Thought & Theory

Don’t get me wrong; there were a lot of pretty sites this year. Hordes of one-page portfolio sites biting various KDU designers with retina-burning work. A collection of shiny, gradient-filled, 2.0 goodness from almost every app under the sun. But if you looked closely and got beyond the designs that burned the brightest, you’d find the designs that will continue to burn for years to come.

They represent a delicate balance of aesthetics and usability. Some sites ride that balance differently because of their target audience, but all of them found a sweet spot between form and function.

5. Newstoday

Newstoday

While design portals like Pixel Surgeon and Lounge 72 have joined the dead-pool this year, Newstoday has taken the time to reinvent itself. They’ve ditched the 4-column layout for a more editorial feel and more importantly added a lot of little details to make the site more usable and unique (still no RSS feed, but no one’s perfect).

In particular, the discussion board system is not a cluster fuck of hard-to-read threads anymore. It has transformed into an organized, simple-to-use system with cool innovations like dog-earning posts and separating threads into their own dialogue containers. The extremely cynical and snarky attitude remains as far as dialogue goes, but at least its easier than ever to post something that will wreck some kid’s day.

4. Virb

Virb

From the people who brought you Pure Volume, Virb jumped in the social-networking pool this year with an incredible design and probably one of the most intuitive profile layout systems available today. It actually allowed you to edit your profile in a logical manner instead of the wondrous Myspace system that we all struggled through.

And that’s really the best way to describe Virb – It’s what Myspace should’ve been.

The typography and grid for everything is incredibly balanced and has a great sense of vertical-rhythm to it. Not an easy feat considering all the constraints social networks face in the build process. Hopefully Virb keeps that high level of excellence as it goes through their redesign sometime in 2008.

3. A Brief Message

A Brief Message

In a sea of CSS and Photoshop tutorial sites, Khoi Vinh and Liz Danzico created a site that managed to spark some really interesting and intelligent dialogue in the design community. While other sites like Design Observer often accomplish the same goal, I found a certain charm to the simplicity of A Brief Message. Essays are limited to only 200 words so the natural verbose nature of designers is curtailed to a concise simple point.

2. Google Analytics

Google Analytics

Rounding out the supremely utilitarian of the bunch, Google Analytics became one of the most dramatic examples of what a brilliant user experience designer could do to even the driest of subjects, a statistics application. Tufte would be proud.

Google Analytics finally completed their merge with Measure Maps this year but more importantly added Jeffrey Veen to their design team. While the previous incarnation was great mainly because it was free, the new version outshines a lot of paid versions of analytical software because of the new robust features and stellar design. If you want to study the idea of visual hierarchy and data visualization I suggest you sit down and take notes because there was only one other site this year that I thought could come close.

1. CNN

CNN

CNN became the benchmark for news portals in 2007. The standard by which other beautiful redesigns like MSNBC and others will be compared to for years to come.

Although it might not pop up on your favorite CSS Gallery Site, its beauty resides in its subtle nature and details. Beautiful grid and typography. Brilliant design for breaking news and news summary features. Intelligent interface choices and great layout-variations for sections like CNN Politics. The list could honestly go on forever.

So when people ask questions like “where is web design’s canonical designs?”, I can say that CNN has is going to be one of the designs. Over time, it will hold its place with other shining examples of design like New York’s Subway map, or Rand’s IBM logo, etc.

Honorable Mentions

I Am Always Hungry
Facebook
AIGA
Color Lovers