ARTM2210 Intro to Web Design
Just another Intro to… siteArchive for Monthly Review: Fall 2013
Final monthly review – Dave Conrad
Gueros Taco Bar uses a rugged/modern style on their website and primarily lures the viewer in with images of entrees served. The colors used follow a beige and green color scheme that very well compliments the pictures that are on a slideshow. Important information in bold and colored red, but doesn’t take away from the overall color combinations in relation to the scheme used. Everything is easy to read and the site is very easy to navigate through. The navigation bar on the left side of the screen remains in place while the rest of the information viewed changes based on the selection. Some imagery repeats as you scroll down in all the other selections, but it’s not cut off or anything.
Compared to the designs that are coming on in our final project, our page is planned to stand out with it’s uniqueness and playfulness. I plan to have vibrant colors used and give the website a comfortable feel with entree items to grab the viewer’s attention. Utilizing slideshows for the gallery, as well as making the overall layout of different pages unique in relation to the main page while still maintaining the same feel, in my opinion, will help in making our website standout.
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Final Monthly Review: Smokey Bones
After stumbling onto the Smokey Bones website, it had something that intrigued me to take my coat off and stay a while. I started browsing throughout the site, and then I noticed that the page is just one single page, with a navigation bar using jQuery for the whole page. After realizing this I started to wonder if this layout and concept was a smart decision. This layout works very well for this site but there is so much on the only page that it starts to make the user web-sick after venturing from click to click. Although the jQuery is impressive and really cool, I think there’s too much information on one page and could be improved with a more simple layout or by adding multiple pages. As for the navigation, the user can very easily click on the tabs on the top of the screen and be swept down to where they want to go.
The color & texture on this website is one of the strongest aspects about this page. The color scheme sets the mood very well. Since Smokey Bones is a bar & restaurant, it embraces the dark aspect of a bar but adds a sophisticated twist with the pinch of red. The main color palette is black and red, which fits perfectly for the theme and feel of the restaurant. As mentioned in Chapter 2 of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, red was a wise choice because the color red increases human metabolism. Additionally, each different ‘page’ has a different background and color scheme which works well with dividing the different sections with obvious subject changes. The textures on the food and backgrounds bring the page to life and make the page more classy and fun (if that’s possible).
Overall, this website is very easy and simple to navigate through while still achieving a fun, upbeat atmosphere without even leaving the comfort of your keyboard. Although the site is fun to navigate through and watch the cheeseburger fall and your beer to be gone, the user starts to feel nauseas from all of the scrolling and fast movement of the jQuery since there is only one page. The color scheme and textures add to the websites as a whole and help achieve the fun, yet sophisticated atmosphere. Lastly, this site impresses you and keeps surprising you even after the love-at-first-click phase.
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Final Monthly Review
For our reference website we choose the Medieval Times dinner and tournament. The restaurants concept is focused around giving an authentic jousting tournament and dinner. For our fusion restaurant we decided to focus the food more on a Mexican taste but having the atmosphere more of a Renaissance feel.
Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament have matched their website to that of the atmosphere with the restaurant. The main page shows only images of the jousting tournaments, not much of the food. That maybe because the whole restaurant is more about the experience of being there more than eating the food. The color schemes follow the colors of the knights attire; they use red, yellow, green, black, hints of blue, etc., solid primary colors on their webpage. They have chosen to only have three other pages: About the Show, Choose your Castle, and Bill of Fare.
The website is easy to navigate as a whole. They have the kind of graphics we were trying to use on our website (the opening scroll, the drop downs etc.), it adds to the feel of renaissance or medieval times. Although one of their downfalls is the fact that once you try to chose a location (Choose your Castle) you can’t seem to get back to the main page easily. There is a small close map that goes unnoticed, it would be easier if you could click the title for example to return. Once you do find the links they are incorporated into the design nicely (on the curtain pull for example). It would just be easy if you could click the title to return. The only time you can click the title is when you try to purchase tickets.
Compared to our website “The Knights Sombrero”, it follows a similar color theme that happens to be our restaurants theme colors, the Mexican and the Medieval. Ours will stand out because of the Mexican influence when it comes to food. With our fusion of Mexican and Medieval we choose to make our menu style similar to that, ie. the word choices and items offered. We also offer more pages to check out different things.
Overall, I think it represents the restaurant nicely.
Chelsea White
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Final Monthly Review
Nirvana Fusion
http://www.nirvanafusionpa.com/index.php
I chose this website because it was closely related to my final project. It is a fusion restaurant for different types of asian cuisine. The website is very vibrant and colorful. The color scheme was similar to my final project site with the bold colors of green and red with accents of white. The photos also stand out and add a lot of color to the homepage. The background is a neutral color that really makes the rest of the site and the color scheme pop.
The background is also textured which adds a good feel to the site. It gives a feeling of the restaurants theme and goes nicely with it. I feel this is something we could have incorporated to the final project and make the design overall better and more pleasing to look at. The navigation is well placed and labeled for the viewer.
The navigation bar has a hover that changes colors when the mouse goes over it. This is a similar element in my final projects navigation bar, though mine could have been improved by making it bigger and combining links to make it more simplified. I like the way Nirvana’s is designed. I feel that is simple but works well.
I feel this website is highly effective at guiding a user through it. I had no problem navigating the site everything was right where it needed to be. I feel that my final project website could incorporate this method, making the pages quick and easy to access and follow.
