Wishingline Design Studios

john, the review is spot on. my only problem with it is that it doesn't fit within the 800x600 resolution. of course, if the target market includes clients who use a higher resolution, than it's not a problem. other than that, i think it's an exceptional design.

The text are so muted, I can't see what it says.

The keys to this site, I agree with John , are the color choices (perfection), the icon work and typography. There is one thing that bothers me. I get a flash of the headings before the sIFR kicks in (in both Firefox and Safari), which I found a bit irritating, perhaps only because I've used it myself and I don't see that at all. I'm pretty sure all versions of sIFR include hiding the text before it is replaced so it is puzzling.

My problem with the site is it seems to be at an inbetween in its design philosophy. This site is aesthetically very confrontational, and it leaves me feeling scared and confused.

The layout is nice, yah, but what I'm saying is it seems like a lot of good bits stuffed together into a chaotic ooze in order to make the site's interface seem user-friendly.

Also, I don't really care for the color scheme, but I feel it's a respectable palette. Unfortunately, all those photographs are uninspired mindless waste of white space.

I puked up some blood when I saw that cheesy construction sign on the front page, and that made me want to close the tab and never even think of Wishingline again!

It has its moments, like I said, but it needs to be rethought as a coherent web site. The form is in such imbalance (partially because it seems to exist only as an immitation of more successful designs. This is just my two cents though, just my feedback. I give it 1/10. Sorry, WISHINGLINE

A few things I don't like:

the terrible waste of space at the top of the homepage. That big image with the construction sign brings nothing to the table, if not somehow ruins it. From the start I have to scroll down to get to some content. Though I am on 1600x1200, like many-many others, I never browse full-screen.

The top menu doesn't really looks like it belongs there. The rest of the site shows great attention to details but the menu bar doesn't.

While overall typography is eye-pleasing, the main body text is too light and hard to read.

I'm not a big fan of that heavy reflection effect. It's ok to use it on the logo but don't overuse it! It seems to add some unnecessary weight to the page.

Overall, I think it's a great start but lots of things still need to be improved. It has the potential to become a great piece of work but it's not quite there yet.

great design and layout. Clear and professionnal. But the texts's color (gray) is a little beat too clear for my laptop's screen...

Lucian: the terrible waste of space at the top of the homepage.

ah white space. a very misunderstood and underused resource. i'd take some nice clean empty space that allows the other elements to happen any day over cluttered layout that decides it's necessary to fill every bit of space with something...

Whitespace is important. It gives a sense of lightweight design. To give elements the sense of presence, white spacing essential.

Goodness, this site has inspired some passionate comments. I really like the site - I think it does an effective job representing an independent designer. My only beef is the light colored text - I had to increase my font size to read it. The link colors are also a little confusing.

Gustav R Boogie, PHD wrote:

"Unfortunately, all those photographs are uninspired mindless waste of white space."

I disagree. The photographs do a good job of representing the concepts on each page. Gustav, if you're gonna be so mean why don't you post your link so we can see an example of how you do better?

Scott - you should darken the text color ASAP. It's much too light to be legible. Also, I kept looking for "About Us" in the menu. You might think about changing "Profile" to "About Us" and vice-versa. Overall I love your style, and I enjoyed poking around your site. Good info design. As an independant designer myself it's always encouraging to see other designers who are making it

I wasn't trying to be mean-- trying to constructive. I'll put my site up when I get a chance to finish it. :)

Everything comes together extraordinarily well, but did anyone else notice that the page is unusually...heavy? Not with the design elements, of course, but with the page loading time. I'm on a T1, but even so, each page takes a surprisingly long time to display. And a quick speed report run shows the page will take ~45 seconds to display on a 56k modem - ouch! Why

Ahem- why is the choice between design details and bandwidth-friendliness so often decided in favor of the former? Just food for thought, of course. The design's beautiful.

This is one of the highlights of the CSSReboot! Very well done Scott. If you only weren't too lazy to respond to emails... ;-)

Ok, I'll wade into this debate as well I guess.

First off, design wise/asthetics: This site is wonderful. There is definately a strong graphic designer at work here.

However, I have some issues:

1. 1024 x 768. Brave, I'll give them that. But, really there's no reason for it other than the massive images, which also ensure that even at 10x7, there is no content "above the fold". Wouldn't be my choice.

