Hotel Castello del Sole Ascona

Hotel Castello del Sole Ascona

Current rating: 5.2 (382 votes)

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• Added: 13 March 2005
• Designer: Dart Positioner
• Submitter: Andy Rutledge

Review:

This hotel promotion and information site is a nice example of the idea; if you’ve got it, flaunt it. Rather than use a host of words to describe the hotel’s delights, this website allows the facility to speak for itself through excellent imagery. The info-copy on the site is concise and tastefully kept to a minimum.

The design is simple and elegant. The color palette is warm and inviting, and matches perfectly with the striking photography. The textures and gradients in the layout are used tastefully and the main imagery is, for the most part, presented by way of a nice use of Flash. The gentle Flash image loads and transitions lend a soft and elegant touch to the pages. I like the way that the image layouts, in ones, twos and threes, are varied in the sequences and throughout the site.

The way that the images, colors and navigation background changes all harmonize and support one another helps to make perusing the site quite an immersive experience. It doesn’t take much imagination to almost get the feeling of actually strolling through the hotel and surrounding environs while navigating the site.

On the downside, the text copy at the top of the mainpage seems out of place and is poorly formatted. That copy might well have been better placed in the main text area of the page, below the imagery. The main page code has a few needless xhtml errors, too.

The bottom line for a site like this, I believe, is whether or not it successfully accomplishes its aims. In this case, I definitely find myself wishing I could spend a few days at this hotel, just to take in the beautiful scenery and seemingly elegant facility. On that criterion alone, I’d say that this site is a winner.

Reviewed by Andy Rutledge

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