What are the sites out there that implement good principles of design? Are they usable and interesting? Are they stimulating and beautiful? Are they innovative? Why do they work?
What sites out there are unimaginative or unusable (or both) and why?
This forum is intended to generate a discussion on DESIGN for the RealNEO community. Jot down sites that you like or don't like and try to explain why you feel this way about them. We can all stand to be better educated about what makes up a good design, and looking at examples is a good way to hone this kind of perception.
As an opening salvo, I'll throw out the following links:
This page is a good example of thinking outside the box. It's a commercial site for selling font packages. Implementation is all Flash. There's only a limited set of things in the menu, but you can scroll into other menu areas. For each menu item selected, a highly usable, customizable and visually fantastic display pops up on the right. Really a great site.
This is the commercial site for Macromedia's Studio 8 product. Not particularly stunning or sexy, but simple and clear. Color palette is severe but consistent with the product, which works well. Tabs within the page help break up the amount of information, another simple but great idea. Embedded video can be started on demand for a demo.
This page is clean and simple: I know exactly what to do when I'm there.
Another example of thinking outside the box: literally. Here's a site where the total usable field lies outside the visible window. Users can navigate the field by scrolling with the mouse. Navigation is laid down on the field along with other items. Fun stuff is laid around that the user can interact with, like picking up and moving the objects, even constructing the battery-powered flying machine. A lot of schnick-schnack in this site, but very interesting.
Links:
[1] http://www.ourtype.be/
[2] http://www.macromedia.com/software/studio/
[3] http://www.redbullcreativitycontest.be/
[4] http://realneo.us/forum/of-the-day-whats-the-best-song-for-neo-today-crossroads