Stuff and Nonsense

Malarkey is Andy Clarke, a UK based designer, author and speaker who has a passion for design, CSS and web accessibility.

Andy has been working on the web for almost ten years. He is a visual web designer and author and he founded Stuff and Nonsense in 1998. Andy regularly writes about creating beautiful, accessible web sites and he speaks at events worldwide. Andy is the author of Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design, published by New Riders in 2006.

Red Labor

I've just awarded my first Silver Star over at the Web Standards Awards.

I've just awarded my first Silver Star over at the Web Standards Awards. My award goes to the edgy and unconventional Red Labor.

Now I'm not going to make a habit of posting awarded sites both here and on WSA. This is the first time and definately the last. But I have found the first experiences of judging and awarding a fascinating one.

Looking closely at the work of others makes me think more closely about my own work. It is always interesting to try to understand the decisions that other designers have taken and it makes me more critical of the decisions that I have made.

There is some great work being submitted to WSA and if you find any site that you feel should be highlighted, go submit it. I hope that you agree with my choice.

Replies

  1. #1 On September 25, 2004 10:32 AM James said:

    Definitely.

  2. #2 On September 25, 2004 09:32 PM Jeremy Freeman said:

    Certainly an unconventional site and something that would never have occurred to me as an award-winning site!

    Having been a judge for the IVCA Accessibility Awards this year, I went through a horrible process of going through thirty-five nominated sites with another chap. Several weeks later, we finally made a decision - incidentally it was down to the last two - which included http://www.snowdoniawindows.co.uk - a Malarkey production and http://www.haringey.gov.uk.

    Not an easy decision to make!

    Oh yeah, sorry Andy, the award finally went to London Borough of Haringey! (a http://www.nomensa.co.uk production)

  3. #3 On September 25, 2004 09:49 PM Malarkey said:

    Dammit Jeremy...

    So near and yet so far... but I still love you all the same ;)

  4. #4 On September 28, 2004 08:37 AM Adam said:

    I certainly agree with you here, Andy. I, at least, like to think that my work on http://www.weeklystandards.com has made me a better designer. If nothing else it's helped me more easily spot common practices as well as the spark that is innovative design or problem-solving online. It's also helped me to realize that every site, no matter how "at-first-stunning", has its fair share of compromises and problems. All you usually have to do is look just beneath the surface of any site and you'll start to see that it was just a normal person who designed it. No site, and no designer, is perfect and that's a very encouraging thought in my mind.

This article was originally published by Andy Clarke on his personal web site And All That Malarkey and is reproduced here for archive purposes. This article is published under a Creative Commons By Attribution License 2.0.

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