We Love Icons
http://weloveicons.com/
There is a lot of talk these days about making websites responsive to the device that is viewing them. Generally this means changing the layout depending upon whether the customer is viewing it on a wide-screen desktop monitor or a narrow smartphone (or smaller). But one of the things I like about this site is that they turn this idea on its head. Instead of creating one layout for desktop viewers, one for tablets and one for smart phones, they created a site that looks like a smartphone lying on a black velvet background and then placed the content in that.
I found this idea refreshing on my desktop where nearly every website is designed in a standard 3-column with header and footer style layout. This design with a single narrow column down the very middle of my window was refreshing and surprising. It made the focus of the site (icons) crystal clear and didn't clutter up the page with blog entries or links or anything else. There are just a few extra links on the page beyond the icons, so I can learn more about “We ? Icons” if I want, but if I don't, it's not obtrusive.
I do like this design on my desktop monitor. It's fun and surprising. But when I viewed it on my smartphone, I was disappointed. Why? Because the page is exactly the same, just tiny. (See page 2 of this article to see what it looks like on my iPhone.) In other words, the narrow window of content is even narrower when viewed on a narrow device. Rather than responding to my device and cutting out the margins on the right and left, they are left in so the page becomes illegible unless I zoom in.
Now, arguably, this site caters to icons for desktop computers, so someone on an iPhone or Android phone won't really be able to use many of them anyway, but it was disappointing to see the design fall down like that. Especially when the design already has the feel of a wooden mobile device. How to Build a Responsive Design for Your Website
Have you built an awesome site? Or do you know of one that is beautiful and inspiring? Submit gorgeous site designs to be featured on this site.
http://weloveicons.com/
Here is a screen shot of the same page on an iPhone. As you can see, the design is exactly the same as on the desktop, but because the screen width is so much smaller the page is virtually impossible to read without zooming in.
This might not matter for this site, but if you're going to use it for inspiration, I suggest you also add in responsive design so that the iPhone version is as easy to read as the desktop version.
There is a lot of talk these days about making websites responsive to the device that is viewing them. Generally this means changing the layout depending upon whether the customer is viewing it on a wide-screen desktop monitor or a narrow smartphone (or smaller). But one of the things I like about this site is that they turn this idea on its head. Instead of creating one layout for desktop viewers, one for tablets and one for smart phones, they created a site that looks like a smartphone lying on a black velvet background and then placed the content in that.
I found this idea refreshing on my desktop where nearly every website is designed in a standard 3-column with header and footer style layout. This design with a single narrow column down the very middle of my window was refreshing and surprising. It made the focus of the site (icons) crystal clear and didn't clutter up the page with blog entries or links or anything else. There are just a few extra links on the page beyond the icons, so I can learn more about “We ? Icons” if I want, but if I don't, it's not obtrusive.
That Said—You Should Think About Mobile
I do like this design on my desktop monitor. It's fun and surprising. But when I viewed it on my smartphone, I was disappointed. Why? Because the page is exactly the same, just tiny. (See page 2 of this article to see what it looks like on my iPhone.) In other words, the narrow window of content is even narrower when viewed on a narrow device. Rather than responding to my device and cutting out the margins on the right and left, they are left in so the page becomes illegible unless I zoom in.
Now, arguably, this site caters to icons for desktop computers, so someone on an iPhone or Android phone won't really be able to use many of them anyway, but it was disappointing to see the design fall down like that. Especially when the design already has the feel of a wooden mobile device. How to Build a Responsive Design for Your Website
Have you built an awesome site? Or do you know of one that is beautiful and inspiring? Submit gorgeous site designs to be featured on this site.
http://weloveicons.com/
Here is a screen shot of the same page on an iPhone. As you can see, the design is exactly the same as on the desktop, but because the screen width is so much smaller the page is virtually impossible to read without zooming in.
This might not matter for this site, but if you're going to use it for inspiration, I suggest you also add in responsive design so that the iPhone version is as easy to read as the desktop version.