4 ms·

Web Designs from DeviantArt

24 points by jonphillips 17y ago

How many web designers can say that there are too many places to draw inspiration from? Exactly. None. Inspiration is welcomed from high and low, far and wide. Sure, there are css galleries you can check out, or even other designers portfolios you may be friends with on twitter or other social media websites, but what about Deviant Art?

mahmud 17y ago
Startup idea: Get those DeviantArt hippies under one freelancing roof so people can hire them. On more than one occasion, I found something I liked there and I had a paying client who wanted "something like it"; either the artists weren't answering emails, or they were busy doing term papers, or they just sent me nice step by step instructions on how to do the same in photoshop along with the plugins they used, yet some "added" me as a friend and forgot to reply.
- tdavis 17y ago
  hippywrangler.com is available -- good luck ;) I agree though; there's a ton of talent on that site, but most of those folks aren't really out for money.
- spencerfry 17y ago
  DeviantArt is meant to be a social network for artists. The people there aren't posting work looking to be hired. There are other more appropriate websites for that.
seldo 17y ago
These designs all have one thing in common: they look amazingly beautiful at first glance, and if you had to use them every day, they would drive you absolutely crazy. The difference is between something designed to impress (like, say, a ceremonial sword) and something that actually does its job efficiently, every day (like a kitchen knife). The biggest, most popular, most used sites in the world all have really simple, get-out-of-the-way designs: Google's UI is almost not there, Facebook's gets simpler with every redesign, Flickr's tries hard to disappear completely. Now, there are some objects, very rare, that are both beautiful and used every day -- the kitchen knife that's also pretty. I'd put Flickr's UI in this category. But the majority of heavy-traffic designs are ugly but functional: think Craigslist, Amazon, and our own Hacker News. So no disrespect to these designs: they're amazing. But sheer visual impact is not the only metric for judging web design.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  "These designs all have one thing in common: " They look like print magazine spreads. Which goes hand-in-hand with your observations on their bright-but-short impact.
- baddox 17y ago
  You're right. But those types of designs are still appropriate for certain websites. Namely, websites for companies that are mostly static. The elaborate designs serve to catch the eye and reinforce an opinion of that corporation. Granted, some of the designs claim to be blogs, in which case the designs almost surely hurt usability. Most of them are either web design portfolios or corporate homepages for non-electronic or -technology companies. I would consider those designs appropriate.
geuis 17y ago
I absolutely love those designs! But let me ask an honest question. Look at the top sites on the internet, per traffic and revenue. Most(but not all) have nice designs but are visually simpler. Most of the time, if I see a super awesome design its immediately: A) An edge site(being personal, small community, niche audience) B) A commercial site trying to get the "hip young crowd". One of my top concerns when developing sites is the size of graphics. The bigger concern is the size and complication of javascript. Implementing sites like these would be fun, but what kind of overall download are we looking at for our users? How much does this affect our sales or ad click-thrus for our audience?

24 points by jonphillips 17y ago

mahmud 17y ago

Startup idea: Get those DeviantArt hippies under one freelancing roof so people can hire them. On more than one occasion, I found something I liked there and I had a paying client who wanted "something like it"; either the artists weren't answering emails, or they were busy doing term papers, or they just sent me nice step by step instructions on how to do the same in photoshop along with the plugins they used, yet some "added" me as a friend and forgot to reply.

tdavis 17y ago
hippywrangler.com is available -- good luck ;) I agree though; there's a ton of talent on that site, but most of those folks aren't really out for money.
spencerfry 17y ago
DeviantArt is meant to be a social network for artists. The people there aren't posting work looking to be hired. There are other more appropriate websites for that.

seldo 17y ago

These designs all have one thing in common: they look amazingly beautiful at first glance, and if you had to use them every day, they would drive you absolutely crazy. The difference is between something designed to impress (like, say, a ceremonial sword) and something that actually does its job efficiently, every day (like a kitchen knife). The biggest, most popular, most used sites in the world all have really simple, get-out-of-the-way designs: Google's UI is almost not there, Facebook's gets simpler with every redesign, Flickr's tries hard to disappear completely. Now, there are some objects, very rare, that are both beautiful and used every day -- the kitchen knife that's also pretty. I'd put Flickr's UI in this category. But the majority of heavy-traffic designs are ugly but functional: think Craigslist, Amazon, and our own Hacker News. So no disrespect to these designs: they're amazing. But sheer visual impact is not the only metric for judging web design.

jamesbritt 17y ago
"These designs all have one thing in common: " They look like print magazine spreads. Which goes hand-in-hand with your observations on their bright-but-short impact.
baddox 17y ago
You're right. But those types of designs are still appropriate for certain websites. Namely, websites for companies that are mostly static. The elaborate designs serve to catch the eye and reinforce an opinion of that corporation. Granted, some of the designs claim to be blogs, in which case the designs almost surely hurt usability. Most of them are either web design portfolios or corporate homepages for non-electronic or -technology companies. I would consider those designs appropriate.

geuis 17y ago

I absolutely love those designs! But let me ask an honest question. Look at the top sites on the internet, per traffic and revenue. Most(but not all) have nice designs but are visually simpler. Most of the time, if I see a super awesome design its immediately: A) An edge site(being personal, small community, niche audience) B) A commercial site trying to get the "hip young crowd". One of my top concerns when developing sites is the size of graphics. The bigger concern is the size and complication of javascript. Implementing sites like these would be fun, but what kind of overall download are we looking at for our users? How much does this affect our sales or ad click-thrus for our audience?