If you wish to be considered for the SOTW for March 14-20, 2003, please read the summary of rules:
Reply by Thursday, March 20 to be considered for this week’s award.
Include the URL and your email address.[list=a][]Only the webmaster/creator of the site can submit.
[]Only one submission per person per week.
[*]Submissions are capped at [COLOR=red]10 each week[/COLOR], so don’t wait or hesitate until the last minute.
[/list=a]
Websites submitted must be at least 90% Flash. Sites that have HTML pages with a Flash intro are ineligible.
While it is understood that sites are perpetually under construction, please submit only complete sites. Do not submit a site that is less than 80% finished.
Submissions must be actual websites with sections and content. Examples of ineligible include (but not limited to) flash games, movies, etc.
There will be a private poll among the moderators and a winner will be announced by Tuesday, March 25, 2003.
No critiques or feedback is allowed in the submission thread. If you wish a concentrated critique of your site, you may start a thread in Site Check.
For more information or questions, please refer to the Official SOTW Rules. Once you have read and understand the rules above, you may submit your site to this thread. Sites not adhering to the rules above will be disqualified and deleted. Submitting your site is an agreement and acceptance of the rules.
[COLOR=red]Side Note:[/COLOR]: Kirupa has recently switched servers, causing us to lose quite a few submissions. I have manually added your submissions below.
I’m sorry, I know it’s against the rules, but I’d like to submit a site for a friend of mine who desperately TRIED to submit but couldn’t. Some people just can’t speak English…
If you don’t accept it, which I’ll understand, I’ll try to have him submit the site.
Good job to all the participants. One of the valuable aspects of SOTW is to get valuable feedback about your site and get an idea of how well it stands beside some of the best on the web. Check back later as mod critiques will be posted later today.
This site is a nice start, but it still has a long way to go before it reaches SOTW material. The main things it lacks is consistency and a professional look.
Paved with good intentions, but the design is poor and colorless.
empty 1st page, too square, too many animations constantly playing, not the necessary quality for SOTW
Man this site is giant, I had to scroll left, right, up, down just to see anything. The text is a bit huge as well IMO. Still needs a lot of work.
Didn’t like the music on as default. Its a nice start, but needs a lot more depth.
Pretty decent site overall. The color scheme needs some work, the clouds moving across the screen is nice but looks extremely artificial. There are some lines that need to be removed or sharpened - the site needs some more refinining.
Hmmm. I wasn’t convinced by this one. I think it had something to do with the colour scheme and the font, but it looked kind of amateur-ish. I liked the idea of the circles in the main page, but overall I think the artwork could use some improvement. That flashing line that randomly occurs did my head in as well. I was never sure if it was a rollover thing or not, and it gave me a headache. Navigation was simple to follow, but there was a lot of empty space.
A good start and there seems to be some potential here but this award is not for beginners at all. In any case, I definitely believe cheez00 is off to a good start - he seems to be developing a solid foundation by including an “off” function for the sound. The site is also fairly usable and easy to read. Some areas that could use some improving: I don’t really understand the purpose of this “close menu” / “lower menu” other than to “have something cool.” It’s not particularly intuitive or function in a useful way. Cheez also has A LOT of work ahead of him in terms of design. The colors are awkward and the typography appears randomly slapped together to produce a sloppy layout. It also does not fit in an 800x600 screen.
lala:
This site is simple and simplicity is good, but I thought it was a bit dull since my expectations were a bit high when I saw the splash page. The transitions between each section needs to be smoother and something more creative to balance out the site’s simplicity. Loading time took awhile and in some sections, the preloader didn’t show up for atleast 5 secods.
I don’t really see why you chose to use Flash. A bit too HTML-like for me, sorry.
nice, but not enuff content. why the animated box as “loading” and not a mango instead to go with the theme…?
I don’t know if your preloader bar is supposed to grow with the amount loaded, but all I got was a white bar that said loading. Then after a while it finally said complete. Except for a few tiny transition elements (which are choppy) your site is one that could easily be done in HTML.
Spelling mistake on entry (patience). Resume says to look at menu in upper right. I couldn’t find a menu in the upper right. You need to define a hit state in your buttons in your artwork section.
The site is simple, and the mango graphic looks really cool. The content isn’t bad, but loading time was a hassle. There seems to be an imbalance between the left side of the animation with the logo and the right side with the actual contents.
I liked the scrawl - look of the opening page, although I’m not a bif fan of the splash page phenomenon. Once inside, it was very… minimalist. Lots of white space and not much going on. I’m really not sure if this ought to be a fully Flash site, it doesn’t really need it. The only thing that uses it is the preloader. I thought the menu was clear again, and there were some good images and files there.
Just say no to teeny tiny text.
DeV:
I like the color scheme and layout of this site. The transitions are pretty smooth even with the 3D logo. The only thing I didn’t like about this site is the font used for the navigation and some of the content text, didn’t seem to go well with the overall layout.
