
How to Make Your Web Design Stand out from the Crowd - GVRV
http://carsonified.com/blog/design/how-to-make-your-web-design-stand-out-from-the-crowd/
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redorb
As long as stand out means - that they don't follow the grid system (not
saying they have to); but are also poor in usability and ... last but not
least - so far outside the box they look like they tried too hard...

No thanks, I'll take a working commerce site of a trendy one every day.

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timmaah
Those all look like vanity sites to me. What are you selling? The site or the
product?

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mcav
Web designers are selling their ability to create sites... that _is_ their
product.

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timmaah
Most of those sites are not for web designers.

The one I clicked on to view was a retail outlet in the northeast. The site
was all flash and took over 2 minutes to load with no options to skip. That
stands out in a bad way.

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rubinelli
Most of those sites also include a pet peeve of mine, tiny fonts and low
contrast. Does anyone but web designers think they are a good idea? It's funny
how designers talk about Web 2.0 design in terms of gloss and shades, and
forget the most important element, the 16 to 20-point paragraphs explaining
what the site is about.

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olefoo
Not to mention that any site that hopes to sell things has to account for an
audience that includes a sizable proportion of people with weak vision.

If you're selling tchotchkes to sharp-eyed design conscious teenagers, then
tiny grey font on a pink background can work. But if your audience is full
spectrum, legibility wins. Good designers make legibility win even more; by
making things legible and beautiful, but they are rare.

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le_dominator
So in other words, actually be a designer rather than a programmer parading
around as one? Masquerading under the "cloak of usability" is no substitute
for actually being creative. It is, however, a framework for bureaucratic
meddling and covering your ass for a lack of talent.

