Headspace Design

Top 20 Websites of 2007

Posted On January 3rd, 2008 Author Kyle Racki  Filed Under Design   0

Ah, don’t we love end of year lists? It’s a time to reflect on the strides made over the last year. To gain inspiration. To see the foundation that’s been laid in the past, and the pedestal to spring from in the future. Oh, and it’s also a chance to see really cool stuff that you might otherwise have missed.

I felt that it was important to separate “regular” HTML/CSS sites from Flash “microsites” because there’s a completely different mentality that goes into designing each. The web standard variety is generally more for company websites, blogs and shopping carts, whereas Flash is more for the entertainment/advertising variety. In this list, I’ve favored Flash sites that are well designed or innovative in their concept and interface, not in sites that merely featured entertaining video. I think that belongs to another type of list.

Flash sites are highly criticized in the web development community for not being standard compliant, but I take a balanced view. Flash sites can be highly entertaining and innovative, and I feel as long as they are being used for experiential purposes otherwise not possible with HTML/CSS/Javascript, then it has a place in the web design world.

One last note before we begin; there’s been a lot of beautiful sites in the last year, and many of them have been for design companies, photographers, freelancers and web agencies. For the most part, I have highly favored sites in these top ten list that have not been designed for self promotion purposes. Why? Because I think it’s more rewarding to see sites that have been designed for paying clients — Fearless clients, who have accepted what these designers have created for them. Agencies/freelancers have had to overcome the client hurdles we all experience everyday, and still come out on top. It’s not that I don’t think there’s merit to a nice agency website—it can be a great source of inspiration—but I just feel it’s better to see what designers have done for companies other than themselves.

Top 10 CSS websites

1. Jesus Rodriguez Velasco

   This was without a doubt, the most breathtaking blog site I’ve seen this year. The art-work and typography is amazing, and the layout deceptively simple. I especially liked the 4 columns that collapse to three and two when your browser window shrinks. A superb example of usability and design aesthetics perfectly combined.

2. Uniquely Knoxville

   This site gets points for it’s style and type. It’s one of the few sites that gets the whole, cluttered paper-textured look right. Uniquely Knoxville definitely lives up to its name.

3. Frieze Magazine

   Frieze shows how online magazines should feel - it takes massive amounts of content and presenting it simply and elegantly.

4. Come home to a Tennessee Winter

   Beautiful colour contrast and a full, flexible layout. The subtle snowflakes are icing on the cake.

5. San Diego Brewing Company

   Often, pubs and restaurants don’t do a good job of presenting themselves online. San Diego Brewing Company has a cozy vibe that just makes you want to come over and enjoy a few pints with some friends.

6. Biola University

   The textures and illustrations really make this site pop.

7. The Big Noob

   The Big Noob feels, well, big. It’s design is transparent, drawing attention to the humorous content.

8. Free People

   Online shopping carts are hard to do well, but Free People is so fun to explore and shop, and it’s design speaks to its female target in an effective way.

9. Xero

   If a site makes online accounting software seem exciting, you know it’s doing something right. Xero definitely has the ‘Web 2.0’ look going on, but it does the big fat buttons and shiny gradients better than most.

10. Etnies

    Like Free People, Etnies takes online shopping to a new level, while presenting it’s merchandise effectively to it’s audience, in this case, the youth culture. The Flash content adds to the experience instead of seeming tacked on.

Top 10 Flash sites

1. Get the Glass

   It’s very seldom that an advertising site can really suck you in and take up a half hour to forty minutes of your time, but Get the Glass surprised a lot of people with it’s ingenuity and scope. The production team created a massively entertaining board game experience, and of all thing, to sell milk!

2. Red Universe

   Remember how I said I wouldn’t showcase agency websites? Well, this is the one exception to the rule. Red Interactive went way beyond breaking conventions with their self-promo site. For heck sake, you can create an avatar and wander the virtual universe talking, punching and flying with other users of the site in real-time. This definitely shows that some agencies can swallow their own pill and stand out in a big way with their marketing efforts.

3. American Red Cross: September 11th Response & Recovery

   Information architecture at its best, the pie charts, time lines and video samples are so perfectly balanced, and the intimate, emotional content shines through.

4. Own Bora Bora

   Simple, elegant and beautiful, the site breaks through the clutter simply by offering stellar full screen video that makes you feel like hopping on a plane the day you see it.

5. Lake Nona

   Lake Nona is a community in Florida, and the website takes such an interesting approach in delivering this type of content. The expandable interface, map and funny “Nonaology” makes the site truly a joy to explore.

6. Verizon Action Hero

   Getting to upload your face to an action hero and direct your own mini movie has universal appeal. My wife’s hero was eerily similar to how she really looks. Oh yeah, and the interface is also really well designed. The creators made a relatively complex process simple and fun.

7. Coke

   Creating one site can be daunting, creating a bunch of sites for every corner of the globe, for one of the biggest brands in the world must have been terrifying. But the team pulled it off, and really made a corporate website anything but typical, evolving how I think many of the Fortune 500s will think of their online presence. By the way, doing a site like this with some XHTML/CSS and not entirely in Flash showed great restraint and I think shows that web standards are the way of the future.

8. HBO Voyeur

   An amazing concept well executed, the HBO Voyeur site gives you that guilty feeling of spying through the windows of anonymous people—um, not that I know what that feeling is… The large amount of streaming video makes this site also a great technical feat.

9. Spamrecycler

   What a concept — recycling spam into abstract art! It actually works, and it promotes a German recycling company. So smart!

10. Motorola Colors

    The Motorola Colors website allows the user to exercise his or her creative juices, resulting in colorful abstract art that enhances the brand.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this list - stay tuned for my picks for the top print designs of ‘07. As usual, I welcome all comments!