Digital Mash - What would you do?

So, Digital Mash is a portfolio and an online resource for web designers to gain inspiration and ideas from designer, Rob Morris.

His website consists of his own work, a journal, biography, photos, contact page and even a client login area. The structure has been thought out around then content. The text and photos sit happily next to each other, using a lot of "white space" to distance the information apart from themselves. In doing so, the site feels light and "breezey", enabling the user to "fly" through the website without having to concentrate hard on the content and to understand the layout.

I really like the use of the bold text, block of colour and thin dark line for the navigation. This design removes any "fat" from the site, keeping it streamlined, visible and airy. In otherwords, there's not big thick buttons or fancy fonts that are either too small or too excentric.

What I like about his journal is that the audience (other designers) for his site can comment and ask questions about his work, which is then responded to as you would a blog, but it's catagorised to keep things organised and relevant.

His simple organisational design in itself is something to admire. In his archive of previous posts, he's used small images to illustrate his post, but kept them simple and frequent enough to create an identity between each post that's most pleasing. However, he hasn't gone too far by adding too many images. One per post is enough to keep it eye catching, yet clean and simple.

Rob's style is to use text as a way of communication. Instead of having bright, over-powering images, he's kept them very small and minimal and used text, varying in size to keep the content structured and visual. He's kept a large word or phrase to title each page, an image to illustrate and then a simple small paragraph to explain the section you've entered.

His chatty sense of vocabulary in his design keeps the site friendly, personal and accessible. By saying "Say Hey" or "I'm the guy" makes you want to read on as the lack of formality in his choice of words makes the reader smile and feel a connection between designer and a real person.

I personally love his navigation design. I think navigation should be the main thought when it comes to web design. If the navigation looks great and works well, you should design your site around that. If the user can't understand how to use the site or the menu is too complex to understand, you've got no hope of anyone staying on your site or exploring further. Good navigation is essential, and I feel Rob has hit the nail on the head here.

Not too sure about his use of colour.. the bluey gray is a tad dull..

Using less images is another design technique I'd like to experiment with. Currently, I use a lot of colour and imagery in my designs, I'd like to try using soft gradiants and just text to see if I can create a site that connects the user with the content, because at the end of the day, text is alternative symbols and symbols can be logos right? And we all need a logo...

http://www.digitalmash.com

3 Designers - Non-Web Design Specific

Joel Schafer

As stated before, I really like Joel Schafer's work as he uses very simple, minimal design which is effective and usable. It appeals to me as I try to design sites that are simplistic and accessible. This sounds like an easy way out, but in fact it's probably more difficult. Creating a site with a reduced quantity of text and imagery makes it more difficult to portray exactly what you're trying to get across. It's like writing an essay in just 1,000 words, when you really need 2,000. It's about being selective and creative - which is what Joel Schafer designs like. Only the relevant information is there, but uses layout and creative design to portray his messages.

http://www.designinterviews.com/interviews/599

Saatchi & Saatchi

Creating alternative advertising campaigns, Saatchi & Saatchi have worked with companies varying from Cadburys to T-Mobile. They've produced adverts for Cadbury where a choir walk over a hill, emerging dress up in Christmas costumes. This was sure to grab attention in the summer of 2009. Along side this was their powerful T-Mobile campaigns that utilised the flash-mob culture by getting thousands of people to sing various songs in London's Trafalgar Square and New York's Grand Central Station. Huge crowds formed and performed a song, before disbanding and continuing their daily routine. Those not involved with the event were confused as to what was happening and watch in surprise at vast hoard of people performing in routine together. I like design that surprises people too, the use of shock tactics or clever design usually sticks in the viewers mind and in turn convince the consumer to invest.

http://www.saatchi.co.uk/

3 Designers - Non-Web Design Specific

David Airey

A brilliant graphic designer, he works mainly in brand and print design. I'm really excited by his work as he is very open about the way he designs. By visiting his website, it's clear to see how he works, mainly on graph paper so he can plan new logo designs and develop his ideas through mind-maps etc. His outcomes are usually great logos and simplistic but strong design. Using very specific brand colours, layout and fonts - he has created brand identities for many companies. His simplistic design is similar to Joel's as states above, however David is more methodical and strategic when it comes to design, which is an approach I would like to follow - having specific things you do to create new media items is a good way to get ideas flowing and design created.

http://www.davidairey.com/portfolio/

Designers Republic

I love designers who aren't afraid to push the boundaries and create something really off the wall. Designer's Republic's own website is very much it's own style. With unclear links which do what you'd expect, this website becomes strangely usable. You'd think with such a confusing design it would be confusing, but in reality it works with a bit of concentration. They've also used constantly changing image files which can be quite frustrating, but at the same time it's intriguing as you have to sit and watch the pictures cycle through of and over to see what's being shown. Designer's Republic have also done various advertising campaigns such as projecting words and phrases onto the sides of buildings. Having companies out there who perform these sorts of stunts is important as it keeps designers thinking of new and innovative ways to promote a brand, which keeps the industry moving forwards. No doubt I will think of Designer's Republic when thinking about creating something a bit off the wall.

http://www.pho-ku.com/

Daniel Libeskind

This is an architectural designer who likes to challenge the view of buildings and how they're used. For example, Libeskind's design of the Jewish Holocaust Museum in Berlin isn't what you'd think a normal design for a building would be, he's managed to represent the contents of the building with the exterior design, using metallic materials and sharp diagonal edges creates a very industrial and uncomfortable feeling to the building. I love design that evokes feeling and is intrinsically linked to the focus of the project, by combining the two, design really comes to life and the projects can become more successful from that point forward.

http://www.daniel-libeskind.com/projects/show-all/jewish-museum-berlin/