This website review is of a portfolio website for a portfolio website that belongs to one of my all-time favorite graphic designers, Scott Hansen.  He also goes by the designer name of iso50 and is also an accomplished musician.  When making music and playing shows he goes by the name Tycho.

Scott's website is beautifully designed and his navigation is clear and easy to use.  On rollover, the color of the navigation button changes and a carrot comes up next to it to further show that it is a button and can be clicked.  After clicking, the navigation choice remains the rollover color.  Another thing that Scott introduces that many other websites don't have is sound.  Upon rollover, a noise is made to even further show that the word is clickable.

The architecture of this site is very flat and simple.  It is basically just one page with images and colors that change to show that you have entered a new category of navigation.  I think that the flat navigation is very effective in this site because it makes the portfolio work easily accessible.

the typography of the site is very fitting because it is a style that is seen throughout his work.  I think that the hierarchy could be a little stronger, possibly the use of some larger type or different typefaces would help.

The layout of the website is very consistent as i said before.  It is a one page site that uses new images, sounds, and colors to show you have moved from one section to another.  The main focus of the page is the image of the work.  i believe this is how it should be executed because it is a portfolio site and the work is the most important thing.  The colors work very well and seem to fit into his artistic style.  Also he uses textures that can be found in much of his work such as wood textures as well as patterns.  The brighter colors bring the content of the page forward and make them much more important than what is going on in the background.  The strong images also pop well off of the light background.

The overall goal of the site is to showcase the work of Scott Hansen.  I think that this goal is achieved successfully through the simple layout and architecture as well as the very large and strong images of his work.  I think that one aspect of the site that enhanced my overall experience was the addiction of his music playing in the background.  it was very soothing and seemed appropriate while browsing through his work.

Denny's website is a very inventive and fun website that really gets me in the mood for some breakfast food.  The navigation of this site is somehwat complictaed because there are multiple ways to travel from page to page.  There is the quick navigation button which brings up a normal navigation bar but there are also little arrows on the sides of the page that cycle from right to left from page to page.  The only problem is these scroll arrows are not visible unless the user rolls over a certain part of the page on the right or the left.  I was a little confused at first but once i realized how it worked, i found the site to be quite fun to move around in.

the sites architecture is not very deep.  n fact there is only one navigation bar and a secondary navigation seems to be nonexistent.  I wish that there was a navigation bar that would stay up consistently while i moved from page to page.  It is a pain to have to click on the quick nav button everytime i want to switch pages.  I think that the flat architecture of this site is successful because it allows the user to browse through the site quickly.  Not many people are going to want to sit and read through a bunch of crap about Denny's, they just want to find out what is on the menu and what the deals are.

The typography seems very appropriate for the atmosphere of Denny's and works well to compliment the pictures of hearty breakfast foods.  the type is fat and chunky, just like most of Denny's customers and the colors of the type stand out off of the yellow background to help create hierarchy within the site.

The layout of the pages stays consistent as the user travels from page to page which is a good thing because there seems to be a lot of information on each page.  the user is able to clearly see what page they are on and then can scroll down to see more content that is relevant to the section of the website that they are in.

The strong photography is working very well in this website especially on the menu page.  Customers like to see what they are buying rather than just reading a description about it.  The images also make the viewer hungry provoking them to travel to their nearest Denny's to get a bacon sundae or a country fried steak, yum!  The colors are working well in this site.  They scream food and grease, and that is exactly what Denny's is all about.

The main point of this website is to ultimately get people hungry, and it works.  If I could go to a Denny's right now i would.  I think another main purpose of this website is to promote deals and events going on at Denny's, such as Baconalia.

Basil Thai Restaurant

Basil Thai restaurant is a simply laid out website with a primary and secondary navigation. I could easily tell where the navigation was right when i entered the website because of its placement in a green bar. This color popped off the screen so i automatically wanted to look there first.  The secondary navigation is as very clear as it appears when one of the primary navigation buttons is clicked on.  The secondary buttons are housed inside of gray bars and the buttons are also in a different typeface than the primary navigation.  All of these factors seem to make this site easy to navigate.

The sites architecture is not very deep and I dont believe that it needs to be.  Since this is only a website for a small restaurant with two locations, it is not very important for them to have a deep architecture that could confuse the user.  Usually when a viewer goes onto a restaurants website they want to see a select few things such as the menu, hours of operation, and directions. This website is architected to highlight those points very clearly while still having smaller interesting sections regarding their awards and the chefs.

The typography on the page seems to be working well and the hierarchy of the type is very clear.  The use of smaller type as well as grayer type help to show that some things are secondaryb to others.  the headings are large enough that i am able to see cllearly what section I am in.

The grid structure of the website is very simple and is consistent throughout each page.  With each click of the mouse, only a small portion of the page changes inside the concrete grid structure.  This helps to make the site very user friendly.  The large photograhy seems to be working well for this site.  I wish that there was more variety on the secondary pages however, possibly something like on the homepage which has a simple slider. The colors are working wel al around, they are very clean and sleak and the green pops off the page very nicely.  The photos really stand out well against the white background as well.