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Monthly Review #4
For this assignment, I chose to look at the website for a restaurant called Oriental Table. It’s a Chinese restaurant like my group did for our final project without the Italian side (since that combination does not exist anywhere). The website stuck out to me because it’s nothing too special and honestly, there seems to be a good amount to talk about on it. To start out, it’s very boring and dull. Color wise, it doesn’t fit well because after reading the section on colors in the Principles of Beautiful Web Design. The website is mostly made up of maroon, light red (pinkish), with bright yellow and black typography. The color red is a very dramatic color, and the maroon color on the website does not reflect that when I look at the website. Dark red if more of a rich color that makes me think of a fancy evening and like the article mentioned, I think of wine, not fast food-like chinese food. Also, yellow is a bright color which gives the feeling of happiness and energy. The fact that this website is really boring and has nothing to it, shows the exact opposite of energetic. The website also has no texture to it. The multiple rectangular boxes are just solid colors. If they added shadows around the boxes, that would create some texture, but there is no form of depth seen on the website. The biggest problem I have with the navigation on this site is that when you click on a new page of the site, there is no button to get back to that previous page unless you press the back button near the browser. I actually found myself on the menu page thinking there were no other pages included in the site. On the menu page though, while it’s a really long list, there is a button that can take the user right back to the top of the page at the bottom of each section. The buttons at the top do not show where the user is located on the page though. It becomes highlighted when you hover over it, yet it does not stay that way when you click on it.
I believe that the website that my group created for our final project will stand out more than this website because we have most of the components mentioned that this website does not. We have the color which is seen on every page of our website. The colors we used are bright and vibrant to attract people to our restaurant. We also have a textured pattern for out background. Just like Oriental Table, we don’t have a way of knowing where the user is located on the site, but we have a way to get back to the original page and all of the other pages which is easier than pressing the back button at the top.
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Monthly Review #4
I choose to do Bravo restaurant (http://www.bravoitalian.com/index.html) an Italian restaurant that we based our project off of.
the picture on the background is a base colored brick wall that makes you feel like you are in an Italian restaurant. then all the colors of the foreground are similar to it to keep to the color scheme. This adds consistency to make the actual images that they use show more. this can allow the user not to be surprised by any new color thrown into the webpage. The way they have the menus page is neat and clean in its set up the way they use they image to use as a button is nice, and it shows the hidden menu. Bravo’s website is set up nicely and efficiently where the user can navigate it without feeling lost or losing there place so that allows them to enjoy the website with out any mystery meat that can make them lose their place. But the color is neutral so you don’t have any odd feelings going into the website. this allows for a non bias view of the websites.
Over all the bravos website uses all the navigation well, color well and makes it an Italian feel, but besides the texture in the background and the simple 3px bold borders there is nothing that makes it pop or catch your attention
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Mad Mex vs The Knight’s Sombrero
For the final monthly review I did a website for the restaurant Mad Mex http://www.madmex.com/ . This restaurant is related to the final project because it is a fusion restaurant that has American food mixed with Mexican, Southeast Asian, and Spanish. In The Principles of Beautiful Web Design texture is said to be “anything that gives a distinctive appearance or feel to the surface of a design or object” Mad Mex’s website is very minimal at doing that. The page does have boxes separating sections with different colors, and there is also a slide show that shows two pictures, besides that there isn’t much to say about the texture of this site, it is very lacking. On page 111 of The Principles of Beautiful Wed Design there is an example of a minimal textured page, John Gruber’s Daring Fireball site. Mad Mex is not even that, they have more than this website but less than a nicely textured page. On john Gruber’s website he has removed all distractions that are unnecessary so you have to focus on the writing. On my groups final website Knight’s Sombrero we proved a lot of texture with our flag that gives off the feeling that it is moving.
When looking at the color of Mad Mex’s website, you get this laid back Mexican feel. The green, red, and white colors in general are all the colors of the Mexican flag. The colors the website uses isn’t as bright as the Mexican flag though, so that is where the more laid back feel comes in to play. When comparing The Knight’s Sombrero and Mad Mex, the Knight’s Sombrero does have a darker color scheme like Mad Mex but Knight Sombrero pops out more at the viewer instead of giving the laid back feel.
Navigation is always a key element to have done right when creating a website. The book Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug says on page 60 that the website needs to have their navigation in a standard place where the viewer can locate them quickly with a minimum effort put forth. Also having the navigation distinguished from the rest of the page will help viewers find the navigation with minimum effort. Mad Mex does have their tabs for their other pages in a good location that doesn’t have the viewer looking all over the page for. The only problem I find with the navigation is that the letters are colored just a few shades lighter then what their background color is. This makes the words pop out the the viewer less. If the website did not have their navigation at the top in an obvious place for viewers to find then because of the color, the words would be lost and so would the viewer. In the Knight’s Sombrero website the words are big and readable, and are also located around the central item, the flag. This provides the viewer with and easy time finding where to go and what to click on.
Amy Shubilla, Final Monthly review
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Applebees by jonathan zelechowski
The Restaurant website I choose to do was Applebee’s. the one thing that I noticed when I first opened the website was the color. It uses a variety of bright colors that I feel are very visually pleasing. the texture of the website is very easy to read because it goes with the colors, I also thought that the quality of the text also was very good and added to the texture of the text and the color. I like the use of orange and red on the website it was a very good choice of colors and I think it worked very well.
the navigation of the website is very easy because I noticed at the top of the webpage they have the three main tabs, menu, gift cards, and location. when I clicked on the menu page it takes to the page that has appetizers, entrees, and desserts which you can then click on to see the full menu. the gift cards tab is very simple when you click on it the different gift card options come up. overall I found the navigation to be very simple and easy to use because it was all right there, the only thing I would change is the color.
the webpage is very easy to guide the user through it because nothing is really hard to find it is all right there in each individual tab. I found everything pretty easy to get to. compared to are groups restaurant website I think it stands out more and is better then Applebee’s because are website has more colors and Applebee’s has the same three in the homepage and every tab for the different options. I fell are restaurant webpage also has more options then just the three that Applebee’s does.
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Monthly Review 4
When looking at websites at the beginning of our final project, there was one we all really liked and that was the fat head’s website. This restaurant website is what we basically based our layout on. We felt that the layout and color scheme worked really well for a bar and grill which is what our restaurant was. The navigation of this site was very easy to use and follow as well as clear visually which is how we wanted to work this project. From there we pretty much took off with ideas for images and navigation. When looking at this website, we all agreed that the color scheme worked really well. We liked the simplicity of the black and white layout with the colored imagery. It gave off a very simplistic appearance. A scheme that appeals to both men and women.
