by Milt Chatzimouratidis

The demo issue of Readymag.com uses plenty of color and sometimes texture, an original –but also very simple– navigation framework, and sophisticated animation techniques to deliver a visually stunning, result without excessive loading time.  The starting section is dominated by a stunning photograph of a stellar system and a Java animation of the words “hello web”. It uses a simple arrow to point to the second part that is strictly dedicated to demonstrating the navigation mechanism, has a textured blue background, and lacks bells and whistles. In the third section we encounter a light blue gradient background and an interesting circular animation that reveals the text. Even though this is probably one of the weakest parts visually, it is still quite efficient in capturing the user’s attention and displaying inventiveness and originality. The next step brings us to a demo about the use of audio-visual techniques and animations as aids for storytelling. Probably the most colorless step, having a light grey gradient in the background that does not steal focus from the stylish animated control button in the middle. The next part uses a Java space travel background that adds texture and dynamics to the specific section. The middle composition, captivating and stylish again, uses color, high contrast, and typeface simplicity to allude to the variety and usefulness of the tools provided. The next step is dedicated to illustrating some of them and is the first one with vertical scrolling. The layout is very tidy and color – or the lack of it – is used to emphasize and illustrate the above mentioned tools’ function. The following step has an interactive video background with CSS tag links to each one of the team members, again, no clutter, swift loading, and tidy layout.  The last step brings us contact information using a CSS color rotation class in the background and simple typefaces. The navigation throughout the whole webpage is based on the scrolling app at the bottom of the page and requires simply dragging and dropping a circle shape.

Overall a very clean and effective webpage that uses color and animation wisely and always remains focused on the message it attempts to convey. The authors promise a revolution in web publishing and looking at the finished product it certainly feels that way.