Design Swag

Opera Ma-gé

Paul — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:00:57 PDT

Opera Magé sell Italian food on their lovely ecommerce site. The product photography across the site looks consistent and the colours used throughout work really well together. I especially like the footer navigation, dark wood background and cute basket icon. Meraviglioso!

Cheltenham Borough Council

Paul — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:00:02 PDT

It’s great to see local government embrace web accessibility and usability without making a site feel as though it was built in 1999. Too often sites of this nature fail to engage the user, but Cheltenham Borough Council have the web 2.0 mix just right, with little touches such as a Flickr group and YouTube [...]

Redbrick Health

Paul — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:00:48 PDT

Redbrick Health’s website has some individuality despite it’s conventional corporate navigational structure. The illustrations throughout the site work really well in setting it apart from other health-related sites, which all too often feature cheesey images of smiling patients and kids.

Carbonica

Paul — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:00:32 PDT

Offset your carbon footprint at Carbonica. The Carbonica website has a ‘green’ feel through the use of card and paper textures, hand-drawn page elements and typography. I especially like the tree illustrations and fabric texture featured in the header and footer.

Mia & Maggie

Paul — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:00:26 PDT

Apart from the odd exception, most websites aimed at dog lovers are fairly twee – this one certainly isn’t. A sweet colour scheme, clear typography, great products and some lovely images from Adam Queen make it a joy to use. Try zooming into their product photos… woof!

Inkd

Paul — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:06:59 PST

Generally, I find printer’s websites fairly dreadful - not Inkd however. I really like the fonts used across the site and the blue navigation really ‘pops’! The dropdown menus work really well and the work showcased on the site is also wonderful.

Design By Humans

Paul — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:07:43 PST

The idea behind DBH is very clever and the website is great too. Huge product images give you a real understanding of the t-shirt designs and the checkout process is wonderful. A super-human effort.

Ecoki

Paul — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 06:08:45 PST

Nest Living

Paul — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:09:59 PST

Nest Living is a beautifully clean ecommerce site, which showcases designer furniture and lighting for the home. Page elements are muted and the use of white space lets the product images sing.

Brooklyn Fare

Paul — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:11:06 PDT

I’m certainly a fan of Brooklyn Fare. Their site is a wonderful mix of crisp cutout photography, engaging copy and beautiful typography. The simple site navigation and friendly faces also make the site welcoming and intuitive.