BrainFuel

I liked this new design for the H&M web site (a clothing company). Nice, simple, and understated.

I’m excited to hear about the upcoming Amazon.com redesign that some customers are seeing. It looks really good, and I can’t wait to see what they’ve improved. I already think the Amazon site is superb, with amazing design and UI. So, for posterity sake here is a screenshot of the current design.

Saw this 3D animation example today and it blew my mind. My favorite was at the 2:58 second mark.

Formatting table rows is something very interesting to me, and my friend Kent recently showed me this useful link, which showcase some really great inline editing designs: Ultimate guide to table UI patterns.

After reading that, jump over and read a response to that post, which contains 3 more examples.

I love this kind of post — it’s chalk full of great ideas in user interface design. Speaking of UI patterns, here are some useful sites and examples:

• UI Patterns – Table Filter
• Patternry – Data Table Patterns

Lastly, you should become a fan of BrainFuel on Facebook! Where we frequently post links to cool resources we find.

Of all of the sites I’ve seen, the folks at Pei Wei do it best with red. The red of course is from their branding, but they carry it into the stores with bright red floors (they must wax them).

I just love their site layout – the typography and bright colors from the photography contrast very well with the white content, and black boxes. Nice job! Related: Screenshot from 2008.

Okay, so the other night I visited a Seattle’s Best that was inside a Borders Bookstore here in Phoenix. I ordered a small mocha and thought about their recent rebranding.

Over at Brand New, 46% in a poll agree that the new logo is a “dumb move.” Which is interesting to me, considering how much I liked it when I saw it in-person the other night. I suppose it’s the old-world charm of their old logo that people miss the most. The new branding however probably frees up their design team to explore a lot of new directions they could not have gone before.

I must say though, that their new web site is rather cool looking. The colors they chose are new and modern, and have a pastel quality. I like the interactive components, and their “coffee level” concept. That’s new, and I haven’t seen that before.

The funny thing is they’re owned by Starbucks, which also recently redid their logo.

I’d say the one thing I don’t really care for, is the rounded font they chose for their logo. And why did they rotate their logo on their web site? It’s a good logo that didn’t need to be rotated.

Other problems I see, are the curious lack of a clean URL structure for sub pages (no URLs at all, actually on most), and a frankly mysterious structure to the sub pages, apparently all designed but with little text.

According to Seattle’s Best, this is their first rebranding in 40 years.

Wow, that’s a little bit epic, if you ask me!

This whole site started 10 years ago today, with the first post being made to a simple little HTML file that I uploaded to my server. Initially, it was a simple little page that linked to interesting web sites, and then grew into a massive collection of thoughts, design inspiration, and articles.

Click here to see screenshots of what BrainFuel looked like over the years.

Some stats! There have been 3,121 posts in 17 categories over 10 years. More than 15,081 comments!

Yes, BrainFuel has been less of a priority for me personally in the last few years, as I’ve focused on business with Tornado, with working on a startup (it’s going to launch!), and getting married, and now expecting a baby in July.

I’d like to personally thank the people that have made this site what it is. Without you, BrainFuel would have been less-interesting, and probably gone offline. Special thanks to Kent Downer for contributing interesting posts, and for heading up the recent BrainFuel redesign. Thanks to Tom Chapin for interesting posts. Thanks to Ben Wood for his interesting posts and for managing multiple iterations of the site and for coming up with the name BrainFuel. There are also several others who have contributed posts over the years. Thank you!

I’ve had the opportunity to meet many very interesting people as a result of this site, and made friendships I treasure.

So, here’s to another decade of BrainFuel! Thanks for being a reader!

A Modern Eden is a cool little design firm with a few iPhone applications… based around cute drawings of animals. Very nice layout, clean and bright colors and simple language.