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Sandra Thomä - Portfolio

Posted on March 29th, 2006 by Shane

Back to Germany again today, this time for the portfolio of German illustrator Sandra Thomä — coincidentally, another book-like theme. With this one, design firm plastikfantastik* has done an excellent job creating a site that both mimics an artist’s sketchbook and also mirrors the whimsical, unusual feel of Sandra’s drawings. Lots of quirky little elements that words just wouldn’t describe accurately. Definitely merits a visit to see for yourself.

Update: The first comments on this site have noted that the usability just isn’t there, and they’re right. It’s not straightforward by any means. If you’ve been reading my reviews long, you know that usability, to me, is absolutely essential. A site can be beautiful yet worth very little if you can’t find what you’re looking for.

Yet I veered sharply from that guideline for this one. Why? Because I feel that this design perfectly achieves its purpose. It’s built to exhibit Sandra’s work and expertly conveys via a website the same feel that you would get from flipping through her sketchbook. Not an easy task by any means.

Her illustrations are odd, quirky, bizarre, unusual — whatever adjectives you choose, they can be applied to this site as well. Displaying her work in a more traditional site would detract significantly from it. This site meshes perfectly with it.

Tags: Germany, Graphic Background, Light Background

Rated 4.1 from 30 votes

More Opinions on Sandra Thomä - Portfolio

Although the illustrations are cute and whimsical, the home page navigation is what some would call “mystery meat” navigation. There’s no way to know from looking at the page (a) what kind of site is this? (b) are there any more pages to this site? (c) what is click-able?

I’m guessing that sites such as Unmatched Style are constantly trying to find “something new” or “something different” to spotlight. If something is new and different, great, but does it add to the user experience? I would contend in this case, no. I am forced to wander around with my mouse in hopes of tripping over something useful.

I personally would not deem this site as something to emulate. Two stars for the illustrations.

– Carl Camera
Mystery meat navigation…not only that, but some of the text that appears onmouseover is covered up by the title tag attribute that pops up as well. Nice art, but not a very usable web site.

– Chris Huff
Both very good comments. If you’ve been reading my previous reviews, you know that I consider usability to be paramount, yet I chose this one anyway. Why the disconnect? Good question. I should edit the review to explain. I’ll do that now.

– Shane
I admit that the navigation isn’t apparent at first, but it really doesn’t take all that much hunting to find it. There’s something to say for user interaction when it comes to websites.

A quirky site for some quirky artwork. I agree with Shane that it matches perfectly.

– meashman
It matches perfectly for sighted users, or those who navigate with a mouse… regardless, it could have been styled with a semantic outline nonetheless. She’s done a beautiful job, but links could have been lists with keyboard navigation (though, that is debatable in some camps), it could have had summary content to describe more of the intent of the drawings.

I agree, it’s a beautiful site, and the premise is great — but there really is a reason why we focus on accessibility — even from a marketing standpoint, morals aside, it’s bad for business to lock out a potential audience. She’s come very close to this on many pages — a quick run through accessify.com or codingforums.com can help her bring it to a close perfect.

As far as the mystery meat — it’s cute, but not functional — and all though we can argue from a design standpoint it fits visually, there are clear reasons why it’s not a common method anymore; it loses an audience.

– Brady J. Frey
It’s very sweet and quite well produced. I know what you’re saying about the navigation here, I recently put together a similar project myself and opted not to use highly visible navigation because it really took away from the old-world feel of the site, I didn’t -want- people to remember they were at a website, I wanted them to feel like they were looking through an old book and nothing more. You get that feel with Sandra’s site.

I think curiosity-based navigation also works well for this site because children are curious, and it’s like a game finding where to go. Admittedly it could be improved a little with at least some indication of where to click to get information (and in a swirly / childish font that wouldn’t take away from the feel of the site), eg - http://www.seussville.com/

Another usability improvement that could be made is putting the “previous” and “next” links at the top of the page, rather than the bottom, save the user scrolling down.

– Harmony
i don’t understand the rationale here! if useability is of high importance then how can you justify adding a site that fails in it’s ability to communicate what it is to a reader/user and subsequently makes it difficult for folks to find their way around it?

the work on the site is great but mystery navigation has been a no-no from the very beginnings of the web.

peace ;o]

– Martin
Good question. If it had been next to impossible to figure out how to get to things, it would have been a different story. However, it takes all of a few seconds to figure out how to get into the site, and it’s fun in the process. It’s not like there are whole sections of the site hidden behind complicated navigation mechanisms. You can get to everything very easily with just a little click-click. (If you are sighted, that is — as Brady mentions above.)

– Shane
I think this is a very interesting site to add to Unmatched Style. It certainly looks like it’s created quite a debate!

Personally I feel as though it does justify being added. I haven’t gone into the code so can’t comment on that, or any of the accessibility problems - However, it is a very beautiful site which showcases the creator’s work perfectly.

I know a few artists who have asked me to create sites for them in the past, and on these occasions conventional forms of navigation and look&feel tend to go out of the window. Artists usually want something more abstract that reflects their work - and as long as it looks correct, the usability comes a very distant second.

Having said that, this is no excuse for making the site accessible IF IT WAS EASILY possible. There’s been quite a lot of debate stating how it’s only really visually accessible - but (although not meaning to be controversial) surely this website is only really meant for those people who can SEE the work? :o)

Disclaimer: I in no way meant to p*** off visually impaired uses by that comment - just a blunt joke…

– Chris