Graphic Greats: Production Graphics with Wendy Peck at webreference.com | 17

Graphic Greats 4: Texture Touches

BeyondWork entry page with just a few rough touches for the personal touch. © BeyondWork.

BeyondWork
This site is almost a classic, clean, white site—until you wonder why it feels so good and look closely. The addition of a few swashes of color, hand painted pictures that occasionally break out of the border, and a well laid out information path make all the difference. This site should be great inspiration if you would like to try adding a little texture to your design, but your clients want the classic look. BeyondWork services corporate clients, plus employees and families of member corporations, so the professional look and friendly mood are equally important. The site was created in-house.

Hotel Allegro entry page featuring hand-drawn graphics and rich colors.

Hotel Allegro
This site accomplishes something I have rarely seen—a very elegant look with rough elements. There are hand-drawn illustrations and a wavy font, yet the first impression is certainly different than the other sites we have seen in this article. The smooth, curved lines help to break the rough look, as does the color scheme. Very few colors have been used, and they are what we commonly think of as elegant colors—navy, gold, purple. An excellent site for a luxury hotel, providing confidence in the quality with the elegance, and putting the welcome mat out with the rough illustrations.

Poole Tourism Online entry page. Site was originally designed by RedWeb with many design changes credited to 4T2 Multimedia.

Poole Tourism Online
This UK destination site sneaks in many textured features without losing an in-control and professional look. The wavy left border is unexpected, but quite smooth. In the top left corner, the animated graphic spells out “Poole” in a rough font. The menu items are hand-drawn and are animated slightly, plus the attention attracting box in the center of the page has rough top and bottom edges. At first glance, like the BeyondWork site, this one seems fairly conventional. It is the few unconventional bits that caught my eye and prevented me from sailing by. That is excellent design when you can attract visitor attention without hitting them over the head.

On the next page, you will see examples of very gentle texture that still does the job.

Next page

Graphic Greats Index

Maxfunds.com Profile
Crooked with Color
Texture Touches
Subtle Power with Texture
100% Rough