March 14, 2004 | View Comments (40) | Category: Version 2
Summary: The Feb finalists for Version 2.
Again congratulations to everyone who took the time to enter the contest. It proved to be successful beyond my wildest dreams and I have already received quite a number of entries for March. Without further ado here are the 3 finalists for Version 2: Feb (in no particular order):
Congratulations to the 3 finalists. The winner should be announced this Friday (March 19th).
Is anyone surprised by these results? Each reflect a completely different style, which shows why it was important to not place restrictions on the guidelines for the contest. My favorite did not make it to the finals, but I can completely understand why. I think these 3 stick to the essence of what PG is about and that is very important. When designing for a client you have to design for beauty and a message and these do that all very well.
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Hey, congratulations everyone - best of luck in the second round!
Ben Scofield (http://www.culann.com/)
Can't believe it!!!
I am very honoured, and there's nothing more left to say than:
Thank you!
Minz Meyer (http://www.minzweb.de)
Which was your favorite, Paul?
My favorite did make it to the finals. :)
Ryan Brill (http://www.ryanbrill.com/)
I'm suprised about Brian Benzinger. I think his was too plain. I'm also suprised that Michele Gerarduzzi didn't make it. His was ultimately the best designed. IT was the cleanest looking with the most focus on the content.
Andrew (http://andrewblog.weblogs.u)
oh and Minz Meyer is my favorite out of the ones you selected
Andrew (http://andrewblog.weblogs.u)
My favorite didn't make it either. but hey, im not the best eye for design.
However i am a little shocked at Brian Benzinger's entry (no offence to the actual person). It seems to be to be a little to macromedia.com style for me.
Phil Baines (http://www.wubbleyew.com)
Now that the voting is over, I'd like to congratulate the finalists. Each of them produced a very fine entry. There are elements of each that I really loved. Great job, gentlemen!
So many of the other entries were terrific as well. You are a skilled group of competitors. Thank you for sharing your talent and creativity. It's really astounding to see such quality in the various approaches to the redesign.
Thanks also to Scrivs for the opportunity to compete in the contest and exercise and improve web skills.
Also, thank you very much to a few people who said some very nice things and gave me valuable feedback about my entry.
Best of luck to the finalists! I can't wait to see the new Project Gutenberg page sport one of your excellent designs. :)
Travis Cripps (http://www.apparentmotion.com)
Andrew, Brian's was good enough for Macromedia in their last design. No offense, Brian, I really like the look, but it is almost identical to the previous MM design (mid 2003 IIRC), except of course that you did it in CSS and theirs was almost entirely in flash.
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
Two of my favorites did not make it (Thomas Hana and Dan Hodos). (;_;) I guess they were two minimal.
Paul, how many people voted? If you are lazy to count, any good estimate?
Zelnox
About 450 votes came in. And my favorite was Michele's although it didn't have the PG feel to it.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
Very nice entries! It’s enough to make me want to get in on this month’s action :).
Vinnie Garcia (http://blog.vinniegarcia.com/)
Lovely! my favorite (Travis's -- I thought it had the best information architecture/usability and captured the PG spirit) didn't make it either, but the ones that made it are excellent too. Good luck all of you!
Where do we go from here Scrivs? Are you picking the winner? what will be the methodology for the next stage?
sergio (http://overcaffeinated.net)
I don't much like any of these designs, none of them have really considered the needs of the partially sighted, or those using a high screen resolution, who are likley to have a large font size set in their browser. Failing to consider the visually impaired is probably the single commonest failing in web page design.
Brightcorner looks bad if you have your font size set to largest in IE6, not good, it also doesn't look right on a large font size.
Brian Berzinger uses fixed font size, horrible, I want to be able to adjust the font size, fixed point sizes should never be used, in any website intended for public access.
Minz Meyer handles different font sizes OK, pity about the fixed columme widths really, I'm using a largew text size and a high resolutuion I would like to be able to use a decent proportion of my screen width. Still the least bad design of the three for the partially sighted.
Brett Paul Dunbar
Sergio: The judges take it from here. They will be announced with the winners.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
Congrats to the finalists, and best of luck in the jury trials. :)
From the list of finalists, it is obvious that beauty is the key. No matter what you do, it must be beautiful - all other aspects are less important in the eyes of the people.
