On Joyent.com
~ 07 October 2005 ~
In the works for some time now and finally ready for public viewing, Joyent.com was officially released earlier this week, as noted by Daring Fireball’s John Gruber.
Though a rather small site, it required the collaborative input of Bryan Bell, John Gruber, and David Young (founder). The final version looks nothing like the original comps, but hey, isn’t that usually the case? Credit goes to the three mentioned here for chipping away at the marble until the beauty within was revealed.
Two other hat tips, one to Paige Pooler and the other to Dan Cederholm. We were fortunate enough to acquire the exceptional skills of Paige Pooler for the lovely illustrations used throughout the site. In layman’s terms, her skills are wicked mad. Wait, what was that? You say she writes, too?
And Dan… Dan, Dan, Dan. Please keep your books off of my desk because they cause me to uncontrollably seek out new, more effective “bulletproof” ways of coding one’s site. I’m pleased to report that, aside from a small image in the left nav (absolutely positioned, working to fix that), the site is Kevlar vest-like in shielding itself from Command +/- resizing fiends.
Yes, I learned my lesson the last time I was pummelled for absolute font sizing.
Update
Forgot one person. I raved about Mark Simonson’s Proxima23 Comments
Stock photography, type, and killer tees. Genuinely recommended by Authentic Boredom.
Wonderful job, Cameron. Joyent.com is beautiful, and I think Paige Pooler is my new favorite illustrator. Congrats to you guys.
Also, your link hover treatment rules!
Wonderful indeed. Great illustrations, great layout, and Dan was right…I surfed the entire site looking for links to hover over because they rock so much.
Excellent product, too.
Very nice site. I love the link hover styles (like everyone else) but I keep getting these rogue linked spaces above linked images. I’m using Firefox (1.0.6) on Mac.
But again, beautiful design! And those illustrations are amazing.
Superb styling. Fits the site’s purpose perfectly.
Luv the illustrations!
The text sizing for IE is also very nice to see.
Nice site, but I’m confused on what this product actually is. Is it a web server, is it a file sharing utility, what the heck? The site does not give a clear explination of what the product is.
Great looking site, but the nav appears to be 2px too short in IE6/Win. Looks great in Firefox though!
That’s nice, but I’m really looking forward to hearing more about Joyent The Product. So far, it’s just a web site!
Joyent is nicely designed, but I continue to wonder why designers still use orange, the single most cliche and overused color for the past 5-6 years running.
I’d have to argue blue nudges out orange, and yet for some reason most of us refrain from using “blue” and “cliche” in the same sentence…
I disagree; blue is far too ubiquitous and natural for that. The sky is blue, water is (perceived as) blue, the spectrum blue-shifts, blue jeans, etc.
Orange is great, its eye-catching and all that, but it just seems that designers just lazily use orange these days because it’s easy and trendy. Heck, you link to Stylegala: orange, which links to your own english360: also orange (which also has one of those trendy “blob” logos, but I doubt that’s your doing).
I can’t walk down the street without seeing orange, either; Cingular, Better Burger, I could go on. But I guess I won’t, I’m probably the only person in the universe with this nitpick.
Steve, I’m not entirely clear as to what your point is. You argue orange is cliche. You argue blue is natural. What exactly are you suggesting in relation to Joyent.com?
Shifting gears, some of you have written to notify me of blank links in Firefox above Experience/Explore/Purchase. I’m on it — thanks for the heads up.
Well, I was only trying to argue that blue isn’t a cliche color; I wasn’t suggesting anything relative to Joyent beyond my initial observation. But to stick on topic, I’ll ask: what made you choose orange/cream colors for Joyent? Is there color psychology at play here, just what you thought looked nice, or the wife of an investor saying “Make it thus!” ? I’m over the orange argument, I’m just curious about the process
Fair enough. Things would get rather interesting around here if I told you the first few comps were nearly all blue…
(they actually were; the final color scheme was merely one that “felt” right and seemed to complement the orange from the identity rather nicely)
Ah ok, so you sort of worked backwards from the existing logo. Ironically, I see that their app UI is mostly grey/blues (Civil War buffs?).
I recently became familiar with Paige Pooler’s work. She’s great! I really like the illustrations used on the Joyent site. Thanks for letting me know who did them. Funny how I’ve just heard of her and here she turns up again. It must be the web circles i’m linking in right now.
Great color selection and layout. I especially like the clean lines and sense of perspective the “mini-photos” give tho the design.
Some nice design features in the site. Love the faint pillow embossing on the page titles, as well as the illustrations - awesome! I’ve only looked at it in IE6, but in that browser the left hand nav is kind of funky when resizing the text, especially larger. When resizing to largest, a thin brown bar also appears at the top of the page. Silly details.
Is anyone else having trouble viewing the demo movies? In both Firefox and IE - the popup window locks up and throws an error on the Quicktime Plugin.
I’m on XP Pro with the latest updates (including the new Quicktime releases yesterday).
I’d love to “see” the product!
I know I already left a comment about Paige Pooler’s work, I just needed to do one more thing:
Joyent is great
Authentic Boredom is the platitudinous web home of Cameron Moll, freelance new media designer, author, and speaker. More…
Full-time and freelance job opportunities. Post a job...
A selection of fine reading, available for a limited time only:
- Jobs home page reorg
- Coming soon: Mobile Web Design, the book
- Dyson ad: Text as more than just words
- Setting sail for Europe
- Review: Sumo Omni bean bag chair
- Dashboard widget for Authentic Jobs
- Limited-time offer: $99 listings
- Nine skills that separate good and great designers
- Fire sale
- Introducing AuthenticJobs.com
CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standard Solutions A solid round-up of indispensable CSS design techniques by Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and Cameron Moll.
Mobile Web Design A guide to publishing web content beyond the desktop. Tips, methodology, and resources. Now available.
Letterpress Posters The unassuming beauty of a freshly letterpressed print.
That Wicked Worn Look. Techniques for that worn, aged, distressed look.
Mister Retro Machine Wash Filters Turn the dial to “Instaworn” with these filters.
Blinksale Dive in and enjoy shamelessly easy invoicing from Firewheel Design.
Basecamp My preferred web app for internal and client project collaboration.
HOW Conference Austin, June 24–27. Pentagram, Adobe, P&G, et al.
Web Design World Seattle, July 20–22. Practical sessions on web design.
Stimulate Salt Lake City, September 2009. Entrepreneurship and design conference.
Articles:
Linkage:
1 Colly ~ 07 October 2005 at 10:32 AM
One word: Beautiful.