Now the texture used was something we weren’t sure how to approach. On fat head’s site, they made their heading image appear grainy giving it the feeling of aged signage. It feels old and comes across as a place that has been around for years. When we thought about adapting that same feeling into our web page, we didn’t really like it. We liked our take on our imagery as clear and vibrant colors.
Now deciding on the navigation of the page was the easy part as far as decisions go. Actually coding it was the harder part. But we really liked how the heading tabs were always at the top with the main logo in the center. It allowed you to easily maneuver through the site without forgetting what page you were on. However, on fat head’s site the sub heads were simply words that highlighted when you were on the page, so we decided to take it a step further. We made sub tabs that resembled the main logo and had them go from grey to color when you were on the page. That way the heading would be clearer.
Overall, our project is very similar to the fat head’s site but there were aspects where we improved upon some things. In the end, I think we executed our final project very well.
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Monthly Review #4
The restaurant I picked to relate Chitalian’s website is Olive Garden and Hunan. Chitalian is the fusion between Italian and Chinese, therefore I thought best to have critique two restaurants instead of just one. The critiques that will be given are on color scheme, texture and navigation. All three of these critiques give us a feel for what the restaurant is about.
Let’s first start with color scheme. For Olive Garden, their color scheme is yellow, and white with a hint of brown in there. The Color scheme of the website is an analogous scheme, which is choosing colors that are right next to one another. Yellow is the main color for the website, again showing the happiness of the restaurant. For the whole background of the website, it is a darkened yellow, it’s not too bright that hurt your eyes. Having the background that one color can show off the enjoyment customers have while at Olive Garden. White is the second main color, which some people would think of just being plain and boring, because white is a background color for many things. The white color shows off Italy as a pure and perfect country, it definitely shows off the simple beauty the Italian culture has.
Hunan Chinese Restaurant’s color scheme is complementary, by having colors that are opposite of one another. The main color that they have chosen for their site is green. Thinking of the color green, many will go straight to nature, whether its trees or grass or even flowers. Putting together brown and green would be more as nature rather than black and green, which can be techier. Yet, green can show off as freshness and wealthy as well. I like them choosing green because Chinese tends to be fresher because they use a lot of herbs and seafood for their foods. Also, they show off by being wealthy because China is a wealthy country overall. Hunan’s also have white, which can show off pureness to how the restaurant is. The only way the color scheme is complementary is because for the text they highlighted some of it with a red color.
Moving onto texture, Olive Garden choose to have a rustic look to their website. The whole background has the texture of being an old wall from a random building in Italy. The logo itself looks like being on a weathered piece of parchment. Since the logo and the background are close to the same color the logo has a shadow behind it. That seems to be the only texture from the website, because each page is just plain and simple with black text and a white background. I mean each page is clean looking with the white background and text, that doesn’t make it hard to see what is on each page.
Hunan’s Chinese restaurant has no texture whatsoever. The only texture I see from the website is a small container that has a light green background with a white design. Then the only picture they have is of the inside of the restaurant, and the there is a white border around it with a drop shadow effect. The book, Principles of Beautiful Web Design, mentions that eliminating texture might just establish the websites own personality and character. Where I guess with them having no texture they show off how clean and proper their restaurant is.
The last part is navigation, which is important because in the book, Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug, he mentions that navigation puts a ground under our feet or gives us handrails to hold on. Krug also says there are five ways to keep navigation consistent. One is “a way home,” which means that the website always needs a home button. Olive Gardens way to get to the homepage is their logo, you just click on the logo saying Olive Garden in the top left corner. Hunan’s has a Home tab in the navigation bar and clicking on the title of the restaurant will take you back. Second is to have “a way to search.” Olive Garden does have a search box to find a restaurant that is near the customer. On the other hand, Hunan’s is missing a search box. Therefore, it would be difficult to search anything specific. Third is to keep the website’s identification. If someone keeps clicking on tabs from a site and then don’t see a logo or name they will wonder how they got out of the page so quickly. Now for Olive Garden and Hunan’s they both keep their ID’s on each of their pages, therefore no customer gets lost. Fourth is to have sections, which are the primary navigation to main sections. Olive Garden has plenty of sections from each main section. For example the Recipes section can be clicked on and goes to have choices for beverages, appetizers, main dishes, desserts, pizza, sauces, side dishes, vegetables and soup. Those sub sections help look more specifically to what the customer wants. Hunan’s has no sub section for main section. Each section just has all the content right on the page. Finally, the last one is Utilities those link important elements that aren’t really part of the content hierarchy. If you want to buy a gift card from Olive Garden it’ll take you to a page to submit your payment for the gift card. They also have a site map where you click where you are from and it takes you to that specific cities website and specials. Hunan’s just has a site map that gives a Google maps image and you click on it to show directions on how to get there. Each website shows their unique personalities for their restaurant and both show easy and simple navigations through their sites.
Now onto Chitalian’s website of color, texture and navigation. Chitalian’s colors are mainly red, green, white and black, and a tint of yellow. The red, green, and white show off each cultures flag. The Chinese flag is red and yellow and the Italian flag is red, green and white. Therefore the common color for both is red. The color red can mean passionate and dramatic, showing how passionate of this new idea for food style and dramatic because the food styles are from the completely two different countries. Also, the hint of yellow adds in some happiness, allowing the viewer see that the owners are happy to try this new fusion. Like Olive Garden, the yellow isn’t too bright that will scare away the customers. Now, the two main colors would be red and green, which can be scary, because when I think of red and green I think of Christmas colors and the holidays coming up. Yet, Chitalian doesn’t show that at all, the colors are not as bright to have a sense of a holiday theme. Chitalian right away has texture right in the background. The texture looks more of wood, which can show the nature of the Chinese culture and a cooking style to the Italian culture. The flag on the homepage has some depth in the actual image. The title Chitalian seems to be cut into the image, by showing the shadows in the actual text. Another little texture from the website is for each page, the title of the page has a light gray container behind it. You can’t really notice it, but to add some depth to it, there could have been a drop shadow from the container, to make the border pop out a little more. The drop shadow would help as well to not make it a two dimensional image but a three dimensional one instead.