To be more precise, if it isn't looking nice, no one will check other aspects.
Aleksandar Vacić (http://www.aplus.co.yu/)
Congratulations from me for the finalists and also to all the others who entered this contest. There were quite a few really impressive entries IMO.
Best of all is everyone who participated learned at least a few things while working on the redesign – at least I did :)
Stefan (http://blog.hessendscher.de/)
My comments on two of the finalists...
Benzinger - While aesthetically pleasing viewing normally, I was fairly unimpressed with this one when I turned off CSS styles. Might have helped if the design had been completely finished adding hrefs to the links under categories and featured books.
Meyer - This one is also very nice looking, but handles the lack of stylesheet very nicely. My disappointment here would echo some of the other comments that the focus of the homepage isn't quite right (taking a bloglike approach) and at lower resolutions the meat of the navigation really gets lost.
My choice would be Bright Corner. Although there are a few small issues, I believe this design provided the best all around focus to visual design, information architecture, and CSS based layout.
russ
Well, my favourite (Travis's design) did not make it to the top three. Anyway, I'd like to congratulate everyone that entered the competition - now I know what I'm up against for this month's competition (which I'm thinking about entering) :p
Will we see all the rankings and not just the top three?
Lucian Slatineanu
When I look at them, I think "Yum!" My favourite it Brightcorner.
Congratulations everyone! Very nice indeed!
Justin (http://bluealpha.com)
I'm glad to see that Bright Corner made it to the finals, as that was my first choice. I see some others have also mentioned Dan Hodos's very nice design - I would have liked to have seen that make the finals. But I haven't really seen any mention of Mathieu Sylvain's design, which I think is probably the most beautiful, even if it wasn't my favorite in terms of IA. It might be nice to have honorable mentions for certain categories, for those designs which really excel in one aspect.
Jennifer Grucza (http://jennifergrucza.com)
Very nice selection - not surprised at all by any of them.
I'd have to say my favorite is Minz' effort, which looks excellent, different, and stylish.
Brian Andersen
Bright Corner was the easy choice. It was obviously the best one there. A great design that really places the focus on the content, and looks good too! Congrats to the finalists and thanks to Scrivs for hosting.
Peter Eschenbrenner
We're flattered to say the least. We found out about the contest at the last second, and really rushed to get something in on time.
It means a lot to be selected in any competition that involves voting by industry peers, especially when there are so many excellent sites.
As Minz said, all that can really be said is...
Thank you.
Garrett Dimon (http://www.brightcorner.com)
I voted for Benzinger. Meyer's was very good, too, so I'm glad his got in, but it was a little too futuristic and modern for a (even if e-) book site.
Great job, all!
thomas (http://gendes.elivy.com)
I thought Brian Andersen's was far and away the best home page for Project Gutenberg. I loved its minimalism not because minimalism is "cool" or anything like that, but because it simply focused the attention, it told you what PG was and gave three simple choices about what to do next. All the others including the winners had far too many things trying to grab my attention causing me to ask questions rather than find answers. OK Brian's did not have a search bar, and I think the logo could have been better and faster loading, but I can see that a search bar would have come on the next page and was not needed on the home page. The logo did not distract either so no problem.
Brian's design has potential for all kinds of options for the rest of the web site, whereas the others have already set out their stall re navigation, content and style. It uses fixed font size which is a real drag if you wear thick lenses like me but those kinds of accessibility problems can all be easily sorted out, whereas fixing the content of the home page is not so easy if you cannot see the need for limiting home page content to bare essentials and nothing else.
FWIW, that's my opinion as a user rather than a designer because I only just started designing web pages (if you could call it design yet!). Any feedback at all re my own entry would be most welcome as I haven't a clue how it rates with you guys, although I expect my graphics weren't up to much.
Peter Moulding (http://www.mouldingname.info/gut/)
Why can an ebook site not be futuristic? PG is trying to bring reading into the third millennium after all, isn't it? Sepia and old script is such a cliche. Although it can look great if done right, of course.
peter moulding (http://www.mouldingname.info/gut/)
Nothing wrong with futuristic... as long as it's aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. I didn't find yours particularly futuristic, Peter, unless maybe it was retro 60s style futuristic, which is cool, but doesn't really suit project gutenberg. It'd work great for a discotheque or a modern art gallery or an artsy coffee house. Also, the Communication Consumption Production division, while quite clever and logical, would probably confuse Joe User.
