Festival Design, Made the poster and the website

[Benjo]

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South of Mainstream Festival

:cawesome:

[Thrill FTW!]

awesome work as always, man! :satan:

[George Hower]

Very creative nice work Benjo.
Overall nice typography.. not exactly my taste.. but you handled it well.

[nautnaut]

really cool :thumbsup:

[Mhewzikul]

Neat, good style.

Orange Goblin = :thumbsup:

[Austin]

Very Awesome

[zaolander]

i tip my cap. i'm impressed!

[Benjo]

New Website and stüff up.


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Website

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[Benjo]

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[George Hower]

Very nice stuff as usual Benjo.

[Benjo]

now already the third year....

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best website i made for this festival so far me thinks

[George Hower]

The print:

I still think the 2006 flyer design was your strongest by far.
This one feels far from inspired.
The typography is weaker than you've achieved the two previous years.

I just don't understand the thought process behind this, it doesn't seem like any design problems were solved - where is the idea behind your approach?
What was the design brief?


As for the 2008 web design....
It feels very dated - using tables and not pure css, the spinning logo, left aligned website, image mapping, did I mention tables?, pointless Flash menu that adds nothing to the website. Overall it's simply boring and does nothing to get me excited about the festival.

The text/content on each page isn't really styled, it's just kind of there.
The headers and sub headers are weak and don't catch the eye.
The index page doesn't make me want to go any further through the website.
There could be imagery throughout the website and overall could be far stronger.

The website could be designed far better using css. Flat out, you have too much junk, useless code throughout any website you make using tables.

The overall typography you chose this year kind of baffles me. It's almost de-evolving from the previous years. It's boring, in my opinion.

Benjo, I think you're a talented designer within the style you're comfortable in. I'd like to see you challenge yourself more in your work. To me, you're simple not challenging yourself, remaining comfortable where you're at.
I want to see something great from you.

If you're serious about web design, learn CSS, ditch table-based layouts, research great modern web design and then go back and look at what you've designed. Then tell me how strong it actually is/was/whatever.

I'm not trying to be a dick or an asshole, I'm just telling you exactly how I see it - as someone who works as a professional in the web design industry. I'm still trying to design interesting websites, become stronger at coding, increase my skill level, etc. Designing for web is so much different - presenting different challenges than designing for print. It takes a while to figure out how to approach design problems with brilliant to good solutions. There are far more components to factor in one the web - browsers, usability, overall impact.

Here are some websites I really admire, most (and many more) can be found at http://bestwebgallery.com (definitely an rss subcribe)

Take a gander at how simple this site is, but with strong design, layout, typography, it becomes one finely executed site.
http://www.powertotheposter.org/


Check out how the typography was handled on this site:
http://www.phizz.biz/

The vector header is outstanding and overall this small site is very well organized, appealing and interesting.


Here is another example of great design and typography
http://www.jaymeblackmon.com/

The design is simple, clean, strong and professional.


One of my favorites:
http://adaptd.com/

Great color scheme, amazing graphics...


This is a recent favorite of mine:
http://www.taptaptap.com/

I love how simple this site is, but through strong visuals and great design it is extremely effective.
That is what clean, effective design is all about.


Beautifully handled typography, clean, great color scheme.
http://www.kindledinme.com/


Here is another Amazing website design - great use of texture and strong typography:
http://www.gomediazine.com/


Another great design and beautifully executed.
http://www.friskdesign.com/


This site is so clean, it works, nothing spectacular but very tasteful:
http://austintownhall.com/


Great textures, clean layout:
http://brightcreative.com/


Simple, very strong, clean, well designed layout
http://www.mattbernstein.co.uk/


I could go on and on, but won't. I think those sites get my point across.


Anyway, much respect and I look forward to seeing what you design next!

take care man,
Joe

[Benjo]

You seriously wrote all of this? hehe
Yeah sure the typography is weaker compared to the other years. All of this maybe except for the first year was done in a hurry. I could put way more effort into this but i have no time. I get no money for this - only free drinks and food. I made the website in maybe... 2-3 days in the afernoons. ;) If my salary depended on this I would learn all of this stuff. And fer sure i'm not up to date what's the "right design for your successfull website". I just do what I come up with. Flash menus are f***in worthless but the process of creating it was fun so I did it. I like to create layouts for websites but the coding behind it is really annoying so I keep it as simple as possible. And for a festvial that draws less than 500 I surely don't want to spend weeks on this. Even if I had the time I probably wouldn't. If I make the website next year I'll ask you for your advice!

[BenjosBack]

history repeats itself again

SOM 2012