Chitalian out stands both Olive Garden and Hunan is because there is versatility. The difference between Chitalian and Olive Garden that Chitalian is more clean cut then Olive Garden, there is a simple and clean font with a clean background. It is not too challenging to navigate through the website, there are not too many tabs that could take you away from the website. Unlike Olive Garden you could easily just click through a million tabs and then easily get lost. The difference between Chitalian and Hunan is that Hunan is too basic. Again Chitalian has a texture background to give a to give some versatility and have it interesting to look out. Customers would like the website because of the simplicity of the navigation and the interesting look of the website itself.
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Dave Conrad Monthly Review #3
http://bravofranco.com/ http://sixpennkitchen.com/
Bravo Franco’s website is designed to give an elegant feel and does so pretty well. The color scheme make the site appear unified and easy to focus on. The only downfall, in my opinion, is under dinner menu, the links are bright red and don’t flow well with the rest of the site. It is clear that they are links so it assists the website in being able to easily navigate. Links are clear as well as visual hierarchy. The page is also broken up very well. The main ascetic aspect of the site is clear, and right underneath, distinguished by a bold dark color that is balanced with the header of the page, is a welcome/about us message, hours of operation, and menu. The main emphasis of the page is the pictures of the food which is the first thing your eyes go towards when viewing this page.
Six Penn Kitchen uses photos as emphasis as well, but are more engaging as the dark, plain background assists in drawing your attention the vibrant colorful photos in the middle of the page. Six Penn’s has a vary visual based site that in comparison to to bravo franco seems less fancy, but less boring. Both site portray the feel that they are going for very well. Navigation in both sites is very easy and very simple to figure out.
Overall, Six Penn did a better job in getting and keeping my attention as it seems more fast paced, middle class, and unorganized. Those three adjectives personally appeal more to me than posh, high class, and fancy, which are all adjectives that mean pretty much the same thing, but all in all I don’t get anything else besides “fancy” when I see the bravo franco page.
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Monthly Review 3
Bravofranco: Everything on the site is well placed and well organization. All the links are bold and stand out. It is very visually appealing. The photos at the center of the page really draw your attention. The color scheme is simple but works nicely with the feel of the restaurant. The design elements of the page make everything tie together. I feel the page is well designed, everything works and it is where it needs to be. This site follow Krug’s second rule, which is mindless amounts of clicks on a site. Everything is simple and straightforward and goes where you want it too. This helps the user navigate quickly to where they need to go.
no9park: This site has a more sophisticated design and look. The style is very neutral and the typefaces chosen give a classic feel, emphasizing the restaurant is more upscale. I feel they created this style on the webpage very well. The images are large and take up most of the page and also change which gives variety. Every link opens up in the center and leads you to each subpage. Everything is very minimal on the homepage. I feel this site follow Krug’s third rule well, which is omit needless words. There are very few words on the homepage everything is straight to the point and all the information you need. No paragraphs on the main frame layout. This makes it easy for the user to see the important information they need to know about this restaurant.
Overall, I my opinion I like the more simplistic feel of no9park’s webpage everything was very simple for their page making it very user friendly. Bravofranco used more unnecessary words I felt at the bottom and I liked how no9park made their’s more simplistic. I liked the design of bravofranco better it gave it a different feel. Both websites captured their own style really well, it went along with what kind of restaurant they were.
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Monthly Review #3
For this monthly review, I decided to compare the Burgatory website and the Six Penn Kitchen website. The two are very different when it comes to balance, unity, emphasis and layout. On the main page for Burgatory, the burger is the major emphasis on the page. It’s directly in the middle and is blown up bigger than any of the other images. This works well because Burgatory is know for their burgers obviously. The Six Penn Kitchen page doesn’t have one specific image or text that stands out to create emphasis though. While Six Penn Kitchen doesn’t have much emphasis on one specific thing, it does have a good sense of balance throughout the website whereas Burgatory doesn’t as much. On Six Penn Kitchen’s menu page, the pictures and text are both evenly balanced with each other along with the other pages. Burgatory’s home page is not balanced as well. It’s other pages, like the menu pages, are evenly balanced though. They include the menu in the middles with equal text and images on the side bars. As for unity, both pages depict it well with their consistency with text and images. Both Burgatory and Six Penn Kitchen keep the same color scheme throughout the website along with the same background image/color. For both websites, they have a strong layout. They are consistent throughout each page of the websites too. They are both laid out differently, but both work well.
Also, both websites have an easy to access button that leads straight back to the homepage for the user which is one thing Krug emphasized in the reading. On Burgatory’s website, the “B” on each pages represents the button to go back to the homepage while Six Penn Kitchen’s website has it’s logo in the middle of the top menu bar that serves as it’s homepage button. On Six Penn’s website, there is a clear indication of what page the user is on because on the menu bar, the font changes to a green color when you are located on that page. When a user is scrolling through the Burgatory website, the side menu bar drops down and again highlights whatever page they are on. This helps the user see where they came from and where they are located on the website. Neither page has a search bar however. This seems to be ok since it is a restaurant website, but it could be useful to the user in some cases. Overall though, both websites have a good sense of design based on unity, emphasis, balance, and layout.
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Nov. 12 Monthly Review
Ethan Petyo
Monthly Review (nov. 12th)
For this months review i decided to compare between Dogfish heads brewpub and fatheads. I chose the two based off of similarity in the restaurants. Both have their own breweries and bottle and draft their own beers. So to start i decided to take a look at fatheads first. What i found interesting was how clean the site looks at first glance. They have in very bold visible type the address and location of Fatheads. Below that the search engine categorized by menu , beer , locations , merchandise, etc. Under that you will find their slideshow , with some very good photography of the food,drinks and establishment. when you put your arrow on top of any type on the page in interacts by glowing orange. The contrast of Orange on grey works very well , making it extremely visible and clear to read. When you click on any of the categories in the search bar at the top it brings you to a page with clear pictures and info on the beer on tap , the food thats being served or any social media or merchandising products for sale. These categories are further categorized after clicking on them. for example when clicking on “menu” it shows you a list separating wings from burgers and sandwiches , and wraps , etc. overall Fatheads is a very easy site to navigate through.
