Sigh. OK. Stylegala is a great resource. Let me just say that ‘straight-up-no-messing’. Also, I’ve never had a site featured. But I can assure you that this isn’t a post fuelled by any kind of bitterness. I’m not like that. Honest …

I go on the Stylegala site regularly to keep up to date with the latest in web and CSS news, and the majority of the sites they showcase on there are a great source of interest in terms of design, best practice, development methods, new ideas etc. etc. It’s just sometimes, well, I get a little disheartened to see entries on the gallery showcase that just don’t ‘tick all the boxes’. Don’t get me wrong, they are never really bad, I just feel that sometimes they aren’t appropriate.

An example is when they post an entry that has been developed using a new type of development application or site architecture tool or wotnot – something, in itself very clever, interesting, current and, yer know, very (clears throat, looks away slightly) “WEB 2.0”.

But let us not forget: “The design must be of high quality. Not just on a programming level – but also on a graphic design level” (taken from: http://www.stylegala.com/about/ – the ‘What are the submission guidelines?’ bit).

I want to know about new applications, methods, programming ideas etc. etc., but the guidelines clearly state that the graphic design must be of a high quality too. Perhaps entries that are below average in one area should go into a kind of ‘sub-gallery’. Yer know, ones where the mark-up is immaculate and / or well generated, but that have slightly average graphics and visual design; and then ones where the on-screen graphical ideas shine but the mark-up is a little shoddy; and then the ‘premiership gallery’, where you get those with a high quality of both. I dunno. Just a thought …

One way to look at it, is that you never see it the other way on Stylegala: You will never see a site with poor mark-up – perhaps even laid out in tables, for some backwards reason – that has remarkable things happening visually on the surface. You will never see these sites featured on Stylegala. They may have visual layouts and compositions that are aesthetically original and inspiring – references that may benefit a web designer greatly if he / she were to be exposed to them, but if the ‘development’ side of things slips, they won’t get shown. Yet, I have seen on many occasions, sites that are just poorly designed (from a traditional visual perspective) getting in there because there’s something ‘new’ in a general web sense related to the site in some way. Yes it’s a great thing. Yes I want to know about it and be exposed to it so that I may learn. But tell me in the ‘right place’.

Indeed, if these sites are worthy to show, change the guidelines and apply the same rule of logic to sites that fail in other areas such as the code / development side, but that perhaps excel in other areas such as layout / colour / ideas / typography / functionality etc. etc. – showcase them as well.

For me, the ideal situation is to showcase only those that are the ‘cream’ in every department. I guess to do that reviewers must resist the temptation to get overly biased and excited about only one or a few areas of the required guidelines that the site has covered.

Perhaps another way would be to split the gallery into ‘developers picks’ and ‘designers picks’ – then at least you will understand if some are biased slightly in one area.

But, at the moment, for me, Stylegala sways too much over towards the development side of things too often, seemingly ignoring or having poor judgement from the graphic design perspective.

Like I said, this isn’t a regular occurrence, it’s just when a sub-standard entry does slip in, it does seem to be the visual design I find lacking …

Anyone else get that vibe? ...