most inspired - blog

1. 
   http://milesdowsett.com

   Overlooked this site in last weeks picks. Quality stuff running on ExpressionEngine. A screenshot thumbnail for portfolio navigation is kind of the norm, but this portfolio page utilizes mini 25×25px icons for each site featured, and the user-interface there along with the pages info-architecture and hierarchy make for easy viewing. Great stuff…..

2. 
   http://jasonsantamaria.com

   The new redesign of rockstar designer Jason Santa Maria seems to be built on EE this go round. Jason has authored a few resources on Web Standards and the like that I find myself referring to repeatedly. His portfolio contains some notable sites, such as HappyCog, AlistApart, and Dictionary.com to name a few. The layout, to coin a phrase -is a multi-columned news-style layout. Here’s a link to Jason’s blog post on the redesign.
   Pretty cool for EE fans, that is all from this “Paparaz-ee”.

3. 
   http://www.arcinspirations.com/kobe

   An increcibly adepth sliding navigation and website. Many of the sites resources are downloadble PDF menus, so they don’t have too many problems with the box layout not resizing to accommodate for text. The creative uses of jQuery on this one have been hit squarely out of the park! Also another use of a flash animated background technique to produce “ sparks” behind the active page link in the main navigation. For an even more indepth look at how this site is put together, check the SmashingMazagine post on useful coding solutions 1st one on the list.

4. 
   http://www.sroown.com

   An innovative portfolio solution, a lot of content presented tastefully in a one-page layout, using the prototype-scriptaculous duo of javascript libraries, amongst other resource.

5. 
   http://www.gianmarcolauriola.com

   An urban grafitti layout, can you dig it?!#! There’s a bit of an Easter Egg if you load the site in IE6 you’ll see this lovely message alert box. I couldn’t manage to track down where it was being served up in the stylesheets? The IE6 warning replaces the RSS feed and welcome message in the upper right… nice… that should turn some heads.
   

I’m planning to be out on vacation next week, we will continue with week #21 of the Weekly Top Standards website picks, after a short delay. Until next time, good luck finding inspiration for your next project or website design! ~ty

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1. 
   Nataliadevalle.com.ar

   A casual designer portfolio from Argentina, fun design.

2. 
   Tcommeterre.com

   Don’t miss the horizontal parallax portfolio scroller, done with jQuery and a plugin called wSlide, pretty kewl!! The wslide demo pages are in French, be sure to open an English translated page (hopefully this link will work) to see the three sample demo pages, links found at the bottom of the first demo page.

3. 
   Phizz.biz

   With a name like Phizz, they had to go with the biz domain extension. The site is using some asp.net technologies, which you just don’t see too much in web standards circles, great design. There are a few tables in the layout, but sometimes a table is just a no-fuss and logical solution, or creates a pagination set.

4. 
   Ignitenewmedia.net

   Nice to look at, peculiar there don’t seem to be any alt tags for images though. There are many benefits to using alt tags, including search engine optimization. The tables-based nav strikes me as odd also, the css-based sliding doors techique is hard to beat for image-based navigation. They’ve done a great job of making the background transparency work even in IE6, kudos for that. Sorry for being a stickler about the tables this week. Whilst I’m on a roll here, the portofolio pop-ups opening in a new window are ok for new sites, but for images a lightbox treatment would be better.
   Onward & upward…

5. 
   Bgpatterns.com

   A web two-point-oh way of exploring background images and sharing them, certainly worth exploring.

6. 
   Etmaguire.com/

   Eric Maguire’s portfolio in the making, lots of impressive sites thus far, and more on the way it looks like. Couldn’t help notice Eric’s showing Most Inspired some love there in the sidebar, thanks Eric.

7. 
   Spacecollective.org/

   If you are a science geek, you need to check this one out! If not check it out anyways, a plethora of visual science projects on-board, with a flexible width layout of 100% and links to hundreds of sci-fi websites out there.

8. 
   Friskdesign.com/

   Not surprised to see this one was built with Wordpress, yes designing a wordpress theme is a genuine design service, not just something you “slice and dice”. Frisk Design specializes in Wordpress it would seem, this bubbly site design is quite a looker.

9. 
   Shiftspace.org/

   Something new [shift] + [space] offers a whole new social browsing experience, with it’s firefox plugin approach to add an open source layer above any webpage. Thoughts on this startup anyone?