The same cannot be said for Dogfish head. right from the very start my eyes had trouble figuring out where to look and what exactly i was looking at. Everything on the homepage is set up like a bulletin board including the clutter. the search bar at the top is rather convenient , but when you click on something like the restaurant link it takes you immediately to the list of tap and bottled beer. It seems smart to do it this way because at a restaurant you would order drinks first then food. Im not sure that was the approach they ment to take but if so its rather confusing. there is so much information about their beer products on the website that it seems like overkill for them to place the entire list as the first thing you see under menu. Once you find menu on the side bar and click on it , then your directed to a 5 set list of other menus. for example it lists Main menu , kids menu , specials and once again whats on tap , and thats all you see unless you click again. However the information of the beer on dogfish’s site is rather helpful. You get a good explanation of the beer and its information (abv , Alc %). The menu is set up very nice also , and looks really well designed with all the info you need there.
Overall the design work on both sites are very good , dogfish being my personal favorite in that category however overall Fatheads seemed much easier to find information on and navigate through as well as successfully organizing everything which dogfish failed to do.
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Monthly Review 3: A Comparison of Bravo Franco Ristorante and Six Penn Kitchen
Today, many restaurants have their own websites to connect with their guests; two such local restaurants are Bravo Franco Ristorante and Six Penn Kitchen. Unlike Justine’s, whose site was featured on “Web Pages that Suck”, both sites are well-organized and user-friendly. Both sites fulfill the principle of unity, discussed in Chapter 1 of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design. This is accomplished, for example, through proximity and repetition on the menu pages. They also implement balance, also discussed in Chapter 1. While not fully symmetrical, they still feel complete; if they were scales, they would not tip. However, they do differ somewhat in terms of emphasis. While Six Penn emphasizes sections within pages, the pages themselves lack true title other than a rather subtle change in the banner. It requires some thought to know where one is on the site. Bravo Franco, on the other hand, gives each page a title, displayed on top in a large font size, requiring little to no thought.
Both sites also implement Steve Krug’s five “things” quite well. They have little to distract from the content, and the content itself well-organized on both sites. They use the convention of grouping together certain types of dishes, like appetizers and entrées, breaking the pages into clear sections. They achieve this convention by using a visual hierarchy. One can also see this on Bravo Franco’s wine page, where their wines are divided first into how they are served, then categories, and finally the specific types. Finally, they seem equal in how they show links. The links on the banner, while not blatantly obvious, require little thought to recognize them as links.
While both are designed well, I have to say Bravo Franco kept my interest more than Six Penn. First off, it feels slightly more organized, as it has clear titles on its pages while Six Penn does not. The other reasons are more aesthetic. Despite its organization, Six Penn’s lack of texture made the site feel a little flat, and its color scheme includes a rather sickly green, instead of a hearty green associate with good vegetables. The textures and colors on Bravo Franco’s page, on the other hand, give the site dimension and even make me a little hungry. That is a sign that a restaurant’s page has done its job.
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Monthly Review #3: Fat Head’s Brewery & The Cheesecake Factory
After reading chapter 6 of “Don’t Make Me Think,” I started browsing for a pair of local restaurants to compare and contrast and I came across the Fat Head’s Brewery website and I was immediately impressed by their simple and effective home page. Automatically, I was drawn to the emphasized large, circle logos that take up most of the room on the page. The layout is simple, yet genius with very minimal text while achieving easy navigation by giving the user the option to choose the location they want to indulge in. Once you choose your location, it takes you to a location-specific page with the same theme and a similar layout to the homepage. Along the top and bottom are subtitles that will take you to more subpages, such as Menu, Beer, Gift cards, etc. To add to the overall composition and layout, located in the middle of the page is a slideshow of pictures that is visually and aesthetically pleasing. Another effective choice is that each page is clearly labeled with headings and subheadings that gives the user a sense of location throughout the site. For example, if the user is on the Pittsburgh page, and they click on the button labeled ‘Beer,’ the big circle logo has moved to the left side and the header becomes a large heading labeled ‘Fat Head’s Craft Beers’ and this composition is repeated through each tab on the navigation bar. Each page is well balanced and keeps the same theme throughout all of the subpages. The content is well organized and easy to navigate while being nested in the correct locations.
In comparison to Fat Head’s, The Cheesecake Factory takes a somewhat different, but similar approach to their website by maintaining the style and theme throughout all the pages by making sure the layout is tight and balanced. The first thing the user notices is the emphasized large slideshow of pictures to show the food that they serve and showcase their specials. The layout is very simple and organized and allows the user to browse each of the tabs at the top of the page in the navigation bar (Menu, Locations, Gift cards, etc.). On each page, the title of the restaurant is shown so the user knows what site they are at, but the subtitle is not large or emphasized, so in order to find out what subpage the user is on, they must read, or think, to know where they are. For example, when the user is on the ‘Menu’ page, the next heading shown on the page is in large, red font reads ‘Welcome’ which would be more effective if the heading read ‘Menu’ to ensure a taste of location security instead of questioning the button accuracy. The contained content is well organized in subcategories along the left side (Menu page) and makes it easy for the user to click on exactly what they want.
Overall, both websites have a unique approach to organizing and emphasizing their spaces. Both websites offer different strengths and weaknesses, but I believe that Fat Head’s is a more effective, functional website because of their stylized labeled headings and subheadings on each of their subpages. Fat Head’s websites provides a more homey collective atmosphere while achieving a functional and interesting layout and design. In brief, each site brings something different to the table, but at the end of the day, The Cheesecake Factory proves that you cannot have your cheesecake and eat it too.
http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com
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Monthly Review 3
When looking at the two sites, no9park.com and bravofranco.com, I feel that the first comes across as more appealing and professional. I personally was drawn to this one more so than the other. The other came across as more of an old style Italian restaurant that made me think of mobster hangouts in movies. Just saying.