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
I have to admit I was amazed that Minz Meyer's entry (no critique against the person; just the design) was selected as one of the finalists. PG's site has a big emphasis on finding the e-book that one is looking for. Keeping that in mind, Meyer's design has the Search section below the contents (on 1024x768 res and lower, it doesnt even fit in the first pageful). I agree the design is eye-catching, but I feel most of the upper area has been lost to useless whitespace. If the search section was shifted up above the contents area, it would make it a better design.
prasnation (http://www.prasnation.com/cinematicrain)
I know that's why I didn't vote for it, despite the good looks.
I wonder if they could take that lovely graphic in the top-middle and use it as a background for a search box, maybe with the textbox set to 50% opaque or something...
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
[..]If the search section was shifted up above the contents area, it would make it a better design.[..]
....yeah, you're right...
it would have been better. That's the downside of participating in these contests. The feedback that makes you think about it turns in too late.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the seach box on gutenberg.net hasn't been at the top two weeks ago??? Huh?
I guess they are reading this site??
Minz Meyer (http://www.minzweb.de)
Hmm... Paul, maybe you should let the 3 finalists do slight modifications to their site prior to the final judging based on feedback?
JC (http://http;//www.thelionsweb.com/weblog)
Brightcorner would be my choice, if only cause the other two are rips of other site designs... the second one reminds me of macromedia way too much, and tho I can't find the third one I coulda sworn I've seen something very similar posted on CSSVault.com... Props to Brightcorner tho :)
-ALEX
Alex
JC: I saw that today. Seems to be causing quite the stir since they are using PG name.
Alex: I think you are referring to Didier's CSS Zen Garden Entry (forget the name).
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
Minz, the PG search has always been at the top I think. Great looking design, btw.
JC, many thanks for the feedback on my entry.
Looks like PG has competition from PG2 but I prefer the simple, plain vanilla ebooks and low bandwidth website to the slow graphics-heavy, pay-for-pdf pay-for-what-next PG2. The name's a rip off and seems like they are trying to turn a successful not-for-profit enterprise into something else :-(
Peter Moulding (http://www.mouldingname.info/gut/)
[..]Minz, the PG search has always been at the top I think.[..]
Really? I'd swear it wasn't there when I looked at it ;) Paul, do you still have that screen-shot you had on the Feb Version 2 page...now, I am curious.
Didier Hilhorsts awesome Design for the ZenGarden is called "Release One", and I agree there are similarities, but I wouldn't call it a rip-off.
Minz Meyer (http://www.minzweb.de)
PG2, from what I've read, isn't related to PG specifically but the founder or person in charge of PG or something is somehow related to it, and the trademark is in his name, not the organisation's name.
Near as I can tell, they're giving HTML versions away for free and offering to sell ebook versions for a small fee... that doesn't take away from PG, which only distributes zipped text files (with occasional HTML versions). They're saving other people the headache of converting it to ebook format, which isn't so bad in my book. It just seems like they're ripping off PG and then there's the godawful site design/load time.
Now, if they'd mark them up using voice XML or whatever the proper coding format is to convince computer readers to put proper emphasis where it belongs (as opposed to the very basic em and strong tags), so you could have it read to you in any of a variety of voices... that'd be way cool. :-)
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
For Brian Benzinger's entry, I dont really see any similarity between his and macromedias site.
- Macromedias site is not the same color.
- Macromedia has three seperated rows and 2 colums where brians has 1 main container with no seperated columns or rows.
- Macromedia has flash and javascript in there navigation, brians isnt even close to it.
- Macromedias navigation is kind of aqua style, brians is a simple gradient.
there are many more differences. The only similarity I see is that the top of the navigation is curved where MANY sites have that.
Thats my 2 cents
Tim
Tim -
It's not their current site, it's their site from the middle of last year.
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
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#1
Two of my favorites made it in. Congratulations guys, and good luck with the panel!
Chris Vincent (http://dris.dyndns.org:8080/)