I like sites that bring tangible items onto the screen. I like the idea that someone took an item, and scanned it or photographed and turned it into an element for their design. This site has that, with the photo corner edges and the stamp overlay, and it helps portray perfectly the feel of this community. The illustrations are cool and the type is well chosen. There is one caveat, though… This might be a bit nit-picky, but it’s the reason the screenshot is of the main page, as opposed to the splash page. Ok, make that two caveats, the first one is the fact that there is a splash page at all. What’s the point? Also, check the following snip of the splash page…
The baseline of the slightly rotated text is all borked up. This is something that I’ve run across before, it’s just something that Photoshop does to type as far as I can tell. Maybe it’s worse when the typeface is Helvetica? Perhaps a typographer can enlighten me. Anyway, with a site this well designed, especially type-wise, I’m curious as to how that little bit made the cut. But maybe I am being too nit-picky….
Beautiful
I built the Edgewater site and in my defense I almost lost the project over that damn splash page. My client insisted on it, even after weeks of telling him it is the equivalent of leaving your kid alone in a parked car at the mall. But I lost that battle, and your right the text is wonky. I am going to fix that. Love the review, thanks again.
Thanks, Tyler, and in retrospect it probably wasn’t fair to be critical about the splash page. Any designer worth his/her salt would never propose a splash page on their own. I’ve begrudgingly done my fair share of them. It’s just the way it goes. But good job, it really is a beautiful site. I also realized that I didn’t even link to the splash page. Perhaps that was a subconscious aversion.