Submissions for 12/28/02-1/2/03 (reply to this thread to submit a site)

talk design
1

If you wish to be considered for the SOTW for December 28, 2002 through January, 2, 2003, please read the summary of rules:

  1. Reply before Thursday, January 2 to be considered for the award.

  2. Include the URL and your email address. Only the webmaster/creator of the site can submit.

  3. Websites submitted must be at least 90% Flash. Sites that have HTML pages with a Flash intro are ineligible.

  4. 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.

  5. There will be a private poll among the moderators and a winner will be announced on Monday, January 6, 2003.

  6. 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 comprehensive rules for SOTW. 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.

2

Ok, here is my entry. =)

www.electrongeek.net

email: electrongeekz@hotmail.com

3

www.quintonfigueroa.com

me@quintonfigueroa.com

4

http://www.billz.ca

bill@billz.ca

btw im 14 :crazy:

<Note: I moved your thread submission to “Site Check.” People can give you detailed feedback there. Thanks for submitting your site here. As Lost said, we are trying to finally get everything organized. --Rengirl>

5

lschwartz@outboxin.com

6

eberth designs

reborn edition

http://www.eberthdesigns.com

eberth_@msn.com

7

The results are in:

electrongeek: 77.78%
slayerment: 0 votes
billz: 22.22%
outboxin: 0 votes
Eberth: 0 votes

The winner is ELECTRONGEEK!

Congratulations Electrongeek. You may also post a graphical award from this page: http://www.kirupa.com/gallery/awards.asp

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 besides some of the best on the web. Posted below are some critiques posted by the moderators during the poll.

8

Electrongeek: below are some comments regarding your site. Please note these are not MY comments, but the comments of other mods, re-posted by me anonymously.

“I love the unique elastic preloader, something you don’t see everyday. His site is a small file size and his whole site loads in good time. The interface graphics are just amazing, everything looks great and was easy to find. He made his site very big as an eye atraction, but it was also very easy to find out everything about his work and himself. The color scheme with the chrome is just plain sweet!”

“I’m greatly impressed by this guy. He took constructive criticism to a whole new level and built a great site from the ground up. First impression: he used an auto-maximizer, which I REALLY hate. But that aside, I think the splash is simple and effective. The main interface takes a while to load, so my expectations grow higher. But my expetations are fulfilled when it finally loaded. Elec seemlessly integrates high resolution graphics. It looks good overall, but the text is much too small to read. I understand he has to squeeze a lot of information in a small amount of space, but I think there are ways to cut that information down by at least 50% since a lot of it is just “padding.” I like the way the gallery is set up, I find it extremely easy to use although I would have wanted more viewing control when it comes to the actual pieces. Overall, I think it’s a wonderful site. I find the menu to be very usable, which is unlikely of futuristic sites, and the intersectional tweens to be refreshing and eye candied.”

“Nothing to change from Dans opinion, I believe Electrongeek has some great Flash design talent and I voted for his site.”

“Electrongeeks werk is complete and very appealing to the eye. His load times are a tad on the long side, but nothing too large to be an annoyance. (56k) His colors scheme is excellent and werks well with his material and navigation. His effects are simple, yet appealing and interesting. I would have loved to see him take better advantage of the large screen though. His fonts and buttons are easy enough for anyone of any age group. His site is very usable and simple to navigate. The actual interface artwerk is excellent but not outstanding and he could do better. ElectronGeek gets my vote for site of the week! :P:P”

“I’m not a fan of the futuristic look, even though EG did a pretty good job. But it lags a bit on my computer, the font is hard to read, and most of all his work is not put forward. You have to watch his very nice renders little by little, with a very bad scrolling. It’s really too bad. :-”

9

Slayerment: below are some comments regarding your site. Please note these are not MY comments, but the comments of other mods, re-posted by me anonymously.

“I like his transitions, I know him from another forum and he is an addict and makes some great maya work. He just doesn’t have an interface that caught my eye. The color scheme with the gray and red is nice, but not as nice as elecrongeek’s. He has a good basis so far, but I still think he can work on some things and it could be great.”

