Vitamin really had a great launch - good coverage on all the biggest sites, a great advisory board with some of the most respected people in the business, great articles etc.
Vitamin was covered on several blogs and websites (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…) as the »new place«, and the »natural place« for webdesigners, developers and entrepreneurs, to expand their knowledge and insight in the business - »Nourishment to help the web grow«.
Sites like these, that gets popular this fast, sets standards. I love the sites content etc, but promoting the site as a natural place to find help getting better at designing etc. scares me. If this site set a new webdesigning standard, I really don’t want to be a part of it.
Let us take a look at Vitamin’s front page. Just let your eyes flow and tell me where your eyes naturally focus.
Exactly! The site is stuffed with small blocky elements, fighting a huge battle to get your eyes attention. Bold, bold italic, italic and normal font weights in 10 different sizes on 5 different background colors - is this aesthetic? KISS!
To summarize:
- Vitamin stands out as a webdesigning, web coding, guru-written article-collection web site.
- The site is getting popular, and such sites often set new webdesigning standards.
- Do the people behind Vitamin want webdesigns to take this direction themselves?
- Is it responsible to create a webdesigning »guru«-website, and break important design basics oneself?
This is not an attack on Vitamin in itself, I love the articles and content. I am not here to change the world - I’m just a concerned webdesigner.
7 comments
Cooper Mor Says:
I would have to agree, I little to complicated (to simplify what you’ve said) for my tastes. I was a little take aback on my first journey there when I saw the jumbled layout. I *can* see where they’re coming from as they want to mix online newspaper with blog feel. Overall though I think the layout works marginally well
09/05-2006 | 21:31
SteamSHIFT Says:
It does look pretty good, but because of the amount of content on the homepage I find it puts me off going deeper.
07/06-2006 | 14:41
The undersigned Says:
Steamshift, that is exactly my point. To many choices, to much information and once.
07/06-2006 | 14:43
Indigo Says:
Good points. I feel this project was more commerically driven that a grass roots effort, hence the design was done on a budget,to a timeline rather than crafted in the way the best sites are.
29/09-2006 | 11:41
Dr Drew Says:
Thinkvitamin is a blog to promote carson systems with help of their network. Though articles might be interesting at times, I dont like the tone at thinkvitamin. It is more biz talk.
21/10-2006 | 14:45
Vickey Reed Says:
The Greatest Vitamin in the World. We also sale nutritional support supplements that focus on specific areas of the body. Try them and see for yourself!
09/07-2007 | 9:27
Buzzlair Says:
Last time, i was thinking of making this kind of website for Malaysian audience and make such workshop for Malaysian market. But then, i realize it cannot be done without good knowledge to at least; build a foundation of this kind of thing. So, i left the idea buried in my journal.. :P
12/07-2008 | 19:04
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