Nice experiments. Next time you rip Bit-101’s experiments, give some credit. I’m not even considering this site for SOTW.
nice site, looks a bit too much like the new Macromedia colors…, loads fast. not working/empty?!: about>modus and contact>proposals>go button the animated text transitions are over the menu, better have them behind…? a preloader for the artworks please always give the user something to look at, do not open each section on an empty space until he clicks! select a default content to show for each.
Interesting navigation, I like the effect on the bar above it. I don’t see any point in having Kirupas continuous motion tutorial effect in your services section. Also what is up with those lines with the dots at the end? They seem like things just to take up negative space. The about section seems to be the only section that utilizes those lines to define the actual layout of the section.
Modus button does nothing. I would like to see you mask the info in the services section, so that it doesn’t slide up over the nav. Needs a preloader, or some sort of notice on the artwork. Designs button didn’t work. Quote in links section is way too light. Don’t like the funky lettering on your contact form. Nice colors, looks very Flash 4 for some reason.
The colors are really nice. Gotta love the continuous scrolling circles The site isn’t bad, but the site does not feel professional/edgy enough. The GO button under Proposals didn’t work.
Very nice looking. Again, a lot of grey, but this didn’t overpower, as the other colours blended in rather than stood out. I prefer this. Pretty quick loading which pleased me, and some good work on there too. I liked the login feature for regular users / clients. Very eyecatching in it’s simplicity. The preloader is a good one too. Doesn’t last too long, just long enough for you to go “Hey, that’s cool.”.
Cool inter-section animations. The layout has great potential, but there’s just little details that it’s lacking - the alignment is sloppy, blurry text, inconsistent font usage. Also, when I click on some of the submenus - nothing happens. No “coming soon” or any indication of what exactly is going on - that’s annoying.
I like the vector art used on this site, very clean and the layout is nice as well. Only problem I noticed is that some of the text is blurry, but overall nice work. I voted for AnOraK because out of all the site, it was the most consitent and well laid out.
Frustrating site, in a good way :). I love the design and the artwork, very cartoonesque and all, but it’s not moving. OK, here’s an advice from a pathetic designer (that would be me): maybe you could have the characters in the foreground move a little bit left or right, as if you were doing a travelling. All right, I’m not making any sense, so I’ll stop here. Nice site.
Second: Anorak: Would’ve voted for you coz of the very good vector illustration, I just think with all this bakery stuff, it’s not obvious enuff what the site is about. sorry.
Hmm, it seems nothing has changed with this site since it was last submitted. The vector art is still astounding, but that font is still small and blurry, making it hard to read. My vote went to AnOraK, even though the font was incredibly small, out of all the sites here, I liked that one the best.
Beautiful artwork, nicely done. Pleasant journey, even with the music on by default. Wonderful technique for a tough audience, even if it is a bit on the pun-ny side. I voted for Anorak, simply because that site was the only one that compelled me to look at everything, and did not leave me wanting more. In doing a site for a design firm, it is very tough to broadcast the personality of it’s team. I thought this site fulfilled it’s purpose the best out of the entrants.
Same as last time - the idea and the colors are really nice. There doesn’t seem to be much content, but the transitions do looks really nice. I voted for anorak - the colors were nice, and the characters reminded me of some of the pictures one sees hanging around a doctor’s waiting room.
I liked this site when it was submitted last time. I’m a huge fan of that line art style, and I like the way it’s ben used here. The animations and transitions are simple and understated. So the characters’ eyes blink, things like that. I also like the little mascot. My only real gripe was the music, there seemed to be no way to turn it off. That would have been nice. I’m going for Anorak.
Pretty much same as before: other than the vague menu labels, this site is great! The illustrations are very clear and well done.
putch:
This site isn’t too bad, straight to the point and very informative, but I feel it’s not quite SOTW material. It doesn’t have the “wow” I think that is needed.
Well executed, but the Home page looks really weird. I don’t know, I found the design a bit tasteless.
nice & simple portfolio, ugly contact form, too many textblocks.
Not too shabby, but still could use a lot of work to reach that SOTW level.
UUUUUgggghh! a popup! It is huge, this better be good. Never did load. I waited 20 minutes twice, and it never loaded.
A nice site showcasing his business. The graphics were quite nice, but he needs to do some minor work in refining the site. The high quality of the graphics did not complement the large, aliased font. The volume slider gave me some problems also.
Pop up, so minus points there I’m afraid. I liked the look of this site, it was very clear and simple. Good choice of colour - red black and white always seem to work well together. An off button for the music too, thanks for thinking of that. But that box was always over the top of any other contnet, you have to close it to read the rest. Easy to navigate and some nice little elements in there too.
454K? Of what? There was no interesting graphics, navigation or animations. No matter… perhaps the long download is due to a large portfolio… NOPE - you have to download those individually too! That aside - it’s all just lukewarm, both design-wise and flash-wise. It doesn’t inspire or innovate.
