Zeldman and crew have just posted the revised and updated Happy Cog site. 

It greatly adds to the previous iteration by moving from a rather simple, one column layout to a spiffy new duo-column setup. They decided to stay close to the same color palette, which I think is a great choice, but they’ve also added a splash of color via a series of random brush strokes; further highlighting the creative nature of the Happy Cog machine.

I think perhaps the most innovative part of the site is the forward thinking navigation across the top of the page. The use of a tag line as a method of navigation vs. the traditional link list is very nice. The further use of uppercase and enlarged text for the actual links provides the feeling that the navigation is more of a tag cloud instead of the well used (over used?) vertical or horizontal, list based navigation system. 

The hierarchy of the front page is nice as well. The simple logo followed by the site nav, followed by a graphical repeat of the information in the site nav serves to state and restate their core mission; a feature which we don’t see enough of these days in most studio sites. They’ve managed to eliminate many of the confusions and contrivances that drive users crazy when navigating a website by building a simple, solid interface that enables the user to get INTO the site with no difficulty whatsoever.

Kudos to the Happy Cog’s for another strong website.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 12th, 2007 at 4:38 pm and is filed under Design, Review, Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.