Every week at Fueled, our London-based Creative Director, Rob Palmer, shares a handful of inspirational websites with our teams in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. This weekly email acts as a virtual water cooler, encouraging us to congregate across time zones and discuss what brands and blogs are doing to push new trends in web design.

B&O Play

B&O Play sends its viewer on a photographic journey to explore the relationship between consumer wearables and fashion. The animation of photographs on the site is reminiscent of the Ken Burns effect that was first used in his documentaries. By using motion with the stilllife images, the photos are brought to life and they connect with the viewer. All of the photographs are exquisitely high quality with brilliant colors, and each represents a different theme for the product.

B&O PLAY

Oxford House

Oxford House, a creative production agency, has a minimalist style to their website. Themed in black and white, the first page provides a movie reel with a subtle menu option in the corner. The transition between pages is impressive with movement that is linear and smooth. Continuity is conveyed by presenting everything above the fold, and no scrolling is necessary at all until arriving on the Story page. On the Story page, a photograph slowly comes into view and enlarges with a rippled effect; its movement reminds the user of a camera’s aperture opening more and more as you scroll farther down the page.

Oxford House

Tolia

Creatively designed and cleverly arranged, this site screams all-things ice cream. The homepage features a sad looking ice cream pop with a thermometer that reads a dangerously high temperature and background that has a “warm” color. As the number drops, the background fades to cool, and the ice pop slowly gets happier and happier - because he’s no longer melting, of course. Every detail on the site exudes youth, all the way down to the hamburger in the upper right corner morphing into an ice cream icon on hover. Overall, the site emanates a sweet sense of youth, and the user is left feeling carefree and happy. And thinking about ice cream.

Tolia

Make Me Pulse

At first glance, the homepage of Make Me Pulse looks as though the user is meant to see the Vitruvian Man, or perhaps the Golden Ratio in the subtle grey color of the background design. The many squares and circles that are layered atop one another are reminiscent of a kaleidoscope that brings our eye to the center of the design. Bold white words appear in the center of the page in a choppy manner until you release your mouse and land on one. Each inspirational word has a different interactive feature that the viewer is encouraged to explore. For example, when landing on the word think, a snake-like stream of color slithers out of the dotted-i and moves along the screen with the cursor’s movement. Behind it, bursts of color appear with a print that looks like a QR code. As soon as the snake of color reaches a certain distance, it’s automatically recoiled back to where it came from - similar to the retractable cord on your vacuum.

Make Me Pulse

Jeremie Battaglia

As an ode to Jeremie Battaglia, a Canadian director and photographer, this website shows his work covering both videos and photographs. Appearing on the homepage are the signature initials “J” and “B” in a clean, bold black font. As you scroll down on the page, the letters slowly stretch to the sides of the screen, acting like a set of doors that are slowly opening up to reveal more information about the artist. Similarly, scrolling back up the page brings the letters back into view, like doors that are swinging shut. On the first page that appears, and between each landing page is a transitional screen that slides from bottom to top, displaying a large black “B” and an oversized period mark. The plain white background coupled with the bold single letter allows for a minimal, yet powerful icon. Jeremie Battaglia has successfully branded his name with this image, and the site conveys his message in a smooth, tasteful manner.

Jeremie Battaglia

View From Above

This website’s outstanding web design gives a new take on traditional google maps. Its interactive planet draws the viewer into another world on the screen, both with its features and sound effects. When moving your cursor over the icon, a sound plays similar to that of something spinning, a futuristic sound connected to a spaceship. Emirates’ innovative web design is cutting edge and it creates a network that connects the global community. As a whole, this is clever new take on what airlines can do, and it allows the viewer to become involved in the website’s experience. It feels as though the globe is sitting right in the palm of your hands.

View From Above