VIKINGS:
The intro is way too long, graphics are poor quality, site has no define color scheme, no consistent theme, and content is laid out poorly. Needs major work…
Nice site, but there are certain things that I really disliked: the frame rate is definitely too low, especially in the intro ; the transition between parts could be nice, with the shutters and all, but as it is now, the movie “jumps” as the content suddenly disappears ; try to keep the same kind of design in your whole site (schools and department).
VERY low quality pics in the intro! Another empty page presented. (see comments for dev) In “welcome”: WAY too much text, nobody’s gonna bother reading all that on the internet!! Ugly grayscale transitions In Staff: no way to select or click the individual e-mails as they only show on rollover, make it user-friendly. In a nice interface like this (yup, like it), WARN the user before sending them off to new browser pages which look completely different, as in “photo albums” and Misc. ! Kills to look! Not bad, can get much better & win if using a bit more imagination to take advantage of FLash’s capabilities.
The intro id DEFINITELY too long. Some of the text was also hard to read on some of those backgrounds and some of it was just blurry as well. The overall layout and such were just too basic also.
music on by default, without an off switch. Departments section - why did the photos go away? Too plain.
The site is quite good, but the layout and color scheme need some work. From a technical point of view, the staff pages are programmed quite well.
Splash page, yawn… Still not convinced by them, I’d rather the site just loaded. You put a skip intro button there too, which I was pleased about. Very clear navigation, but the buttons seemed a little on the plain side. It was all a bit confusing really. There didn’t appear to be much in the way of a colour scheme, and it was a bit jumpy.
Information sites are best done in HTML. This site just doesn’t seem professional or well-executed. The backgrounds and use of gradients are not used properly and there’s no consistency in design. The misuse of loud colors also makes for a confused visual hierarchy.
i liked the tony203 one because of the nice use of colors, although very mac-like. sounds were great music was OK and animation was crisp and smooth. the last two up there didn’t even load for me.
Now this site is nice, very clean with nice graphics, the music seemed a bit off, but good thing there’s a off button.
Clean, fast, nice.
My vote: tony. I love the aqua style, loads fast, nice icons, simple & clean. No need for the date & clock…
Interesting color choice. Nice and smooth transitions.
music on by default. nice, pretty. Not much depth tho. very fresh look… kinda IMac-ish.
The site is really good, but it just doesn’t give you a Web page feel. The design looks like something printed on a newspaper - the texture of the graphics give it that feel.
Nice and imaginative. I liked the blue scheme and the lightbulb hovering in the foreground. I did want to click on it though. Downside was that I couldn’t understand anything, but if I had been able to then the nav was simple to follow too. Good choice of pictures, and the whole thing loaded nice and quickly for me.
Very nice. The graphics are crisp and the site is very well-designed. I don’t understand (or at least fully understand) the words on this site, yet it was easy to navigate. Overall, I think this site has the components for a SOTW.
dendy:
After waiting about 20 seconds for the splash page to load, I waited for another 40 seconds for the main site to load. That was a total of a minute I had to wait and I’m on a broadband connection. It’s a shame because the site has a nice concept, but the loading time was the downside.
cool site. I like the keyboard, even though I still don’t see what it’s doing here. Too bad it’s a bit empty because I really like it.
Wow, I am on cable and this took FOREVER to load. I am actually not even sure if your splash page ever finishes loading, it took so long I just skipped it once the button loaded. Has a nice look inside though. Interesting idea. But if you click on one button and roll over another button, then the section closes on you, I don’t really like that, I accidently rolled over your buttons a few times and it closed out the section, so I had to click on the button again and wait for the transitions again.
music on by default. Intro page did not load. Music off button did not work the first time I clicked it. Nice, nothing outstanding.
Site was down when I checked it around 8:10 CST
Took an eternity to load the very first page, which annoyed me, and it wasn’t really worth it from what I saw. Once it was loaded it looked good. The idea of the keyboard was a nice touch, but I would have liked the interactivity of it with the menu to have worked both ways. Empty portfolio too, or else it just didn’t load.
daniel_k:
This site looks unfinished for some reason and I don’t like the way the navigation is setup. The keyboard is a nice concept, but I thought it would be nice to expand on that idea a bit ore and make it more elaborate. It’s not quite SOTW material either.
Very simple site, poor design, mystery meat navigation… It needs more work.
I couldn’t find the navigation at first. Also the font is blurry and the color scheme isn’t that great. And why are you trying to squeeze all your information into that tiny blue area? Not really SOTW material IMO.
Never loaded for me.
Site wouldn’t load either
My company firewall wouldn’t allow me access to this.
The splash screen is taking an awful long time to load! First impression: nice interface and graphics! I like the interaction between the keyboard and the sections. I really don’t like the tiny font though. Fix that and the splash screen and your site would be great!
Not loading…
general comments:
No comments for dendy & daniel coz their sites never loaded (cable, waited 30 secs each & refreshed twice…).
:beam: :trout: :beam: 