Playground Blues

Content-driven sites should be this simple and effective to use...a no-nonsense site that doesn't look cluttered or shabby. It also doesn't look too inspired though, fronting a style as forgetable as a Toyota Corolla in a parking-lot (sorry to any Toyota owners out there - but it's true). But maybe that just wasn't one of the concerns of the site owners - which is entirely personal taste. I do like the photoblog, it loaded quickly and is a good overall size for viewing, without being bloaty.

Andy: I agree with your comments about the contrast, in the lower section, it could be more pronounced (and no, I'm not visually impaired either).

I wish more sites concentrated on their content and were 'content-centric' (as you put it Andy). But is that strenght enough for this site, or will it have to add more style and flair too?

I've given it an '8' for now.

I gave the site a 7: clean design and innovative use of JavaScript, such as the above-mentioned photoblog and the in-page article extended links (you can click the page numbers under the recent article to view the rest without loading the new page).

However, I feel the change in layout emphasis between the recent article top portion and the blue archive section below to be too abrupt. They seem too opposed to be related, like I'm viewing two seperate sites on one page, and I'm not sure which takes priority.

Small bug in the real-time search: on my FF in WinXP the results appear underneath the photoblog.

small bug > I guess it's the same in any browser, the author should set wmode param to opaque for the flash object to avoid this issue.

Really nice work btw, honestly I'm not too fond of typographic choices but it seems definitely a smart-built website.

Again I'm confused over typography. Two, very close-looking linear fonts (sans-serifs), and such a bad choice in the body text.

I would also remove the Contact and RSS navigation links. They do not follow the same logic as the rest of the navigation. One it a mailto: link and the other is a raw RSS feed. When I click on a link in a sitewide navigation I expect to get to a page within the site.

The navigation could be a bit more clear, but on the other hand, blowing it up could disrupt the focus of the site, which seems to be the current contents.

Not to be picky but a few people (including the reviewer) have mentioned the 'javascript' photoblog. The only photoblog I see on there is made in Flash. The reason you can't see it when javascript is disabled is that it's embedded using javascript (in order to validate?)

I like the design itself. The bold colours are nice - if a little overwhelming, and the clean style is something I am slowly working towards with my own blog (at least I'm trying too)

I noticed this site in my news-reader on Sunday and featured it on my own site. It didn't get any visitors of course, because I don't either.

I decided it was just too pretty not to submit here as well, and that's exactly what I did.

(This is where I feel cool for submitting both the last two entries :).)

Very nice website. I love the simplicity and the blue colors that the designer used. They work perfectly. The photos are beautiful as well. And that site name, Playground Blues, quiet catchy I must say. I was confused by the name at first, but, I like it.

Also I love the touch of AJAX for the LiveSearch and pagination features. Good job to the creators.

I feel the page 1 and 2 color scheme is opposite. Orange should state the page I am currently viewing instead of white.

Is it just me or has anyone else seen the early version of the preloaded site? Everything below the white looks identical to the original preloaded site - including the colours - same hex values!

I think it's clean design, but would be good if the links are darker..

Logo Playground, is cut from bottom side, i hope this is design but not a bug. The ovelall layout is ok , however can be improved with adding some more graphics along with text

Very nice and solid website, I really like the nice colors and font selection.

Very good example of the current trend. thx