From Scratch Design Studio

Its hardly a web standards kind of web site is it?

Stylegala is about design, web standards, usability. accessibility. That's the FACT. Always has been and with a little more effort will grow from the ashes. As someone who thinks he knows it all you have shown how little about Stylegala you know.

Lets talk about the site.

Ps...this is not the only site to be featured that has nothing to do with standards!!!!!!

"Stylegala is an online resource and inspiration guide for web agencies, designers and developers who take interest in websites that combine the powers of design, web standards and CSS."

"The site should be built with web standards and preferably validate as XHTML 1.0 or HTML 4.01 compliant using the W3C validator."

So with the above in mind, why is the From Scratch site (or any similar site) featured on Stylegala? Currently, I must agree with Ian.

I'll defend any site going into the gallery.

Stylegala most likely contrived from the use of the word style in the CSS acronym, grew to be more than just a hoity toity club of web standards gurus, when web standards went main stream.

Nothings ever been good enough to draw anything less than a majority of criticism in the gallery's peanut gallery.

I stopped placing any sites on the pedestal, however if I did I'ld go with www.youlove.us.

Simon has the privelege of placing what he see's fit because he's currently at the helm and with this entry furthering the cause. I mean come on nothing since April, and nobody wants to participate?

Trully there are facinating creative full flash sites.

But the designworld is devided about allowing them on web standards galleries.

As a Flash site I think its great! Very creative and makes you want to click through it, great animations and pretty original.

But it belongs on a site like TheFWA, not here. Unless maybe Simon is trying to take Stylegala in another direction or maybe open it up to more than just standards based sites, but it seems to me Stylegala has slowing be digressing into a very stagnant community with the gallery updates coming every once and a blue moon and the public news becoming full of spam, its quite literally turning me off.

Thats just my .02

I'm inclined to agree with Ian: this isn't the kind of thing SG needs right now either.

I have nothing against a great flash site but this isnt the venue for it.

There is much that can be learnt from all of the last 3 examples reviewed on this site.

I, myself, have questioned some of the inclusions in the past for not having enough "ingredients" to warrant being on here, but I have no problem with any of the last 3 - including this.

There is great things going on with all 3 - in terms of ideas and execution. If I was to click on the links at see badly designed sites with nothing of interest worth exploring, then I would question their place here.

Sorry to include a comment referring to 3 entries on one entry, but I think it is relevant to them all.

I also know that I haven't done so here, but it would be nice to put aside whether a design is "completely original" or shouldn't be here because of the language used to develop it, and discuss what areas of the site work well from a design and web stand point ...

... Some are complaining of 'stagnation', yet it is their obsession with irrelevant issues and the fact they are publishing them as a comment in a review that is having the biggest negative effect on the site, IMO.

this is very different desing...but it is useful.

I'm quite disappointed to see this because 1) it's a flash site and 2) imo, it's not a great flash site. You can see much more better flash sites on flash galleries like mentioned previously. Also, I don't understand why there isn't many sites showcased when I see cssremix post sites quite frequently.

Why does everybody have to air their grievances here?

There is no community selection process, anybody can enter a site if they have the skills to write-up a review.

Good luck getting a majority of positive feedback however, that's the kicker. It sucks to be you when you do.

By StyleGala's own guidelines, this site does not belong here. Because of that fact, that's all I'm going to comment about the subject of this gallery item.

The real point I would like to make is that there is a continuing, yet disturbing, "keep your head down and take what we give you" tone that the SG staff and contributors have been taking with it's viewers. I am aware that this is not the proper place to voice this, but it's the only one where people tend to listen.

I think it's blatantly obvious there is a large number of dissatisfied users on this site, but it should also be recognized that they still care enough to get frustrated with the things they find wrong with it. If the SG staff really cares to keep their users happy, they should make an honest effort to listen to the users, rather than replace critical comments with links to the forum.

nice design!!...grz

Yes, that flash site is nice.

But, should it be included here? No.

Im not a fan of flash at all, takes a long time to load..

navigation is in most cases not very good.. i like very simple navigation (not to be lost in space ;)

greetings

(i'm no longer an official stylegala staffer but want to make comment)

"but it's the only one where people tend to listen."

what you are hearing is not a '"keep your head down and take what we give you" attitude, its a 'this isn't the proper place' attitude. The people who are so frustrated with the site yet remain with enough gumption to 'complain' should go once step further and help out :). Simply because you 'think' no one is listening doesn't mean that is so, open a thread in the proper forum column and I guarantee you will be engaged by SG staffers/owners in a positive argument/debate/conversation, but doing it here will continue to get you ( and rightly so) comments that point out that this isnt the proper place for such conversations...

I think people are missing the point. This isn't the venue for comments like this. But I can see why SG hasn't been featuring sites in a while. I stopped because of this.

People are never satisfied with what is posted. If you post a site that's been posted at other galleries. People are like "THis is every where SG should post more original." If SG post what it feels is original people complain. Something unoriginal but falls into standards people complain. Something that doesn't fall into standards people complain.

The average site rating around here is around 4.5-5. The staff here can't make everyone happy. But if you can do better, then do it.

Hi Ed,

Hey the point being to, as a reviewer the site is kind of like your baby, you don't take to kindly to everyone slapping your baby, lol. Constructive criticism of the site is great, and a learning experience for everyone. Negativity for negativity's sake is mean, and mean people suck!

I think posting a flash site on the (formerly?) premiere standards-based gallery is definitely pushing us all to consider what is "good" when it comes to web design. To me, that is what stylegala has always been about -- making web designers think about the designs they are implementing.

The only gripe I have is that if you are going to feature a flash site, at least feature one where the underlying HTML document is put together in an accessible, exemplary manner. Unfortunately, this entry fails in that regard.

I've no issues at all against featuring flash sites here... but I've lots of issues about the statement that this one "is done well".

This design has an intriguing aesthetic, but imho it's poorly executed - at least, it's not good enough to stand out.

UI widgets are rough and often get stuck and stop responding; animations aren't that smooth, with occasional flickers and delays.

Apart from the dual accordion solution, which is cool (but again not polished enough), the layout is pretty unispiring, especially the portfolio pages. Copy text is set so damn small - and copy writing efforts are too minimal too be worth to squint to read it.

Background animations are cool but they come and go in a apparently random manner, and the widget that should control them is badly designed and apparently broken.

Also, I see just too many spinning wheels for my taste, even when I get back to sections I already visited.

I think poor coding skills and insufficient testing hampere

[...] hampered the execution of this design.

Very nice flashsite!

This site is horrible to look at. There is nothing remarkable about it. Inaccessible big time. The flash which it is based on does not look visually. It is big taking forever to load. What's more,it is an eye sore to say the least.

i don't like flash, but design is very nice

greetings