“This site is ok, but it could have been more cleanly executed. I’m not too fond of the colors and he could have used more contrast to emphasize areas of importance. I’m not too fond of the use of the dotted lines throughout the site - they don’t seem to match or fit in. The animation tween for the submenu is also a little awkward, since the menu text jumps to the far right, forcing the eye to adjust to see what they’re clicking on exactly. But it is a good start. It’s basically usable, I think he just needs to be more detail-oriented.”

“It was good, but I think it still needs some work somehow. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something just seems off.”

“Although I love Slayerments werk, it isn’t as good as his comptetition. One thing he lacks is something like a professional net look, no other way to describe it, and I am sure he will one day win, but not this week.”

“I like it better. The colors are not as cold, the font is easier to read, there’s motion but the site remains clear, it’s trendy and all, it’s nice.”

10

Billz: below are some comments regarding your site. Please note these are not MY comments, but the comments of other mods, re-posted by me anonymously.

“Nice and simple, but it wasn’t exactly eye catching. His navigation was very good and easy to use and also easy to find information. The colors were a little to plain for me. Overall I think it was a great site, but just not a site that catches my eye as well. It sure does look better than 75% of other sites out there made in Flash.”

“What can I say, I really really like billz site. First impression, the splash screen seems to be a bit out of sync with the main page. The typographical treatment of the site’s name (bold text done in aqua) doesn’t properly match the thin lines and basic black & white interface. I would also recommend that he emphasize the ENTER button (or make the billz.ca graphic clickable), as it is easily lost in the other small buttons. He seems to be using a similar font face and style as elec, however it’s a tad easier to read because it’s black text on a white background. The visual heirarchy is very clear and consistent with this site. I also like that the sections differ slightly in layout with full color nature photos to contrast the black and white.”

“I was torn between Electrongeek and Billz site here, Billz is more my style, I love simplicity and grey and white, and the splash of colors in the images were excellent contrasts, I thought it was all around great. I chose not to vote for this one because it seems electrongeek put more work and time making all the graphics for his site, and getting them to work together in flash flawlessly.”

“Billz werk is great, and simple. It is pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate. It is quick and easy to load. It is a tad boring though and uninspirational.”

“I just love the minimalist touch of the site. The pictures are very nice and colorful, and it’s a very nice contrast with the white and the grey of the rest of the site. The space is very well occupied, everything is easy to read, the transitions are nice… It’s the kind of site I’d like to do someday :+)”

11

Outboxin: below are some comments regarding your site. Please note these are not MY comments, but the comments of other mods, re-posted by me anonymously.

“A very good corporate site for a design firm, but again I am an interface person and his lacked creativity. The site seemed a little less organized than I would have liked, but over all it looks like it contains something that a lot of clients want in a site. Well it is kind of hard to compete with graphic intensive sites, which he lacks in his corporate site, maybe some of his client sites would have been more up to par.”

“The intro - over the top and unnecessary IMO. Thankfully he has a skip intro button. The main page uses easy-to-read font, but so much text contributes to an overall noisy, first page. I was confused for a second about the interface. Menus are typically at the top, right under the headerbar, so naturally, I thought those set of icons was the menu. Wrong - that’s actually the portfolio. I say they should not put a menu-like component in a place where a menu typically lies. Moving along, ahh, the menu is at the bottom. I actually like the interactivity with these menus, it’s simple and straightforward. I might just suggest bumping them up in size or contrast just a bit so they stand out. The contents are just so big and bold that the menu tends to lose attention - slightly less usable. It’s a good effort, but I’d expect more from a team of professionals established in 1995.”

“Ew… I am sorry, but nothing about this site caught my eye. It gigantic, text, images, and all. Although, now that I think about it, the menu at the bottom is cool, but that is about all I like about it.”

“Outside the Box in my opinion has it all. i like the interface, I like the load times, I like the finished look and feel. I like it all. But it isn’t the werk of one person.”

“Not the same league, I think. It’s a nice site, but the transitions are not very clean. It just doesn’t look as professional as the other sites. The color scheme is strange, and I don’t like the double navigation, it’s confusing.”

12

Eberth: below are some comments regarding your site. Please note these are not MY comments, but the comments of other mods, re-posted by me anonymously.

