Comet Branding named among 50 fresh interactive studio and social media agency Web sites.
*blush*
What a surprising and cool thing to discover in our Mint Web Analytics last week. Catalin Zornini (@zorzini), writing for Noupe.com, did a cool review and round-up of Web sites from interactive studios and social media agencies that she deemed “fresh” and included Comet Branding among the 50 they featured. Thanks, Catalin! Let us know if you ever have plans to travel to Milwaukee and we’d love to buy you a drink in gratitude.
Here is the post itself.
And here are screen shots of the part we like best about the list. See if you can figure out why…
Perspective
So here’s the interesting part about the whole thing, from my perspective. A Web site is a labor of love and a reflection of an organization’s personality, if it’s done correctly. So when you spend enough time looking at it and tweaking it you inevitably lose perspective on what’s cool about it vs. what needs fixing.
Bias
We were just recently talking about how we might want to change up our site a bit. For a number of reasons, it makes sense. However, partly the logic is that we were kind of getting sick of looking at the same design. As we talked about it, we acknowledged that we look at it far more than anyone else does and that maybe our perspective is biased and jaded. Just maybe.
Objectivity
And then this post came out. I’m not saying this is the definitive list of Web site design, but it certainly reinforces some things that are hard to keep in mind when you’re too close to something. Objectivity is incredibly valuable, yet elusive.
It’s flattering that someone halfway across the globe (Bucharest!) happened upon cometbranding.com and deemed it fresh enough to include in this list, among some fantastic and innovative designs.
Insight
I guess one takeaway from this is that constant improvement and fresh perspective on your Web design and its content is a good thing, but you shouldn’t lose perspective on what’s great about what you already have. As we continue to update and tweak our site, we hope to keep things in perspective.
Here’s what Noupe.com is about, in their own words:
About Noupe: Noupe passionately delivers stylish and dynamic news for designers and web-developers on all subjects of design, ranging from; CSS, Ajax, Javascript, web design, graphics, typography, advertising & much more. Our goal is to help you communicate effectively on the web with an engaging website or functional interface. Founded in 2007 by Noura Yehia from Egypt the site is now property of Smashing Media GmbH.
There is a company behind the magazine: it’s called Smashing Media GmbH. Our primary business is this magazine.
Feedback?
We’d love to hear what you think about our Web site and if you have any suggestions for improvements or tweaks, we are all ears.
November 25, 2009 at 9:31 pm #
I’ve been involved in a lot of talk recently about redesigns and continuous improvement. Full redesigns are nearly always a poor idea, as they upset long-time visitors and abruptly shift the user experience. But … the “ooh-shiney-new” is a difficult urge to resist.
From a design perspective, the site is very good. I’ve always been a big fan of strong branding, and the comet “flame” logo is distinct, modern and well-placed (I like unapologetic, large, screened graphics when representing a brand).
There may be some niggling usability concerns (your primary navigation is easily overlooked and the “Search” box looks like a heading, not a text box) but even those concerns are being judged in a vacuum. I’m not aware of your site goals and you guys know better than anyone that strategy anchors your decisions (not a random guy on your blog trying to steer clear of “So You Think You Can Dance”).
As for actual suggestions, I’d find ways to ask your clients. I assume, in the end, there is a revenue goal to the site. What convinced them to finally pick up the phone? How’d they find you in the first place? Take some time to really dig into your web analytics and determine which metrics align most closely with your stated goals. Make small changes, A/B test and watch trends in your conversions.
You’ll be amazed at how many times a so-called obvious improvement ends up having the exact opposite of the desired effect and how often the large gains trace back to a minor tweak.
If all else fails, remember content is king (he’s also a cliché, but don’t knock him for that). Keep up the frequent and excellent blog posts. Consider the Drudge Report — users will deal with quite a bit of poor user experience for quality content.
Make that your calling card.
Best,
Nate