Antidote Internet Marketing Singapore » Alan Lee

Minimalist Web Design

Alan Lee — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:52:39 +0000

Web design trends go in cycles. The minimalist style that was dumped a couple of years ago for content-rich, magazine-style layouts seems to have made its revival. Using typography, minimal graphics and lots of white space, this style of web design just spells “cool”.

It’s also great if you need to set up a website in a pinch and you have have problem getting enough content to populate your pages. Sometimes, not saying too much is the best way to go.

Anyway, for your inspiration we’ve gathered a selection of some really cool, minimalist web designs. Enjoy!

Oskar Kron

Sam Frith

Fastlikerabbit

Nadie Parshina

Medium

Johny Favourite

Iconwerk

Ciro Esposito

Ah

Toy

Horizontal Scrolling Web Designs

Alan Lee — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 06:40:10 +0000

Building a gallery or portfolio site? Consider incorporating horizontal layouts into your web design. Horizontally-scrolling websites are a fun and modern way to showcase a growing list of work, also they provide a fresh experience for users who are used to the vertical layouts more commonly found in standard web design.

A good web designer (*ahem*) would be able to help you plan your content and help you decide how to have all that content flow seamlessly without breaking the user experience. It would be a nightmare for your users to have to scroll left and right to find a piece of information they glimpse somewhere.

Here are a few web designs with horizontal layouts for your inspiration.

Love Bento

Nile Inside

Lucama

Synth

Stephane Tartelin

Zuba Dupa

Sockho

Lomotek

Suie Paparude

Gavin Casteletom

Abstact & Light Effects in Web Design

Alan Lee — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:43:56 +0000

After our posts on Water-Based Web Design and Eco-Inspired Website Design, readers have been asking for more of the latest trends in web design. This week, we take a look at web designs that use abstract lighting effects to fill up an otherwise ordinary looking website. Lighting effects in web design tend to be very colorful and eye-catching, and it is suitable for companies that want to create an exciting and funky image with their website.

Abstact & Light Effects in Web Design

Stand Out with Twitter Backgrounds

Alan Lee — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:29:00 +0000

Got Twitter? Sure you do. There are regular users that use the service to connect to friends, companies that use their accounts to reach out to customers and fans, and more enthusiastic users who want to amass hordes of followers. Whatever your reason for being on Twitter, there’s no harm spicing up your Twitter page with some design.

With just a background image and some color changes here and there, some creative individuals have created unique Twitter profile pages.

Updating Your Logo? Check out these Free Web 2.0 Fonts

Alan Lee — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:01:41 +0000

I tend to believe that many business owners are very hesitant when it comes to updating/revamping their logo. There’s a lot of emotional attachment (understandably so) and “why fix it if it ain’t broke” behind this hesitation. Anyway..

If you’ve made the mental leap and are ready to modernize the look of your logo, here are some fonts for your consideration. Using typography for logos is becoming increasingly popular on the web (think YouTube, eBay, Facebook.. you get it) and if that’s where you’re heading, Dzine’s compiled a list of very cool 2.0 fonts for download.

Here’s a sample of some of the fonts.

Rezland

Ubuntu Title

Tuffy

Photonica

Moderna

Arista

Lacuna

DustHome

Tin Birdhouse

Delicious

Water, the Sea & Web Design

Alan Lee — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:20:39 +0000

If there’s one positive spinoff genre from the whole web 2.0 craze, it’s got to be those water-based web designs. A year or two back, most web designers used the sea as a background exclusively for diving or sea-faring websites. We don’t know when water-based website designs evolved to the illustration/cartoony style, but looking at how they are able to create a soothing yet updated look to the website, we wonder how we managed without them previously.

You The Designer has compiled a list of 12 water based sites, here’s the half of it. Like what you see? Drop by over their site to view the rest.

Green Designs – Making an Eco Statement

Alan Lee — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:57:49 +0000

Green is cool, and so are green and eco-related effects and design styles. With people getting more aware and passionate about our environment, its no doubt green designes are getting more popular. Besides the statement they make, green designs can be very appealing too. Check out a post full of inspiration green designs over here

10 Amazing Restaurant Website Designs

Alan Lee — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:30:58 +0000

There is a Chinese saying about how the websites of the best restaurants look horrendous. There isn’t? Well, there might as well be one, judging by how most restaurant website designs go. Flash intros, quirky music and PDF menus usually spoil the user experience for the visitor and would-be (would-have-been?) diner. You’d think that after spending a fortune on decor and advertisements, restaurants would maintain a consistent image on their website.