“Catching transitions, even if they are a little trendy. The menu isn’t as clean as I would want my menu, but I have to realize he is still a semi-beginner at the Flash world of design and graphics. It just didn’t seem to flow, but he still improved much from his last version.”

“This site has a lot of potential but it needs some improvements. The splash page has some usability issues and it’s a little garish for my taste. I think he would have benefitted using a small graphical statement and text links - no flash. The first thing that struck me was that the site was calibrated only for large screen settings and maximized browser, so I was forced to side-scroll. The menu is a bit of a guessing game, as mentioned in a critique to his site. The layout and graphics can also use a little cleaning up - they appear inorderly laid out. However, I think it has potential if Eberth is open to constructive criticism.”

“He has improved from his last version, and he is a beginner, so I could have mercy on him, but I also believe that even if you are a beginner, you are competing for SOTW against people who aren’t, so you should be prepared to handle it. His site doesn’t flow well as Dan said, and also, he has no lab, he has the section, but nothing in it, shouldn’t a site be completed, or at least have a little something in each section. And the effect on the buttons in the lab section can be downloaded as open source from http://www.mjau-mjau.com/ , I am not sure if this matters or not because SOTW is about the creators skills in flash, but also, modifying open source to work for your needs could be considered, I am not sure what to think about that.”

“Eberths werk is good but wanting in many areas. The navigation is severely wanting and incomplete, and the entire look is a bit drab.”

“Nice design, but there are no transitions, and the space is not very well occupied. There are “holes” everywhere, it looks empty, and very static. I don’t like it so much.”

13

Electrongeek vs Billz: a lot of us mods were very torn about who to choose between the two of you. Here are some comments, once again, anonymous:

“I’m so torn between elec and billz. You guys might find the interface boring, but I think it’s a refreshing change from complicated layouts that are rampant these days. I think I’m going to have to go with billz on this one.”

"I was so torn between Elec and Billz, I was racking my brain trying to figure out who to vote for, I love them both. But then I determined that Electrongeek probably did more work creating each of the interface elements in Cinema4D then cutting them up and getting them to work flawlessly in Flash (which if anyone who has imported images into flash should know… flash loves to screw up the borders of images). And I beta tested his site (ironic) and he said it took him forever to do his preloader because it isn’t just an animation, he doesn’t want to give out how he did it, because he said he worked so hard on getting the code for it to work right and I know how he feels there.

And his server is funky so I don’t have load time as an option against him, sometimes it loads so fast that I barely get to see a preloader, and other times the preloader seems like it won’t go away, so he has no control over that, it is a server problem and he said that he is planning on switching servers soon.

So yeah, that is why I voted for Electrongeek, because it seems to me that he put more work into his whole design and site."

“Ai, those sites were quite good. I liked both Electrongeek’s and bill’s site, but I think, overall, Electrongeek’s was better. It was more unique than the ultra-clean, pixel font look (which looks very similar to aroots.com) that bill has.”

14

I was going to lock this to prevent someone from trying to submit a site here, but I doubt that will happen now that I think about it. Anyway, I think it would be better to leave it open now and allow everyone to make additional comments.

Also, Elec, you are not qualified to compete for next week, as you already won, so I deleted your entry. (-:

Everyone and anyone can comment here now that this running week is over! C:-)

15

That’s fine Rengirl, Phil already stressed me out enough this week. hahah :beam:

16

congratulations electrongeek, you have a great site and you deserve the award. Thanks to everyone who voted for me, and I have sumbitted my site for next week :beam:

Bill Michelson

17

Congrats Electrongeek. Your site is truly amazing. Its crazy that uve been doing flash maybe 5 months now and are already this good. very impressive! Thanks for all the critiques on my site guys. very helpful and nice.

18

Congrats Electrongeek!!!
Your site is really amazing and you deserve 100% the award
:smiley:

19

Thanks guys, all of you guys are worthy opponents and made it really hard for me to win. I knew my old layout wasn’t going to cut it so I had to make a new one. =) Good job everyone.

20

Congratulations.
Keep up the good work.
Let’s see the next!!!