Yes, it’s true. I have officially added Oregon to my list of “daydreaming quality” destinations around the globe. And I owe it all to the beautifully designed website released by the Oregon Coast Visitors Association. They’ve really captured the natural, pristine, and virtually untouched beauty of this public land along Oregon’s coast, which, up until today, I didn’t know existed.

My favorite graphic elements include (in no particular order):

  • The creative navigation treatment using the actual map image serving as a double purpose

  • The color scheme and type treatment work wonderfully to represent these fresh, earthy ocean cities and towns while giving it a nostalgic historic feel.  It reminds me of an old 1950’s Navy ship coming back from overseas full of young sailors waiting to greet their families.

  • The page layout itself is unique.  They captivate their users by having a strikingly raw photo take up majority of the space above the fold.  There is no doubting that scenery is their bait.  They know once we’ve seen enough of these photos we’re hooked and immediately checking out Orbitz for flight fares.

  • The treatment around the photos and buttons makes me feel like I’m looking at an old treasure map.  This treatment is then layered with opacity layers and nice graphics and type to give it just the right amount of modernism.
 

Nicely done OCVA!  I will definately "Share My Story" on your site when I return from my first big adventure along The People’s Coast.

So I really think I’m cheating by writing about Rethink Design’s website.  This is simply because about 15 minutes deep into my inspection of it, I realized that it is so similar to my natural style of design that someone who really knows me well would just assume it is already a part of my portfolio.  One could argue that I should stretch a tad bit further outside of my own creative realm and spend my time critiquing something a little less “Nicole” like.  But since this is my blog, and at this dark, dreary, almost below zero moment in Chicago, I’m feeling very much inspired by this warm, fresh, and earthy homepage, I’m adding it to the blog.

Homepage.  This is the key word here.  The guts of rethinkdesign.org are slightly clunky and don’t work visually nearly as well its cover.  My favorite part of the homepage is the anchored floral background.  It’s not necessarily the image itself that caught my eye.  It’s the placement of that image being off-centered and outside of your typical screen width that’s interesting.  The light, organic silhouette of the flowers works wonderfully in contrast to the bold, boxes placed on top.