Not all is lost however, we’ve spotted a few shining examples of restaurant/F&B websites that whet our appetites (sorry, poor pun, just couldn’t resist it).

Pomodoro’s Pizza

Pomodoro’s is a breeze to navigate. Content sections are clearly defined and its menus and prices are easily understood. Extra stars for providing Google maps to their restaurant locations.

Perkins

Extra-large imagery on the homepage is a sure winner. The website is a complete source of information for anything related to the chain, from menus to gift cards to even franchising. While the amount of information may be a little heavy for the casual diner, the site gets points for its consistent message of wholesome foods.

Orca Bay Seafoods

Not a restaurant website, but thought we would feature it since it was also dealing with food and was an example of Flash used subtly and with good taste. Its textured-scrapbooked design makes the site look modern and inviting. The site also has great imagery peppered all around.

Neuro Aurich

This is a personal favourite! You don’t need to understand German to know that these guys can whip up a meal. The table setting design is very appropriate for the theme and gives the visitor a good preview of what to expect at their restaurant. The content is light but updated (they have monthly specials on their menu), and the overall design is very appealing.

Aqua

Aqua’s website has a very 2.0 feel to it. The homepage is parted into sections with each section providing a glimpse of the content within. While the site offers quite alot of information, the use of design and colors makes finding the right bit easy. Having the contact information and opening hours displayed prominently at the footer of every page deserves special mention.

Trinity

Sometimes it’s more about the atmosphere, and Trinity’s website has done a good job at recreating that atmosphere online for its visitors. The website is consistent with the pub’s decor and image (see the gallery). The use of original and eye-catching graphics on the its scrolling navigation bar at the bottom is a great way to encourage click-throughs to the parts of the site.

Squid Ink

The Squid Ink is as artistic as restaurant websites come. It makes good use of textures, colors and typography to achieve a “Grunge-Lite” effect. While you may have to squint at some text due to the semi-transparent background, the overall experience of using the website is still pleasing. It’s also interesting to see a Recipes section where you can learn to recreate some of their dishes. Great example of flaunting what you’ve got while giving value to visitors!

Twelve

Twelve’s website is like their cooking: bold and innovative. It makes use of full-screen images as its backgrounds and has very minimal content throughout the pages. That, together with the primary colors used on the site, red and gray, conveys sophistication and cool without the need to be too loud.

FIG

The main feature on the site is the image-scroller, that upons browsing, will give you a good idea of the eatery and it’s offerings. Navigation is very clear and to the point. The main reason why we like FIG’s website, is that it’s clean, simple and comfortable. Makes you want to hang out there after work, doesn’t it?

How To Cook A Wolf

A witty(albeit eccentric?) name for a restaurant helps lots in getting people to remember it, and I think its the same thing with horizontally-navigated websites. It’s fun to click along the 3 buttons and have the site slide to the corresponding section. Over and over again. All that fun aside, it has some great photography in the gallery section. This will probably be a website you will remember for awhile.

So there, proof that not all restaurant websites have to be crappy! If you’re the owner with a great restaurant and not-so-great website, email us at enquiry@antidote.com.sg We have the 3-Michelin-stars equivalant in web design!

Michael Jackson is Also King of Facebook Fan Pages

Alan Lee — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:00:03 +0000

The impact of Michael Jackson’s death has already broken several Internet(website and application) usage metrics, and now, the King of Pop’s fan page on Facebook has nearly 6.7 million fans (compared to only 80,000 before his passing) making it the most popular on the entire site, surpassing Diesel and President Obama. The fan page is potential the most highly-targeted and effective channel for the singer’s heirs and record label to communicate any (possible commercial) messages to fans.

Read the full story here: Michael Jackson’s Facebook Fan Page Surges to #1

Quick Twitter Facts

Alan Lee — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:02:42 +0000

Evan Weaver, Twitter’s lead engineer, share some quick facts about Twitter:

the average user has 126 followers
only 20% of its traffic comes through the Twitter website, the rest is assumed to come from 3rd party applications
Twitter usage peaked at about 3000 tweets per second during President Obama’s inauguration

These facts were presented along Weaver’s talk at QCon 2009 to explain the architecture of the system.