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.

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.

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.

Whoever designed the web site for the Desert Botanical Gardens did a very nice job. It’s nearby the Tornado office, as well, and I’m thinking it would make a sweet excursion some time soon for the team.

The web team for Southwest.com deserves praise. Look how beautiful and usable their web site is! It’s amazing. Especially when you begin to compare it to the American Airlines web site (or most of the other airlines, for that matter).

“We have a ‘strategic’ plan. It’s called doing things.” — Herb Kelleher, founder Southwest Airlines

Maybe that’s their secret. They do things.

But in all honesty, their web site keeps getting better. Three years ago they started down this path towards having a nice site, and they’ve been refining ever since.

Actor Jeff Bridges fills his site with interesting illustrations and writing.

Inspired by a post on Hacker News.

Whenever visitors are viewing an article they can rate it based on a number of factors — like “Laughing” or “Furious.” It’s a great way to gauge reader opinion without requiring that they leave a comment.

And — after you’ve shared your opinion, you can easily share it on Twitter or Facebook.

A few of the things I liked:

• The way the video is at the top of the page, but mostly hidden until you click on it.
• The way the navigation bar is a pull down showing extra functionality — it’s not really a navigation bar in the traditional sense.

Interesting way of showing which posts are the most popular.

When you click “Submit Tip” this panel pops up with the giant headline “Boss of the year entry form,” and right under that in small type it says “Now that we’ve thrown ‘em off the trail.” — cool idea!

I liked the search input field design for the way they graphically made it feel important.

Sections are separated with this fantastic divider which shows the number of comments, and lets the user share or get a link.

The calendar showing the number of posts by day, which I find is often useless, looks awesome on this page layout. When you hover over a specific day you get a pop out that shows the number of posts.

So that’s just a few of the things I liked about the current Engadget site design.

We chose to go with a dark background so that the photos would really pop (we also took most of the photos). We then used some of the orange color tones in our design that the store is using in their other branding, and in the store design.

Press Coffee home page.

The food menu layout.

On their site, you can order live Maine lobsters and other shellfish. I’ve got to hand it to them for using real photos which absolutely make the web site.

I ran across the James Hardie web site today and instantly liked the design.