When I first got to the Bravo Franco page, the site showed me three pictures. And though these pictures showed me the atmosphere of the restaurant and the type of food it served, I wasn’t impressed. I don’t like pasta or tomatoes and so for me to be greeted with those two things immediately, I probably would have left the site to go somewhere else.
The opposite happened when I got to the No. 9 Park site. Though some of their entrees didn’t look like something that I’d eat, the fact that they had a slide show of pictures allowed me to not only get a feel of the restaurant but how it worked. I felt like this would be a nice place to meet with some friends because the atmosphere that this place showed me through their pictures felt warm and friendly. All in all, I feel that this site surpassed the Bravo Franco site.
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Kristen Kudla Monthly Review 3 11/5
The two local restaurants that I chose to compare were Burgatory and Quaker Steak and Lube. Now both of these establishments produce roughly the same products and have very similar dinning environments, so one would assume that their websites would be too. This is not the case.
When arriving at Burgatory’s website the eye is instantly drawn to the huge bugger in the middle of the page. This is counter balanced by the iconic Burgatory B on the left and the tabs square on the right. Beneath that is a simple description of what the restaurant is and even the daily specials are easily located and legible all while drawing your eye to it and not being to over done. The page is easily navigable with simple words to click on and take you to what page you would like. A unique way that they go at taking you to the menu page is by scrolling over the burger itself. When doing this little caption boxes pop up with unique things about their burgers along with the menu key. When you click on that, it takes you straight to the burger menu page that is laid out very simply and very similar to their actual menu in the restaurants, and located in the menu box to the right are every thing else they have to offer. Over all, Burgatory’s website is very well balanced and with layout by the use of their color palate, the highlight of their key products, and overall cohesiveness of the site.
Quaker Steak and Lube’s website on the other hand, completely one eighty from Burgatory. When you first arrive at Quaker Steak’s website, there is a huge box with smaller boxes within that. In each cube is a different navigational point of the site, and this idea works well except that each cube has to much going on. The larger one that takes up the entire top half is a changing banner with each different thing that they offer. This is a huge fault because the slides go way to fast and some may be simple, but others have way to much going on that it makes it very difficult to read. Another thing that makes the home page lesser then Burgatory is that Quaker Steak’s logo is very small and just pushed to the side. Also, at the top of the page are tabs for their locations, menu, etc, but they are so small that they are taken over by the obnoxious amount of other information. Once you can navigate your way to what ever you’re looking for, the other pages are underwhelming, and I mean very. Due to the excess of information on the home page, you expect the others to be the same but it’s not. From the menu page to the promotions page, the same exact font and color is used but the what was chosen is so hard to read after a while that it pushes the viewer from continuing on the page. Over all, Quaker Steak and Lube’s website is very poorly laid out and the home page alone would deter someone from navigating any further. Although the majority of the website can be improved, they did do well with some aspects. The balance of certain things on the pages was well thought out followed by the use of pictures and slides. This can help draw a customer in if they can get past the awkward navigation.
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Monthly Review Restaurants Webpage
I choose to review Burgatorybar.com and bravofranco.com. I explored Bravo Franco Ristorante, they are known for their fine dining establishments. The webpage is kept very simple and classic, the colors are visually pleasing. It is very easy to navigate around throughout the website based on what you are looking for. Everything is very plainly laid out, unlike the picture of the actual restaurant. The restaurant is green and and black but with little touches of the restaurant. It just seems like a bad photo choice to represent the restaurant.
Next I reviewed Burgatory’s Website, if you have ever been to the restaurant then you would be able to see that the website caters to it very well. The website itself is a replica of the menus. The bad part is on certain information like locations you can’t click to see like maps or anything although with the set-up you would assume you could do exactly that.
Out of the two I think Burgatory gives a better idea of their message as a restaurant. The images, the color schemes, the menu. Although in balancing the visuals of the whole webpage Bravo Franco’s is easier to look at. Burgatory does do well with emphasizing there burgers and shakes and that’s their main focus.
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Burgatory VS Six Penn Kitchen
I will be comparing the two restaurants Burgatory and Six Penn Kitchen. As soon as a viewer opens the Burgatory wed site they are hit with a giant picture of a burger immediately inviting you in to see what burgers they have to offer. If a viewer does not like burgers or does not find the one picture on the home page appealing then they may just be turned off and find another restaurant. This burger though does create an emphasis right off the bat for Burgatory’s burgers.
At first glance of Six Penn Kitchen’s web site the viewer does not see a big emphasis on anything, the whole page molds together. This is a good a bad thing. Some viewers may find this inviting and will want to dig deeper to find what Six Penn Kitchen is all about. Other viewers though may find the web site boring and just go on to another restaurant with outgiving Six Penn a chance.
Six Penn Kitchen has a nice sense of unity with their layout. The pages balance each other with their elegant photos or their text. Nothing on the pages stands out as not being needed or different then the rest. The black background, style of photos and text all create a unity between the pages. The layout gives a classy feel to the restaurant before the viewer even looks at the photos of the restaurant itself.
Burgatory has a sense of unity through its layouts by having the logo and navigation bar on almost every page. The colors of the pages also unify the pages together. The Burgatory layout varies in quality, on the home page the viewer is drawn in immediately by the giant pictures on the pages. The Menu page just blends in with the background and is hard to read. The “Our Gear” and “Happenings” pages does look slightly better with the additions of pictures but the text is still hard to read. The pictures provide emphasis but everything is lacking.
Out of the two sites though, Six Penn Kitchen is the more appealing layout of the two, in my opinion. I do like the navigation and style the Burgatory wed site gives but the site as a whole is not that appealing.
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Monthly Review #3: Restaurant Website Review
For my third monthly review I chose No. 9 Park and Six Penn’s websites to review.
The two websites are noticeably different at first glance. No. 9 Park’s site is incredibly simple with little flash which works on some levels. It’s easy to navigate with the obvious links on the left of the page The color scheme is plain which lets the color of the images to stand out quite obviously. This standing out effect breaks the unity of the page, but is still effective.
