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Stonewall
Current rating: 5.9 (515 votes)
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- Added: 10 August 2005
- Designer: Stonewall Design Team
- Submitter: Adam Whitehouse
Review:
I just really like this site. And I really don’t. Stonewall is a site that has a very cool visual vibe going. At least, it’s a look that I personally like a lot, but there are little things here and there that just mess with my patience as a user.
From their portfolio, Stonewall certainly appears to be a top agency in Africa and their newly redefined brand has a nicely focused and consistent theme. Their site makes them look like a top agency, IMO, to the designer’s credit. I like the visual details in the rather minimalist design and the use of color makes for a nice bit of emphasis on the monochromatic base. For me, this site just feels good.
But there are little things that make me wonder how concerned they are about their site’s visitors. For instance, the section titles include the double arrow icon that to me and likely most other users says, “link.” But they’re not links. Also, the main content copy on the site has a soft gray, lined background that, according to currently popular style, says, “link.” But it’s not linked text. Some of the links on the page are pink and have that double arrow icon and some pink text is not a link. But still other links on the site are plan dark gray text with an underline. Hmmm.
The code on the few pages where I tried it did validate and had few anomalies. But I’m disappointed (for them) to see that the main logo is not an h1 tag, but rather an image on the page.
So I’m kind of torn with this site. I truly dig the soft feel and minimalist, monochromatic style. I also like how they present some of their work. But some of what I hold to be important details seem to be glossed over. So why review this one here? Because I think this is an instructive example for us. Surely there are more details that are good/bad than what I’ve listed here and I look forward to some of you highlighting those.
Reviewed by Andy Rutledge
There are 13 guest comments so far.
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Comments / recent
About dan friml: looks like photoshop barfed on a canvas. The way h...
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About dan friml: Bellissima l'immagine relativa al logo di Artworks...
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About dan friml: Overall a nice looking site. Two points of improve...
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About dan friml: This design definitely brings something to the tab...
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About dan friml: This site looks amazing and the colors - very plea...
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I agree with most of your points, but not the part about the logo going in the h1 tag. Read this if you're curious as to why i disagree: http://www.simplebits.com/notebook/2003/09/15/simplequiz_site_and_page_titles_conclusion.html
Anyhow, good review overall.
Looks sharp.
The animated favicon is something I havent seen before. Fancy indeed.
Not bad, not great. I'd say your evaluation is pretty dead-on. One thing that I particularly dislike is the the background color used on the body text. It's distracting, and would be better suited to highlight important points, links, or whatever.
I didn't like the colors when I first saw the site, but the Pink and Black and Greys have started to grow on me.
At first glance, I really like the layout and how the page is structured. Even though there is a lot going on, its not confusing and my eye moves through it pretty well. I agree, there are a lot of incosistencies, especially the way links are coded.
The design is fantastic. Simple, eye pleasing, and different. The section titles don't seem to bother me much; to me they tie in with the logo itself, and add something interesting to an otherwise bland space.
Nolan - the link you point us to is definitely worth a read, and I'm now rethiking how I use h1 tags and markup logos.
The three column layout, with two sub-columns, reminds me of some others sites I've seen lately :-) Hey, it works!
Simple and quite elegant, but I agree with Chris H. - that background color on the main text really distracts. It might be just me, but the content headings reminded me so much of Odeo.
I don't know, but the only thing I dislike about Stonewall is that it feels a bit fragmented - can't quite explain it.
Thanks for all the great comments - it's always interesting to get a completely unbiased view on one's site.
As many of us have experienced, the hardest site to design is your own - there's never enough time, and there's always a client taking higher priority. That said, we consider the site a work-in-progress, and hope to evolve it into something we're truly proud of. We appreicate the feedback and support, and we'll definately be taking all your thoughts into account going forward. Keep em coming, and watch this space!
Adam,
I think you can surely be proud of what you've got now. It's a gem of a site to look at and I can appreciate how you're working to define your own branded look/feel (like with the body text background). The use of Flash is tasteful and appealing, I think.
I look forward to seeing how you might tweak things to make the experience of using the site a bit more intuitive, while maintaining your clear identity. This is a cool bit of work and something to be proud of.
I quite like the look of this site. Most things are fairly well polished and the overall tone is a professional web agency.
As above, the grey text background would be better suited as a link style, also, I'm unsure about the two sub columns on the right, while quite nice, this seems to make a lot of space redundant on longer pages. Maybe not such a bad thing but a bit of a niggle for me.
Additionaly, in the work section I would much prefer to see a sample of the work that they have done rather than link straight to it. This way I have an Idea abouot what I'm going to see.
And finally, No 404 page. Really simple to implement and I feel a little bit of contingency design makes a big difference.
All that said, When I first saw the site I was very impressed and threw it straight in the bookmarks. As Adam has said, it's a work in progress and building your own site is the hardest task. So I think it's off to a rocking start and with a few tweaks it will be exceptional!
W
It's not perfect, but it's just great to see a South African business taking such a strong interest in producing beautiful websites.
It's nice to see layouts that integrates 3D elements. Me likes very much!
I love that animated favicon!
I loved the colors and layout. But wouldn't it be better for the antimation to draw your eye into the site rather than up and out of the site? Reverse the path of the light.