The 99% Conference

Behance's 99 Percent Conference bills itself as one "...that focuses less on inspiration, and more on how idea generation and organization come together to make ideas happen." Not suprisingly, they have one of the best looking conference sites to set the stage, showcasing the speakers and event. The treatment of the slash motif morphing into the trapezoids repeated throughout the site in the photography is cool. I like the dark bold color treatment and the clean hierarchy in tables, forms, and text.

http://www.the99percent.com/

Published on Monday, Mar 23, 2009 in designs

howies

My friend Carl told me about howies a while ago, but I only recently had a look back. They're a clothing and accessories company that aims at providing products with materials and construction that are meant to last and can be handed down to others for reuse. What I like most is how they use storytelling to provide a picture about materials in their products and their handmedown idea, which is communicated in its own mini site.

The main site is a no-nonsense minimal showroom and store with friendly, approachable type and spare, straightforward product pages. Nice little details like the little animated pixel icons in the header and the smiley face favicon (hat tip to k10k?). There's something about the idea of buying quality products that are made to last that should make you feel happy, and I think they communicate that well.

http://www.howies.co.uk/

Published on Wednesday, Mar 11, 2009 in designs

Richard Hollis

I like the simplicity of the portfolio pages on graphic and book designer Richard Hollis' site. The layout of the thumbnails of the design work as if posted on presentation board is nice. Clever shadows on the folded pieces are a nice touch as well. The enlarged images in the product details put the work front and center, with no need for explanation.

Via siteInspire

http://www.richardhollis.com/index.php

Published on Wednesday, Mar 11, 2009 in designs

thesixytone

Hard to believe that independent music sites continue to find ways to create social experiences around listening to music in the wake of huge, established communities like last.fm scrobbling and one to one experiences like muxtape playlist sharing. thesixtyone brings band and listener contribution together by letting musicians upload music, while listeners surface the tracks that deserve attention.

It's a nice minimal design that focuses on the experience of playing the new and popular music people are listening to and favoriting. A simple filtering mechanism at the left lets you sort by most active, popular, and recently uploaded while the links at the right allows you to limit by genre. The filters work together, so that your activity and genre selection sticks as you modify either one. Very nicely done.

http://www.thesixtyone.com

Published on Tuesday, Mar 10, 2009 in designs

Twix.com

Man, the candy advertising biz sure spends a lot on creative work. While not as unexpected as the Skittles site, the interactive storytelling on Twix.com takes you through a scenario where you get to play a guy trying and lying to pick up a girl at a party by helping him make strategic decisions at each Twix moment. Guess 18-30-ish guys are their target demographic. Clever use of interactive video and a humorous story to keep you engaged on the site for more than a few seconds.

http://twix.com/

Published on Tuesday, Mar 10, 2009 in designs

UNIFFY

The Uniffy is a collaborative project of decoration and customization of spaces, environments and all kinds of objects, which are opportunities to express ideas and ways of harmonizing the house and give personality, elegance and distinction. With Uniffy, you can change the look of any environment, because the combinations and possibilities are endless, and best of all, is that the adhesives are easy and quick to apply. They were specially created for people who like to customize and are in constant search for new forms of self-expression ..... The applications are diverse, from walls, floors, windows, mirrors, tables, furniture, or any other surface.

http://www.uniffy.com

Published on Tuesday, Mar 10, 2009 in designs

Hotel Arca lui Noe - Sinaia

Hotel Arca lui Noe, a 4-star hotel in Sinaia, was designed in 2005 and offers its guests a magnificent panoramic view of Bucegi Mountains.

Arca lui Noe was designed to be a hotel in the grand European style and this goal has indeed been reached. With 31 rooms and 2 suites on 9 floors, the building stands over 27 m high.

http://www.hotelarcaluinoe.ro/

Published on Monday, Mar 2, 2009 in designs

Skittles

Stealing a page out of Modernista's book, Skittles launches a site that uses social networking and media sites as its backdrop. Like the Modernista site, the effect is unexpected and attention getting. Choosing Twitter for this experiment was pretty gutsy. Whereas they could have more control over what goes on their YouTube and Facebook pages, the sentiment on Twitter isn't all too positive. You can check the live feed of Skittles tweets at Newstrendz, a new social trends site. But a more troubling issue with this design is its similarity to Modernista's and calls to question the issue of plagiarism.

http://www.skittles.com/chatter.htm

Published on Monday, Mar 2, 2009 in designs

Squared Eye

Squared Eye's newly relaunched site goes down in my short list of favorite redesigns. I love the fun art direction and editorial copy throughout the site, starting with the excellent whale logo, the crafty feel of the cutout graphpaper waves in those beiges and workingman blues that remind me of ledger paper, to the excellent copy in the headlines making reference to the water theme, and the attention to detail in every link and mouseover. Wonderful stuff.

http://squaredeye.com/

Published on Monday, Feb 23, 2009 in designs

SoftFacade

Softfacade do icon design, visual interface design, and logo design. Clean site that does a very nice job of emphasizes new projects from their large portfolio of icon work as well as surfacing their blog entries in a sidebar.

http://www.softfacade.com/

Published on Monday, Feb 16, 2009 in designs