2. Who are "they" exactly? Is this a single man or a team of devs? Where is that woman's profile? (in the img. ) They use "we" and "our" and "meet the team", but I could only find a single human profile... oh, I get it... the cat is part of the team... cute. (*confused*)

3. A lot of the detail text is much too small. This seems to be the new "trend". Stop it (EVERYONE! :-). It's not getting read even if it's "cool".

4. The sub-menus on each page seem a little lost, and in turn I never really seemed to know which page I was on.

Helpful critism tha

max 1000 Chars cut me off!?!

Meant to end with:

Helpful critism that is all... overall, extremely well done!

I think the colors are beautiful and the 1024 x 768 layout choice is bold. I can't bring myself around to liking the huge LOOK AT ME headers (though the one under the services page is fairly nice). And though I don't like them, I don't think the website would be the same without them.

All in all a very good design.

Being really nitpicky here the Navigation doesn't look pretty with Images turned off.

The "skip contents" part in all it's glory, with a navigation placed in a bar like that it's very easy to implement the ideal set-up: Move down the navigation in the document source order. Contents first is usually the desired thing you want in an accessible layout. It also tosses out the likelyhood off being ranked higher on google with the term "Skip Navigation" (ooh gawd, how many sites doesn't have that right now =p). Not a bad thing per se, but you want users to find your contents easier, not your repeated hidden links.

I leave the resolution discussion to others. Myself, I prefer the elastic or liquid approach, unfortunately technical issues renders us nearly unable to maintain our semantics along with a "perfected" liquid layout. It's possible, but usually involves non-valid CSS, javascripting, html components or what-not and what else. So I don't blame him for going with 1024

Just depositing my two cents:

- Okay, I have to admit, the design is pretty, but the header at the top takes up way too much space.

- Maybe it is just me, but the layout design doesn't fit this site particulary well; seems like the webdesigner slapped this whole gooby kablooey together. It's very confusing.

- The images are not consistent. And again, combined with the layout, the entire layout (and site) is very confusing.

- Speaking of confusing. I'm really confused as to who really operates this site, who these "people" are. And also, they need to get serious if they're talking about business. With all this "opps" and "lol" slapping in your face, I don't think anybody will hire these "people."

In conclusion, despite the enormous effort put into this site. The confusing layout, confusing content, and too much jibby-jabby leaves me to ponder whether or not this entire thing's a giant April Fool's joke. Get serious if you're talking about biz, else this'l

While agreeing with anonymous up there in some areas (consistency in typography and images being one), I also believe that branding yourself requires attitude. And Wishingline has plenty of attitude.

There will always be usability aspects and visually, well everyone has their own taste. No design can please everyone, really, it can not.

From what I understand the studios is run by Scott (alone) and his cat. And I don't think it's a very honest approach to introducing those two as "the team" and "us". Unless the cat acctually does the same work as an Art Director :p. Clients usually hire a designer to design a site, not a Designer in the misconception that he's hiring an entire studio consisting of programmer, coder, designer, photographer. Just finishing off my critique here...

My only complaint with the site was the light text which I see is now fixed. Otherwise, I think it's a beautifully designed site with a stylized approach to typography. Nicely done.

I don't understand why people complain about the designer using the royal "we" when he writes. Maybe it is just him and his cat for now (the cat is very cute!) but can't a guy dream about the future? Maybe he's going to be busy enough to have to hire another designer soon...it's not as if he has a page listing all kinds of different staff roles and responsibilities.

I've been reading the blog for awhile now and I suspect that if Wishingline were hired for a job Scott would be upfront as to who works there-and I doubt he'd charge a salary for the cat :).

Anonymous Coward, you're just that! Talk about confusing. Are you sure you went to the right site?

"Gooby kablooey?" "Opps" and "lol" slapping in your face?" "Jibby-jabby?"

HUH?!?

The site is beautiful, visually pleasin

Stupid 1000 word cutoff...

The post was meant to end with:

The site is beautiful, visually pleasing and even daring. I'd hire him.

Site won't load... :( (op timed out)

I love every single pixel of this site! :)

yeah sure its all good anyone here though?