Djavan
by ZetaGecko | Add Your Comments | Web Design
This morning, I was humming a little music by Brazilian artist Djavan to my one year old son. I was reminded of his website, a great design example, and decided it was about time to make a blog where I could comment on website design and hilight such sites.
What do I love about his site? Color. Click throughout the splash screen and use the menu that runs along the bottom of the design to navigate the site. Each page has its own dominant color which covers the background and provides the tint for the photograph in the upper right corner. If that were all, it would be a little dull, but each page also has a photograph of a soaring seagull in front of a golden sky with a gradient tint running from gold to orange. Djavan's face ornaments the left side of the photograph in a variety of angles and expressions. The photograph cuts a line across the page just above the navigation menu.
The website's beauty comes from a combination of simplicity (one dominant color per page, simple layout), variety (a different dominant color on each page, complimented by the gull/sky/Djavan photograph), and consistency (the same general layout is used on each page). The only thing better than the site design is the music. I have just one album, Não é azul mas é mar, which I highly recommend if you can find it.