Screenspire’s unshackled design bliss

17th September 2005

I’ve just spent almost an hour trawling the archives over at the fantastic web showcase Screenspire. If you have not yet visited Thomas Marban’s collection, I urge you to do so.

I have just been overwhelmed by the quality of superbly inventive web design going on out there in the field. I viewed page after page of full-screen grabs and was amazed at the detail and commitment put into many of the designs. For my money, it’s one of the best collections on the internet.

When I began the three-part rant about CSS showcases, I thankfully put in a good word for Screenspire. Today I really saw the worth of the site. What I find most refreshing is that Thomas is selecting sites that inspire. He doesn’t seem to be getting hung up on validation, Doctypes, mis-use of tables or browser resolution. As Thomas states on his modest About page:

screenspire.com is a no-embellishment, no-comments, no-technology-favored, ad-free source for recent website-designs collected from various portals and handcrafted in full( )screen view by thomas marban.

Often, the visual design aspect of what we do gets lost amidst all the anality of standards. Sure, most of the inclusions are XHTML/CSS - and they validate, but many aren’t. Frankly - and maybe it’s just for today, for I am in a bad mood - I just didn’t care. I continue to be amazed by the strength of web design right now, and have come away from Screenspire feeling considerably more excited about my job than I would if I’d just come from The Vault or many other showcases (I still genuinely love Stylegala though).

Note to cynics: Thomas does not know I’m writing this, so no, I have not been bribed into waxing lyrical about his site. It just gave me a warm glow that I wanted to share. Simple.

 

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