The US Department of Justice has unveiled a sharp, modern, updated website design. And while we can remark on all the small details this or any government website, the most notable feature is the colour scheme. Rather than some combination of red, white, and blue, justice.gov is glad in black and gold.

Personally, I think it’s a great choice. Rather than walking the fine lines between parties — each represented by red and blue — Justice chose two colours that don’t represent either party, thus certifying the old belief that the courts are independent and non-partisan. Justice may or may not be blind, but either way she shouldn’t be in support any of political party.

Naturally, someone is bound to freak out about this. In this case, right-wing bloggers. Yes, they’re actually protesting and calling foul the redesign, saying that red, white, and blue is American, where black and gold are derived from a rebellious, Black Power-style movement. Apparently, “… prominently placed on virtually every page of the site is a quote credited to a man who facilitated a greater role for socialists and communists at the U.N., and the global “workers rights movement.” That’s according to an article on GOPUSA, a site I’d never thought I’d visit.

Sigh.

Considering the pervious design for Justice.gov was virtually unusable, this is much welcomed redesign. It’s tasteful, modern, classic, and bold — giving justice the prowess it finally deserves as the somewhat-forgotten branch of government. I don’t know if I like the choice of Freebooter Script to accent the type. I recently used this same typeface for a wedding invitation, where it seems more suited, and in this case, I think something like Times italic would have sufficed.

Related Posts

• No Related Post

The latest case is point is A Good Company who have redesigned one of America’s most popular websites, IRS.gov. The tax-collector website’s aim is noble, to “provide America’s taxpayers [with] top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities.” But with such an overwhelming and convoluted website, with very little thought focused on the user, modern web standards, pleasing colours, etc. make it virtually unusable.

existing IRS.gov website

When I saw the post from A Good Company, I was taken aback. What a tremendous revival! While they have written a nice little article, the images say everything. Here are a few small depictions of the redesign. Check out more here »

This stuff makes me want to redesign everything around me. I do have a few things on the list …

Related Posts

• A Brief Rant on MBA Students and Design (2)
• The White Hole (0)
• [Re]discovering Type (0)
• Redesigning the Boarding Pass (0)

Full-size image »

This afternoon, in a fit of frustration, I sat down and remade the website for UPS as I would like to see it remade. That is, how it should be remade to best serve the principal need of the customers.

Creating this little monster took about 5 minutes, but quickly spread around the web design community via Twitter with a little help from popular blogger Brian Hoff and the community site Smashing Magazine. So I thought it fitting I actually blog it so it becomes “permanent” and maybe directs people back here.

Someone keen already pointed out that I included a scroll bar. I admit, that’s just a vestigial feature left over from the screenshot process. Perhaps I’ll take care of that in a later revision, and actually tackle the logistics of having a site that is more minimal than Google, if you can believe such a thing. For example, I should probably have a link to switch languages, and some place to log in for general use. And the copyright info, etc.

But this is a philosophical redesign, so it doesn’t have to make complete sense.

Related Posts

• Change has come to Internet (1)
• Time for a New Design? (1)

I do hate myself a little for compiling an end-of-year top ten list, but in the spirit of professional altruism, I’m sharing with you, dear readers, ten brilliant blogs I’ve discovered, and have since become addicted to, in 2009. In no particular order:

1. It’s Nice That Touches my soft spot for Britain and provides daily doses of cool, especially in the realm of painting and visual arts

2. Print & Pattern While pagination and formatting are not the best, P&P has an immense archive of goodies. Lots of vintage and vintage-inspired.

3. Design Work Life Fantastic curation of mostly print work. Gorgeous stuff, mostly daily. I don’t know where author Courtney finds it, but the work here is almost always unique to this blog.

4. Information is Beautiful Dedicated to information design and infographics. An underrated practice, indeed.

5. Missed Connections Illustrator Sophie Blackall brings to life the often-beautiful-often-bizarre storyettes of the Missed Connection section of Craig’s List NY.

6. The Artist and His Model Having only subscribed a few days ago, I’m not sure how to categorise it. Products, print, posters, photography. Cool stuff.

7. Flickrdesign A digest of the best designs found on Flickr.com. Mostly posters, and great ones at that. Not too many examples of live-in-the-marketplace design, but still excellent.

8. The Intrepid Owl Sightings and thoughts from London-to-New York illustrator/designer Lisa Edwards. A slant towards illustrative design, but a bit of everything. And words.

9. Clients from Hell The recently-debuted site is already jam-packed with actual, real-life quotes from finicky, argumentative, uninformed, and unprofessional clients. Stranger than fiction, and therefore brilliant.

10. Magic Molly A bit of a cop-out since Molly is a writer, not a designer, but her thoughts and quips and observations constantly smack me awake with concise brilliance and poignancy.

11. (bonus) Lesile Miles Collections of theme-based photography. Lots to look at and gawk at and drool at. I don’t know where it all comes from.

This list alone should be enough to top off your daily dose of jealously, but if you need more, check out the resources page. And please, post your favourite design blogs in the comments — let’s try and spread the word about some overlooked blogs hiding gems.

Related Posts

• The Analog Blogger of Liberia (0)
• Redesigning the IRS (1)
• A Brief Rant on MBA Students and Design (2)
• The White Hole (0)

Facebook is set to redesign their homepage after little more than a month since the last major update. The new version emphasises different stuff and organises content in an easier-to-access manner. I don’t want to go into the full details, especially since Mashable has done just that.

Lately I’ve been paying more attention to user interface design, web icons, and other elements of interactive ‘logic’. It’s a strange science, and not to be overlooked. I remarked earlier this week that any improvement or feature [to a website or operating system] that truly works, will seem so entirely obvious upon implementation that we’ll question how we ever lived without it. The best choices in design become seamless in no time — they change the paradigm, for lack of a better word.

So we’ll wait and see if the new homepage of Facebook keeps folks coming back. Will new users stick around? Will past users come back for another look? Will heavy users get even more out of the site? Hopefully, yeses all around.

Related Posts

• Facebook Facelift (0)
• Redesigning the IRS (1)
• Redesigning the Boarding Pass (0)
• Lancashire Tea: A Public Vote (2)