn’t let ‘Montoya’’s comments slide without gently saying: dude - it’s not a mess. The layout only breaks when the text gets bumped up 3++ and even then, it’s only 1 paragraph that gets a bit messy. The rest looks like large text, which is what you’d expect.. (?)

But blah :) horses for courses. I’ll probably take another look at the padding, but I’m happy for the moment. There’s too much space on the web anyway.. padding: 2px - it’s the future ;-)

Matt Northam
May 4th, 2007
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As far as being a judge at Standards Reboot is concerned, the advice given is to mark on design, coding and semantics (as shown by the ’stars’ on the website) - how one judges each element is really up to that particular judge.

Personally, where coding is concerned I am looking for sites that have strived to achieve optimum compliancy an accessibility. They may not be perfect for one reason or the other, but Rebooters should have tried to improve in this department.

For design, I vote highly for original designs that ‘work.’ This is very hard to judge due to everyone having an opinion on what is right in design. I really have to go for gut feeling and initial reaction. Some testing as far as browser resizing etc may sway me also.

Matt,

Thanks for tweaking the Flash code.

Andrew Faulkner
May 4th, 2007
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I thought it was kind of funny to see some sites that weren’t valid xhtml and css. Just thought if you wanted to reboot with standards in the first place that your site would validate.

Check out my reboot.

Mahir
May 5th, 2007
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I love the name of this site which makes me kinda glad my site didn’t end up on that list :P

Nathan Borror
May 7th, 2007
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I think www.ZieDesign.com is one of my favourite reboots. It has some wonderful colours and swirlies.

dazd
May 15th, 2007
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