Excerpt: Today in class we looked into CSS design and layout. After being directed to ZenGarden.com we got into small groups and viewed the many different CSS designs people have submitted over time. My group was just myself, Ryan Taylor and...
Read More: CSS Design Layouts

I worked with Matt Muoio and Sudha Bhat, and we decided on this as a good one.

http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/138/138.css&page=0

We like it's simpleness and yet working design.

We didn't like this one.

http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/136/136.css&page=0

It is messy and bad font choices and colors, and images all over the place, just one big ugly mess.

We really liked Centerfold because while the design was simple and clean, it was also unique. We liked how it looked like the center crease of a magazine and everything was centered around that. This gave it a nontraditional layout, but it worked really well. It was also easily readable.

We disliked Neat and Tidy because the small white text on the black background was very difficult to read. The red links also stood out too much and were distracting.

My Group, Greg Herkins, Kevin Kroetsch and myself all agree that the following ZenGarden examples are very good:
Atlantis - We like this design because simple and elegant. The dominant image provides a happy feeling rather than a oppresive feeling
Great Escape - We also like this design, although we do have a sense of 'busy-ness' that is a little rough. The design feels well put together and according to the selected them.

We also agree that we really don't enjoy the "punk-ass" design. We all feel that it is artistically unappealing, and also it breaks the first rule of good web design.. "never make Dave scroll sideways."

We liked Pseudo Sahara (Template #130) the best because it has a simple layout but is very creative. It's text is easy to read too. Good navigation design. The worst design, in our opinion, was the Neat and Tidy (Template #139) because its text is difficult to read and the site's links are force you to highlight them which is an irritating design feature.

We found that the Neat and Tidy templete 139 was to busy and hard to read. This one confused the eyes and was to dark in color.

We found the Pseudo sahara templete 130 was much cleaner and not as distracting to look at. Information was presented in a clear format with the use of softer colors that worked well together

The one we picked that we liked was Teatime.
The color scheme was really good. The colors worked well togeather and had a nice over all feeling to the page. The site is easy to understand and the breaks seems natural. Its not busy, and there is a good flow.

The one we picked that we didn't like was Ragged. It only uses two colors, and the imidiatly trigger christmas in my head. There is even symbols that resemble snow flakes. The movement isn't too good, and the over all look make me feel like i wouldn't want to know what is on the page.

I worked with Kevin Sweeney and Katie Nemmer. It seemed we found more ugly, terrible, unorganized versions than ones we actually liked. One of the site versions we didn't like was Two by Four. The background was very distracting, the paragraphs were broken up and made your eye move all over the screen, and the colors weren't very appealing. One we enjoyed was Motopop. The colors were easy on the eyes, there was a structured layout, simple but attractive, good visual hierarchy, and easy to navigate to other versions, etc.

The one we disliked most was "The Final Ending" because the text is too dark to be read on the dark background. The one we liked most was Not So Minimal because the design is simple and easy to read but the graphics are interesting.

Group: Ryan Weigand, Jared Balboni, Bryan Miller

BEST WEBSITE(S):
MEDITERRANEAN - This site is very nice. It's classy, well designed, and has a good color scheme. It's balanced and easy to navigate. The side bars are distinct and seperate, yet feel integrated into the design, allowing a fresh, clean, connected look while optimizing visual interest. It seems like it would also handle well at a low resolution.

WORST WEBSITE(S):
TUPILE - This site is rotten. You have to scroll right AND down to view content. Clearly, this site was not made for older browsers or low resolution.

HONORABLE MENTION:
PUNKASS - This site is bordering on cool but is hindered by it's own creativity. The design is fresh and innovative, yet the structure is a bit wierd. The links were in the middle of the page and you had to scroll right. Yet, for the creativity and design make this a very interesting site.

Group Members:
Brandon Benvie
Kyle Nikolich
Sean Martin

Design we liked: http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=http://www.livingintaiwan.com/csszengarden/iguana/iguana.css
We liked this one because crisp, very clean, and very easy to read on the eyes. The color scheme is great and the page has a good flow to it. Th sublte touch of the blinking eye keeps you interested but is small enough to not be distracting.

Design we didn't like:
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=http://www.jarredbishop.com/csszen/style.css
The whole design is very crampled and overwhelms the user. There is no natural flow to the page. The iframe at the bottom is terrible. Crunching most of the page into a tiny little frame is a bad idea.

teatime --> The site is well stylized. The concept of tea is very strong and is emphaiszed through the green/grey/baige color scheme. There is good movement throughout the page: curved lines and text move your eye from top to bottom. The site is clean and readable. I feel like I am drinking tea!

ragged --> Conceptually, the site is not strong. It looks more like a snow/winter christmas theme than anything else. The red bar below the title creates an unecessary boundary between the title and the text, cutting off visual movment. The large, lame text in the bar also throws me off. Basically, the site takes on a style and concept that it didn't pull off well.

I worked with Elizabeth Lafrance. The site that we looked at as being a "bad" or unliked website as far as CSS design is the Deco design (094). We agrred that the protduing bars on the text headers were distracting and unnecessary, and we agreed that the building on the right was distracting, with too much grey space. As far as a "good" or liked website goes, we agreed on "centerfold" (122). It had a cool layout, and was effective in its simplicity. it just has a very nice layout.

I like the minimal design, very fast, easy to load, no intensive graphics, everything is in front of you. Bad side is of course, nothing cool to look at.

The "Somewhere" design is pretty cool, and looks really neat, problem is though is that there is no content in front of you initially. You must roll over something in order to get info. You can't click on the links because when you roll off the links on the left, the links on the right go away.

The "Defiance" style sheet is horrible. You must scroll down in order to view any content at all, a big no no. Template # is 107. Colors are annoying (black and red) cannot read title.

The "Best cookery of web design" looks good, but you have to scroll to the right in order to get information. This is not cool, because there is no indication to do this, and most people would not be compelled to scroll right, but rather up and down.

The "Cube Garden" is one of the best. It's well organized, easy on the eyes and gives a sense of peacefulness. Template #138

"Everything Zen" http://deep.etherealtf.net/zen/ezen.css
(has no CSS file #)
This design is god awful. You need to scroll way more than you should, and the style does not fit the screen. Everything needs to be scrolled. On the up side, black and white work well together. It's still bad though.