Design Shack — Web Design Gallery, Articles & Community

Forun Brafitec 2010

This page features a noisy textured background with a dramatic vignette that is ideally suited to draw your attention toward the big photographs in the center. The typography on the page is quite nice and worth noting as well.

Mid Summer Jazz 2010

This beautiful site uses a grunge textured background and excellently attractive typography. The navigation takes you to a new section of the same page, divided visually by vivid color changes.

Great Bible Tales

This is the "coming soon" page for a new site for reading Bible stories. The black site really emphasizes the drama of the background image and makes for great contrast on the white to gray text.

Sticker Mule

Sticker Mule sells custom printed stickers, laptop and iPhone skins. It is an inviting, friendly design packed with vivid colour. The beautiful cloud of stickers on the right really grabs your attention. Also, the icons on the bottom of the page are quite detailed and attractive.

Snow Reports

Another gorgeous iPhone application site, Snow Reports is a little heavy on the reflections, but executes type well and follows a solid colours scheme. A good example of simple design that serves its purpose well, with graphics that are completely suitable for the use of the application.

jQuery For Designers

jQuery for Designers helps offer a great understanding of JavaScript for designers, and bridges a little of the barrier to the "funky interaction stuff". The site combines clean lines with rough texture, and manages to pull both off with plenty of spacing and a clear sense of structure. The formatting in blog posts is clearly thought through in-depth, and executed well.

AW Industries

Alexander's portfolio takes on a steel and purple hue, featuring a scrolling portfolio slideshow that appears to "hover" over the rest of the page. I also particularly like the contact page, which includes a postcard mockup, a rate card designed in the style of a till receipt, and a timeline showing how most design projects are worked through.

Design Swap

A novel concept, the idea behind Design Swap is that pairs of designers team up to "swap" the design of an aspect of their site. It's an exercise in trust, and - in my opinion - a thoroughly fantastic idea. The design of the site is wonderful, full of attention to detail and well chosen typography. I particularly like the stylised signatures in the footer, and the consistent use of the bold logo. Definitely worth subscribing to, and keeping track of over the coming months.

Typetester

Typetester is a useful service for comparing different typefaces for reproduction on screen. You can select a whole range of different options for the display formatting, and compare three typefaces side-by-side. The design of the site itself is fairly basic, but produced to execute one task very well. Everything seems very busy at first, but the reason for this becomes apparent as you start using the application. A great tool for any web designer.

TweetShare

TweetShare aims to let you have a discussion (including the sharing of files and documents), using Twitter as a platform. An interesting idea! The design of the site takes a slightly more professional tone than many other Twitter services, with a subtle use of gradients and bold buttons. Logical, clear, and simple.

Drink Up Austin

Providing information all the places that serve alcohol in Austin, Drink Up Austin is a colourful, playful design that matches it's purpose well. Certain aspects of the colour scheme feel a little garish at first, but the design feels natural as you navigate around. Contrast is used well to draw your attention to certain elements of the design.

Cobblestone Community Network

Cobblestone is designed to move people deeper into real relationships. The design of the site is slick, professional, and subtle. The use of subtle gradients and drop shadows gives the site depth, and the purpose is made clear straight away. I particularly like the top navigation, which manages to pull off a slight transparency, a simple texture, and some well balanced typography.

Real Mac Software

A popular Mac software developer, Realmac produce some gorgeous applications and have a website to match. Each app is given plenty of surrounding space, and navigation is very clear. The design is made particularly special due to the application icons which are used to great effect. Be sure to dig past the homepage to see a far more immersive and visually rich design.

Versions App

Apop

Axel Sears

Many Faces of Alan Rickman

There's a lot to love about this carefully crafted website from the talented folks at Paravel. From the delightful illustration, through to the carefully crafted copy, it's a real joy to browse through. Whether or not you're familiar with the work of Alan Rickman, I'd urge you to click through to find out how wonderful a small, personal project can be. I'm thoroughly looking forward to the other names waiting to be added to this lineup of small promotional sites!

A Modern Eden

For a Beautiful Web

Vartro