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Dara's Garden
Current rating: 5.0 (548 votes)
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- Added: 07 May 2007
Review:
This website is both attractive and stylish, with a skilfully executed design that fits the wedding subject matter perfectly. Many of the layout decisions are well handled, and the code is generally clean throughout. I'd say Dara's Garden will likely please everyone; particularly the client who I’m sure will see a healthy increase in their online customer enquiries as consequence.
Each page supports a masthead image that sets the pace for the two-column content that follows. Interestingly the main column occasionally splits into internal sub-columns of two and three which markedly improves the look and feel of the site's content. The typography is good, with a bold use of colour, font and size variations distinguishing areas of text, particularly the first line of each paragraph. Other nice features such as the gallery stand out too, with its internal sub-navigation and image selection design. Unusually the branding is located at the bottom of the page; its position beside the contact details works well.
The markup, though somewhat disappointing in comparison to the design, is fairly clean bar the occasional inline JavaScript. Forms have been well put together with proper labels given to form field titles and server-side email validation. The semantic structuring could be better; many of the headlines are simply images, and there’s a notable void where should have been image replacement. Additionally there appears to be a small bug in the Internet Explorers with the homepage banner, though this is no biggie. I should also point out that the site came so close to validating it’s almost painful to see; just one small error at the foot of each page fails the entire site!
However, all weighed up this is a beautiful website, and one which I’d be more than happy to present on my portfolio. If only the designer had spent just a little extra time tweaking some of the finer details I think we could have had a winner. Here’s hoping he/she will reconsider :)
Reviewed by Steve Tucker
More Eric Meyer on CSSThere are 11 guest comments so far.
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Overall it is a nice website. I found it annoying that they failed the HTML validation and the issue is so simple to fix every page but they didn't fix it. That almost bothers me more than someone who has a lot of errors.
The design is nice and clean and I liked the Nav rollover with the underline going under some of the letters, that was nice, and the header was nice as well.
The typography looks really clean as well.
@Seth: yup, know exactly how you feel about the validation issue - very annoying.
Looks like website design credit for Dara's Garden goes to... http://designsensory.com
Just in case anyone wanted to drop them a line, and since it got omitted from the review form. Unique typography and graphic elegance.
Looks very nice. One of the BEST homepages i've seen so far.
Nice site - too a quick peek - one general comment...The logo too closely resembles the main navigation. I think it loses prominence a bit.
Great looking site. I love these rich-textured websites...I feel like I can physically interact with it.
I do agree with markus though, the logo seems like it's in a different typeface too. I can't say the two scripts work well together either.
One fix could be to use that beautiful logo in the footer and give it a bit of breathing room. It might make things more cramped, but it would definitely set the logo off more.
One of the most elegant designs I've ever seen. The background, the colors, the typography work great together. There is nothing I would change on the design. Too bad the markup didn't receive the same level of attention.
very breathtakingly great & surprisingly fresh website. all very high standard. but they use flash for no obvious reasons.
I think the reason is very obvious, visual enhancement, and when you turn off the style sheet everything you need to see is clearly visible, good on them. very nicely designed site.
The illustrations and graphics are nice and show a great attention to detail. But I don't think the pages have a particularly clear visual hierarchy and I find the typography cluttered. My hunch is that a lot of work went into the graphics, but much less went into the usability of the interface and interactive aspects of the site. Another example is the lack of 'currently selected' states on the main navigation.
Very nice design. Really fits its purpose. I on the other hand aren't to disturbed by the fact that it doesn't validate, validation is more of a guideline than a rule...