A fine website maker and his equally fine website.
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Andy Mathieson is the guy who made(under Paul Belford’s excellent design) my Whois site and my portfolio site.
He’s just redone his own site and it’s spreading like wildfire. It’s had over three million hits in a week and continues to blaze its way through Twitter.
Check it out then you can see the excellent work he’s done for lots of other clients and maybe make use of him yourself.
Either the site’s gone down or that’s the worst site I’ve ever seen. Or I’m missing something.
If he has to put tips on how to use a site, it’s not a very good site.
A bit gimmicky.
Good designer though.
Seems to be down.
Andy says: Thanks for that, I can accept those comments, not everyone will get it… at first! Thats the risk you take when you do something different to the norm.
Ahhhhhh. I seeeeeeee now.
I was missing something. I got it when I read the tip properly. Trouble is the + isn’t red enough.
I’m probably not the target audience though.
I’m the target audience. Could you do it again?
Props to him for trying to be different. It certainly doesn’t feel like the oh so many boilerplate sites out there at the moment.
But surely as a designer, and a good one, communication is key. This struggles to communicate.
The thing that lets it down the most is the hover over the img tag to see a small image doesn’t really do his work justice.
Brilliant.
This is a very daring website, and I love it! It is a piece of art and like all good art, you need to take a little bit of time, observe and let it sink in. People expect information to be force fed into their brains these days, yet this site says, slow down, grab a cup of tea and take a look at what Im all about.
He is a developer, his audience are designers, like me. He is arrogant to the point that if you want to work with him you have to at least, read a little about him.
This piece works on so many levels, the guy claims not to design, ‘A 3 year old with an eight-pack of crayola can produce better designs than me.’
But clearly this has been designed to a very high standard, it reeks of Paul Belford from thisisrealart and it’s not surprising to see him as the first on the list of testimonials. Was it was designed after all? Clever!
There is a fine balance between usability and honouring the concept of a code editing system. The site has everything, creativity, humour, a fantastic portfolio. More importantly, because it is so different to the norm, its going to embed in memory for when you do need a web developer.
Pure genius.
BTW Dickhead, you can see the images fullscreen by clicking on litebox, it says so in the tips.
“When we started this, this was a dark and shadowy tunnel of eucalyptus trees,” Klatt says. Now, it’s a sun-dappled spot; the hiking trail weaves through oak, bay and redwood trees. Those are native trees, as opposed to the eucalyptus, which are originally from Australia.
jUST MAKE THE CROSSES REDDER. Ooops caps lock on. I mean..
Just make the crosses redder. Sorted.
It’s a good idea, but it’s just annoying.
Click Click Click
Can you come round my house and show me how to use it?
I’ve always hated that code shit.
Probably why i fucking detest reddit.
@Malksi55
I develop. I understand the language. However, this is form over function – a fundamental floor in any design.
Two types of people will look at this site.
1. Somebody who has no idea about developing.
How do you suppose they understand this complicated UX?
2. Somebody who understands the language.
They’ll just worry about their project being over complicated.
I’m being completely subjective and admire the balls it takes to launch such a project. But if it needs explicit tips on how to use it then it’s not intuitive and therefore, in my mind, it’s bad UX and therefore the design is mute.
Hi Ben, a big thanks for post.
I was just reading through the comments, don’t worry, nothing on here offends me. Some of it is quite funny. However there are just a couple of things I should put right.
@Malksi
Thanks very much for the kind feedback but just need to point out that Paul Belford didn’t design the site, although after working with him for so long, he has obviously had a big influence on me. Also Paul has his own independent company now, see http://paulbelford.com
@Dickhead
I appreciate your feedback and it is certainly taken onboard, although I feel you have grouped the users slightly wrong.
The intended audience live somewhere in-between:
1. Somebody who has no idea about developing.
2. Somebody who understands the language.
I believe a lot of designers who don’t develop, have at least a little experience with HTML. They may have tried building their own website from scratch perhaps, or using an off the shelf solution such as wordpress or indexhibit. I’m not sure this demographic live in either of your groups and it has been these very people who inspired me and gave me the confidence to actually set up Designers’ Friend.
Peace to all and have a great weekend.
Andy
What about my comment? Redding up the +?