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. 

So now that I’ve officially made the switch over to retail (from the oh-so-exciting world of mortgages), I now have an entirely new realm of websites to pay attention to. It’s been quite refreshing so far - especially since there are companies like Target around.

For as long as I can remember Target’s design has always impressed me. They are one of the few retail companies that truly "get" branding. Everything from print, to web, to in-store, to television just radiates "Target". They have achieved what all companies aim to achieve by having a logo fully recognizable alone without any name next to it. Needless to say, I have come to expect good design from them and am no longer surprized by it…

…until I discovered Club Wedd. Club Wedd is Target’s version of a wedding registry site, which they have incorporated right within their main template. The colors, painted illustration style, copy, and functionality all work together brilliantly to create a unique memorable user experience.

I especially love the center (or technically home) page. Registering for a wedding can be an overwhelming task and they have broken it down visually by allowing the user to click on various rooms of the house and ultimately create their list in a more organized fashion. Each category page after that is able to take on the style guide of the regular Target site, while still maintaining the crafty look and feel of Club Wedd by carrying individual category banners.

Club Wedd reminds me that you can still, in some instances, be completely and utterly creative while living within a major retailer’s website. It also shows me what a good balance of water color illustration (which I’ve been so drawn to lately), and web 2.0 style looks like. I guess opposites do attract…sigh…

For some reason - and maybe it’s just me - I instantly had a flashback of getting in trouble for painting on the kitchen table when I came across this design. It’s the "spill-like" illustration on top of the wood grain. The unknown artist did a good job of combining natural with the abstract. My mind is churning for ways I can incorporate a tad-bit of this into my next project.

It would’ve been nice if they made the edges around the wood a little smother since the textures are so very different.  I can see something similar to this being used for a print ad with some nice typography added right into the sun rays.

Although today my profession is in Interactive Design, my first passion for the arts was drawing…specifically people. I would cut out photos of the most interesting characters I could find from magazines and newspapers, and spend hours drawing them. It’s easy to get caught up in the templated world of web design and forget about these natural organic shapes of the human body. One shape used to break through the boxes can add so much life to a page.  This is what instantly attracted me to Fray.

Fray uses large watercolor images and great typography to test the limits of what templates can look like. It still feels extremely organized and professional, but in ways, you almost feel like you aren’t looking at a website.  This could work as an amazing print piece as well. 

I love how the hand is protruding from the top of the screen.  It’s as if it’s really reaching down into your computer. The defined line created by using the tan on top and white on the bottom adds some structure to balance out that large image overlapping it.  Check out Fray up close here: fray.com.