Six Penn’s site manages to feel cluttered, yet organized at the same time. The first thing I noticed upon opening the page was the blocks of images below the top banner. These images feel extraneous compared to No.9 park’s site which might just be due to their individual target audiences. Six Penn seems to target a much younger and more energetic crowd than No. 9 Park. After the initial distraction of the images, the site draws your attention to the top of the page with links to the important pages such as menus. The menus are clean and simple to read with individual links to the different courses. Overall it gave me little issues with navigation and understanding.
Both sites were simple enough to navigate with little effort, but both have their pros and cons. Each site works toward their target audience but Six Penn’s site is much more pleasing to the eye and simple to read and navigate overall.
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Monthly Review #3
The third website reviews are about restaurants and how their website looks and interacts. The two websites I chose are Bravo Franco Ristorante and Six Penn Kitchen. Let’s start with Bravo first, the first look of it for me was the color scheme was in the brown and tan range. The background for the whole website was texture and even the navigation bar with texture with a dark brown color. Then right in the middle of the navigation bar is the title of the restaurant, which was bigger than the rest of the tabs. Below the navigation bar has 3 big pictures of the restaurant and food.
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Monthly Review Number 3
For this review i am comparing Burgatory and Empire Palace. Burgatory is a burger joint while Empire Palace s a Chinese restaurant.
Burgatory is very graphic oriented and it looks fantastic, every page is directed somewhere somehow. It keeps consistency and doesn’t very from its look, it allows users to browse through every page with ease. It uses nice graphics, images, text. All of it combines with the feel that it starts with on the index page. The menu is set up by lunch dinner and even then its set up even more specific.
Empire palace on the other hand is not graphic oriented. It does have photos on there but not much, some pages are missing or unreachable. the menu on it does not make sense toward the price it seems like someone through this together to make it seem like they have a webpage. But What they do have is well done, nice use of fading on the images so the text can be legible, nice set up with what they have.
All in all i saw two different versions of web sites set up for this monthly review, while both are correct ways to do it, the graphic one was set up better and easily navigable. It does not matter what you choose but how you use what you chosen to make a good webpage. Just make sure they can easily find a way to go back to the homepage.
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Monthly Review: Single Page Site
I decide to go with AlterED’s website, at http://altered.cc/ The thing that caught my attention was the content and how the designer complimented their purpose. The site talks about green energy. The graphic at the top was eye catching and once you begin to move throughout the page you get to interact more. I like how there are more interactive graphics as you move downwards. You do not have to use the mouse to see graphics as you move which is nice they appear as needed.
As far as color goes they went with simple “primary colors”; red, blue, yellow, and green. It makes the content simpler by using simple colors. Any one of any age can appreciate the site. I believe the page was meant to reach any audience all though I could imagine older audiences finding so many colors distracting or too much. Over all I believe the page is entertaining to look at and makes you want to scroll to reveal more. But also with that since there are only graphics at the upper portion I think it would help to be spread out more so that you don’t simply ignore the content on the bottom because it suddenly has no motion graphics.
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Monthly Review 2
I decided to do my review on the choyou airlines page. At first when you open the page the logo and some basic things come up including a little airplane at the bottom. At first it seems like there will be a lot of blank space due to the size of the objects and the screen. However as you use the arrow keys on the key board to move the plane up and down, as it passes an info block the plane changes size and color therefore keeping the page interesting and interactive.
The colors used throughout the page are also very well done. Instead of using solid flat colors, the designer added depth by using gradients and shadows. It also appears that they used a texture on the grass making it look real, however the same texture was applied through out the whole page background and though it works well with the road, air strip, and beach, I feel that it sort of ruined the effect of the water.
Overall I feel that the site is very well done, its fun and interesting and something that will be sure to draw attention.
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Monthly Review 2
I chose a wedding page. The color scheme is a combination of gray, black and white, with a touch of gold at points. The gray color is used for the top border with tabs saying, “Our Story”, “Gallery”, “Bridal Party”, “Festivities”, “Registry”, “Travel”, “To Do/To Eat”, “Add to Our Story.” The black is used for some sections to darken the background whether it is a picture or just the plain color. When black is the background, then the text is white therefore, the text can stand out from the background. The same thing happens when white becomes the background. The page used nice simple colors and I think that it makes the page easier to look at and not have it become chaotic.
The navigation of the site is pretty interesting. Logically it moves up and down, but there’s more to it. The first thing you see from the site is a picture of the couple as the background and they have their initials and date of the wedding. Once you want to see more you can scroll down, but the next page comes from the bottom to the top. Either you can click on the tabs from the top or just scroll down and have the page sweep from the bottom and transform into the next page. Once you get to the next page you can then scroll from left to right to see what’s in that page. The page basically becomes a slideshow showing what is in that specific page.
The design element of the whole website is yet again simple. Just like with the color scheme, the design of the page concentrates on one or two text fonts, and there really isn’t much design for each page. Keeping everything simple definitely helps the reader make it easy to read and understand what each page has in it. Nothing pops out of the pages therefore the reader will not be shocked with reading anything. The page, like I said before is very simple, so the reader will not become overwhelmed with reading a wedding website. Lastly, I think the website is designed every well. It is unique with having the pages scroll from the bottom to the top. I assume that their color scheme that they use is the same colors that they incorporate in the actual wedding. The website is inviting with showing everyone their story from the every beginning to their wedding seeing their excitement for that BIG DAY.
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Monthly Review 2
I chose the single page site http://rbv.me it has a very interesting design and appeal that caught my attention. The site uses color in a good way, it mostly plays off contrasting colors. Bright colors with dark backgrounds so it pops on the screen. The site uses texture in shape which creates unique design elements. The navigation goes down from top to bottom. The only problem I had with the navigation is on my browser screen the third spot down I cannot see it fully and it is cutoff, to see it I have to use the arrows keys to put it in view. That was the only section of the layout I had to do that for so I found that inconvenient but if you prefer to just scroll and not use the layout’s navigation bar the problem doesn’t occur. Also there is a hidden navigation menu at the top that can take you to each section of the layout. The designer incorporated three options to navigate the one page site which is very helpful to users. All the site’s elements are bold and a good size for the layout. They stand out and make sense to what they are trying to convey. It is simple yet well thought out and designed. Overall I think this site’s navigation works well it is quite simple and easy to use. The design was easy to follow and read. They did a great job of making an appealing layout with navigation that worked well with it.
