Discussing design 190 - Lonely Flower

Before I jump into dissecting the pros and cons of each of the layout at the CSS Zen Garden website, I've got to comment on how professional and unique looking each one is. To think that all has the exact HTML structures with only the CSS modified is strikingly amazing. Again, it just showed me how powerful one tiny little file, one little idea can be. Anyway, now I'm moving to the main focus of this post:

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Design # 190:

Lonely Flower
by Mitja Ribic, Slovenia




(+) The Positives:

• Clean, professional looking layout. The colors combination is wonderfully effective in bringing out the mood of this piece. The header alone is done really well, it has the ability to hold the viewer's interest for a long time. Nothing is over done, the slogan "CSS Zen Garden" is clearly visible and stands well on its own, while the title of the theme is incorporated seamlessly with the addition of a lone flower confined in a little square on the right hand side of the header. The grayish background brings out the solemnity of solitude.
• User-friendly interface and navigation. For a website, it is important that the content reaches the readers without excessive and complicated guidance from the creator. This layout uses the traditional two columns design; it is undoubtedly less on the creative side, but creativity would not work well for this design. From the beginning, by looking at the designed header, we as the users sense an approach on minimalism by the designer. So it is no wonder that it would make great use of the two-columns layout, the left one is for the main content and the right is for navigation. It is a perfect balance layout with delicate designs and practical content.
• Appropriate loading time and browser-friendly. These two are very important, especially loading time. The graphics and content of this design load fast and the small dimensions of the layout make it a nice layout for users with smaller screen resolutions.

(-) The Negatives:

• Main content is overshadowed by the header. This critique is more on a personal level. As I look at the layout as a whole, my eyes keep drifting back to the header no matter how much I try to look away from it. Like I said earlier, the header design is very strong and nice-looking, but it somehow takes away from the main content below where the font color is of a much softer color on a plain white background.
• Layout looks small on larger screens. Computers nowadays come in a variety of screen sizes. The standard 800 x 600 is long out-of-dated. I know the design is made in consideration of users who have smaller browsers, but still, the layout looks tiny on a large screen. It could have been better if this design is turned into a liquid design where the layout would always take up 90% or so of the screen resolution no matter how big or small the screen size is.
• Need of a footer. Again, this is just cheap nitpicking on my part, but I personally prefer footers on most layouts. The inclusion of a footer just makes a layout seem more finished a completed to me. Of course, this is NOT a must, but in my humble opinion, for this design, it could have been a bit nicer with a footer.