10. 
    Fontpark.morisawa.co.jp/

    Font art, shuffling letters to create artworks, view and create your own. Flash fantástico, this one, have some fun with this amusing art experience!

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1. 
   Upstruct.com
   Interesting and trendy concept portfolio site, with Prototype and Scriptaculous as the javascript libraries of choice.

2. 
   AlexBuga.com
   One from my favorites, this one has some very interesting script features using mootools and some other “stuff”. The green hanging lamp slides back and forth on a slider and produces a realistic light effect. The PNG image of the lamp includes the shining light that is a transparency effect using white for the light. (Note to self: start doing cool stuff with png or else!).

3. 
   Dgscreative.cz/en Something resembling creativity, and it doesn’t hurt to have creative in your sites domain name either. The 3D Create logo is spectacular. Another fine detail is the sequential “Loading” animation when viewing portfolio pieces in the lihgtbox overlay.

4. 
   Albertlo.com
   Movable Type CMS, Jquery and some nice plugin work sliding the portfolio thumbnails on the homepage amongst other great features.

5. 
   Maddetective.com
   This website anticipates the UK release of the film “Mad Detective,” in which the protagonist can see people’s multiple personalities manifested in multiple people. The site is designed to look bruised and beaten, as the main character is in the early scenes.

6. 
   Digitaldesign.cherrypickpeople.com
   A vibrant but simple color palette at work here. The large photographic headers add some visual interest on the different site pages also.

7. 
   Gomediazine.com
   This looks to be a fresh redesign of this site and I’m liking it. Straight from Cleveland, Ohio home of the “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum“. They are stacking up a pretty good content lineup as well as continuing to offer graphic resources, freebies, tutorials and their usual tasty arsenal of vector packs. Keep GoMedia on your radar.

8. 
   Adhamipenderarchitecture.com
   A new design trend on the horizon, very tastefully done here, is animated flash backgrounds. This subtle fractal animation strikes me as a poignant addition to this architect portfolio site, that is a minimal layout in rich color tones… Magnifique!

9. 
   JonRawlinson.com
   My leisure pick of the week, this video producer’s website has some great travel footage from all around the world. Take a break, and have a look. This one’s utilizing Wordpress folks.

10. 
    Current.com
    Leisure pick number two. Having not delved too much into video and tv content type sites. The user-interface (UI) for this beta site is pretty well developed. The player was in use on the previous Jon Rawlinson site. Check out the schedule page for a flash nav gizmo, really nice stuff.

    Let me know what some of your favorite sites are for something more than youTube video shorts.

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1. 

   http://www.stoutlabs.com
   A web development & design laboratory, minus the mad scientist, plus the ExpressionEngine CMS.

2. 
   http://www.catchdigital.com/

   A flash animated plasma-like background with various foreground layer alpha effects. Throw in some sIFR, jQuery accordion menus and sexy graphics & icons, and you’ve got yourself an edgy, modern and trendy website.

3. 
   http://www.thierryschlegel.net

   Interesting use of color in vivid blue and taupe, texture with some 3-D and splatter elements, and navigation choices retaining a hover color to show categories of works. Beyond these elements the site could use a bit of background information about Thierry apart from the resume pdf. Thierry’s also bought in to the “Save the Developers” movement, which makes perfect sense to me on a portfolio site.

4. 

   http://www.arcinspirations.com
   From the list of “Top 10 JavaScript (jQuery) Powered Sites“

5. 

   http://www.jameslaicreative.com
   It’s no secret that I like, grungy worn-look websites and jQuery. The intro slide-in/fade-in jQuery transition, on load is the deal breaker, making this one-pager a must add to the standards gallery.

6. 

   http://klinkov.com
   This one is an awesome layout, again jQuery functions carousel combined with realistic artist palette textures! Hmmm… this one give me some big ideas for a personal project, on my someday todo list.

7. 

   http://www.vegaone.de
   Cool times 10 on the wow-scale, this vibrant portfolio flash site featuring some splatter-riffic graffiti art!

8. 

   http://www.jamesb-dj.co.uk
   James B asks, “What’s Hot?”…sexy DJ beats, trendy stuff, great typography.

9. 

   http://mamie-bouillabaisse.com
   Another stylish portfolio with a neon palette on black.

10. 

    http://sacas.net
    Click around in the Flash intro header on the homepage, it’s really sort of awe-inspiring even if you don’t speak the language, did I see a w000t in there somewhere!

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