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Monthly Review #2: Creative Bacon
After reading chapter 3 & 4 of “Don’t Make Me Think,” the information influenced the way I went about choosing a single page site. When I first read the title “Creative Bacon” on onepagelove.com I was immediately intrigued to click and find out what this site was. Right after clicking, your eye is first drawn to their unique logo of a C shaped piece of bacon in a frying pan. The vibrant color of the bacon attracts your eye and deliciously tells you where to begin on the site.
If you scroll over the logo, the bacon dances as if it is being cooked (creatively) in the pan, which is fun interaction for the user. Below the logo, the side navigation bar is simple and very easy to use. An example of a successful visual hierarchy is if you scroll over the two sections with text in the navigation bar, “What we’re ABOUT” and “Check out our WORK,” it highlights in red to show it is a clickable link without making the user think. The user knows once they scroll over and see the red, that it is a clickable link and there is additional information on that page. Another example of a visual hierarchy is the icon buttons in the navigation bar. There are two distinguishable icons, an envelope for email and a camera for Instagram. These tabs highlight in white when the user scrolls over them so they know if they want to email Creative Bacon they simply click on the envelope and to see their Instagram account, they simply click on the camera.
In chapter 3, the concept of nesting is introduced, and it is applied all throughout Creative Bacon’s site. On the home page, your eye is attracted to the first large body of text which is nested in its own container to explain what Creative Bacon is. Directly below this body of text, is a visual hierarchy header, “Design and Development,” which clearly labels that this is a new section and the nested text below is a part of the design and development section.
After clicking on the “What we’re ABOUT” tab, you are taken to a page with two images of the founders of Creative Bacon. Even before reading the titles nested under their names, the user automatically assumes that these are the co-founders because the images are big, bold, and make an impact of importance. Below each image, is nested text, clearly belonging to each photo, and links to their personal emails and resumes. The user never has a doubt about which bio or links belongs to each image, because they are clearly organized beneath the photos. The links are obviously clickable due to the red font and the underlined text, making it easy to recognize and function.
One of the most effective and appealing aspects of this website, is the “Check out our WORK” page. This page is beautifully designed with circle shaped images that when the user scrolls over each circle, the image flips and describes what each circle is. For example, the first circle is an image of a logo, and when you hover over it, it rotates to a red background with a title of “Logo Design,” (or Web Design) then a line to separate the name of the business or person they designed it for. Once you click on the circle, the logo becomes bigger and you can click arrows to easily browse through the other logos without having to close the logo, and click on each one. For the web design clients, once you click on the circle, it takes you to the site to see what they have designed.
Overall, Creative Bacon makes your experience on their webpage easy and fun. By highlighting the navigation tabs, the user can easily travel throughout the website. By utilizing visual hierarchies and the nesting technique, Creative Bacon makes their website easy and to the point with their simple color scheme and theme. Whether you are looking for a tasty, new logo, illustration, or website, Creative Bacon gives you the recipe for success with a deliciously designed website.
http://www.creative-bacon.com
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Monthly Review number 2
For this monthly review we are reviewing the one page websites that you can scroll up to down or side to side from the index page itself. The page i am doing for this review is called Transferwindow.info . This site shows you the information on transfers made within the allotted time. The sport that they cover is football, soccer here in Northern America. The site does not allow for any scrolling but instead uses graphics as its bases for movement.
The site starts out with a line from the top to the bottom, but in then center there is 10 leagues ( a league consists of x amount of teams that play each other for a trophy) that have lines going away and coming to them. These lines represent a person/persons that are transferred. To the right is a box that has 2 numbers a red and a green number, meaning money lost(red) and money earned (green). Also, the green and red make an appearance inside the circle that covers the leagues money in and money out Then it list the top ten transfers in all the leagues. So these lines are going to the leagues that people are transferred to. Click on a league and it will highlight the lines that are going to and from the clicked league while un-highlighting the rest of the lines. Now click again and another circle will pop up with the teams inside that league. from there the box to the right does the same thing but this time i want you to click on a name, it will open a smaller box where you will see his name, how much the transfer was worth and the two teams involved in the transfer (team he played on till transfer then team after transfer). then the position, what the age was and the nationality of the player. now lets go back to the circle. its the same thing as before just with more options but this time you will see more lines leaving the teams to go to the others, as league to league trades are really not that much. but if you will see a bunch of name pop up to the right and the word free beside them, this means they are out on a loan, meaning the club gave them to a team for free for a trial period in which case the player returns to his original team and then goes from there.
Now that i have explained the basics of this site lets go into the details, I like it. it is very cool how it is spread out not to many distractions that are going on it is straight forward in what you need, and it has some pretty cool graphics, but it could have done somethings to make it more special. Instead of making a new circle appear out of nowhere follow the line down to that circle. Maybe they could have had a marquee going across streaming live events going on or transfer news so it could lead you, more interested and waste more time on there site. But all in all this site is very informative for the soccer crazed sports fanatic and it seems to kept up to date.
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Hey I’m Art-Monthly Review 2
For the second monthly review, I examined Art Williams Page at http://heyimart.com. On his page, he made a simple and easy design choice for the users to move through the page. On his page, he has on image that he has created that takes over the whole webpage and the user has to just use the arrow keys to move from one image to another. There are only a few times where the user can click to see a different part of the page. For instance, he has a button that you can click to see more about him. When you click it, a page slides from the top and takes over the webpage. At the bottom left, there is another button you can click on that leads to a whole different site which is more of his work on one page websites. He does not have very much information on his site, so this makes it easy for the user to read. The artist also uses very little bright colors on his page. While it is mostly because his images are dull colors, he uses light and shadows to created depth throughout the page. Overall, his page is very user-friendly and simple to use.
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