I chose to review http://www.windowsofnewyork.com. This single-page website caught my eye because of it’s simplicity and unique topic. Jose Guizar, a graphic designer in New York City, has studied and illustrated the many unique windows he has seen throughout the city.

The Windows of New York website does not present a complicated scrolling method. One simply scrolls down to view each unique window. On any other page this may be too simple; however, I found this approach to be effective. It ties in with the simplistic look of the site very well. There is an “about” link at the top of the page, which sends you down to the site’s description. Instead of it being at the top or bottom of the page, this section is three quarters of the way down. It is followed by a couple more window illustrations. I found this to be off putting. To me it seems like a mistake. I supposed a block of text isn’t the last thing he wanted us to see. Perhaps he wanted our final view of the page to be one of his illustrations. If this was placed at the beginning, people may have moved on more quickly, not wanting to read the description first. He successfully kept our attention where he wanted it.

As you continue to scroll, there is an arrow button on the top right that takes you back up to the top of the page. This is helpful, for you don’t have to manually scroll back to the top. A menu of some sort would be very helpful as well. A list at the top of the page indicating the several locations in which he found window inspiration would be a nice touch. Page jumps have already been used in other ways around the site, so why doesn’t the designer give us an option to go to a specific location without having to scroll all the way through?

Although I would find that to be useful, having to manually scroll through all of the illustrations forces your eye to notice the beautiful contrast between each location and it’s window pair. I spend a significant amount of time analyzing each window because of their incredible detail. Paired with the simple, single-colored background, these illustrations look amazingly realistic, and pop off the screen. Not one window is like another, which, like I mentioned before, creates beautiful contrast as your scroll. The clean, geometric shapes against the background create an effective texture and add to the overall feel of the site.

To take such an ordinary object we often overlook, and make it visually appealing is a difficult task. In my opinion, Guizar succeeded simply and beautifully. He mentioned that his hope was to “never stop looking up,” and I believe he has accomplished that goal, for me at least.