April 8^th/ Viget Labs: Extend

I forget exactly when it was that I first ran into Viget, but when I did I was immediately impressed. Here’s an agency that’s been around for almost ten years — and they still get the web. Case in point: Viget Extend, part of the Viget Labs blogs. Viget Extend is all about the development team at Viget — they share tips, tricks, and code from internal projects.

Overall thoughts

Viget Extend is different than the other sites I’ve featured here for one reason: the site really does not pay great attention to detail. Instead, it relies on an excellent concept, and wonderful overall execution & branding to bring it home. I love the concept of the blog being underground (the roots, if you will), and the font used in the blog title and section titles is very organic, attributing to the site’s overall branding. The color selection is superb and not only fits the brand perfectly, but comes out remarkably readable as well.

Let us not forget that Viget Extend is one of five Viget blogs — all of which have equally impressive design concepts: Advance, Inspire, Engage and the Four Labs Blog wrapping things up. I’d also like to point how excellent the names of these blogs are: the action names are not only relevant, but are perfectly fitting for sites aimed to engage the web community.

Context

Concepting within context is something that I often struggle with. Creating something that looks pretty is not that difficult. Creating something that looks pretty and fits the context is extremely difficult. Extend’s concept of being underground fits perfectly within the context of the blog, and I’m very much impressed with how well it turned out. Not only is it really cool looking — but it’s memorable and meaningful.

Texture

I wanted to point out something Extend excels at: texture.

Texture is something very difficult to bring into a design, and Extend has done it very well. They’ve managed to bring in a lot of texture without making the design feel muddy, too photographic, or disoriented.

Improvements

That’s not to say that I don’t think Extend has room to improve.

1. The first thing I’d take a look at are the Javascript effects. Maybe I’ve become a perfectionist with effects, but I can’t stand having those jerky show/hides on blind effects like those shown in the Search/Category/Month/RSS sidebar (not accounting for padding within your effect).

2. Crazy inconsistent code highlighting. I love the style on the gems post, but not so much on the cURL post. Speaking of which, that extend on mouseover is just annoying. Sorry, it’s gotta go too.

3. One in the same. The entire site uses the same template. The archives pages. The single view pages. C’mon, let’s mix it up!

4. Comments are basically unstyled. I’m a whore for a good comment design, and Extend definitely disappointed in this area — it’s the kind of design that’s equivalent to a designer cop-out.

1. 

   J Phillips

   April 9^th | #

   I just actually subscribed to their design blog last week. I love the designs of their blogs, and as you mentioned, they make great use of texture.

2. 

   Doug Avery

   April 9^th | #

   Thanks for the write-up, Kyle. As you mentioned, this blog was one of four blogs and a full site, so a lot of details ended up getting left unfinished for the moment. You’ve put together a good set of to-dos, though (especially the comments, which I agree desperately need some love).

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