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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 225 ms ] thread
not enough green, or amiga-style florid colour changes.

where's the dancing cat?

otherwise, bis!

Haha you're right! I'll try to add those in - new update coming on December 32nd!
My favourite date. I'll ask you to marry me when it comes around.
I'm really disappointed that there's no midi of the X-Files theme playing the background.

For everything I built that never leaves my home network, I always use the HTML `marquee` tag somewhere, simply because I think it's funny and it's bizarrely still supported.

I love it. Honestly, it could be less professional.
Nothing is even blinking.
Honestly it's great to me. I've seen more user-hostile websites on professional endeavors
I love this! A large appeal of this kind of thing is unlocking possibilities outside of the Generic Website box, so making that dead obvious to people is a very straightforward demonstration of value.
"unprofessional" is the wrong word. It's simply punk/brutalist.

You can find a similar aesthetic in many art spaces:

https://rhizome.org/events/

https://indigo.ooo/en/

https://2019.indigo.ooo/en/

https://2017.indigo.ooo/en/

I agree with sentiment, it"s slightly sophiscated and good haha!
usepath.com (YC S19) kinda has this feel too, I think I get it.
Punk is explicitly unprofessional.

> "The punk ethos is primarily made up of beliefs such as non-conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, a do-it-yourself ethic, anti-consumerist, anti-corporate greed, direct action and not "selling out"."

That punk is treated as a serious artistic subject does not conflict with that. There's lots of other unprofessional subjects and motifs in art spaces, e.g., nudity.

They maybe anti of many things but still have aesthetics..
> "The punk ethos is primarily made up of beliefs such as non-conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, a do-it-yourself ethic, anti-consumerist, anti-corporate greed, direct action and not "selling out"."

Substitute "Punk" for e.g. "Group" and read that sentence again.

professional unprofessional. we can surely agree to disagree. the web site is well made. nothing unprofessional about it.
Unprofessional is not a synonym for bad. It does not mean poorly made.
"Unprofessional" only makes sense in the context of some particular profession. Many English dictionary definitions even explicitly mention something like "the expectations of a particular profession." I'm pretty sure there still are professional standards for doing graphic design work for a punk art organization. And you wouldn’t say that a plumber is coveralls is dressing unprofessionally. The word “unprofessional” doesn’t just mean “anything that’s different than a stock photo of a banker.”
In this case, the context is software development, and we are discussing advertising/marketing/landing material on the sales website. The OP website dramatically departs from the expectations of this profession. The OP is not selling art.
Did I state it was bad? or did I imply it was poorly made? I think it is a very well thought out, and well implemented website. Professionality and quality used in same context is mutually exclusive.
You've misunderstood me. I'm saying your previous comment implied that someone else must think the website is poorly made when they call it unprofessional.
> Punk is explicitly unprofessional.

punk is dead,

It's just another cheap product for the consumer's head.

Bubblegum rock on plastic transistors,

Schoolboy sedition backed by big time promoters.

Cbs promoted the clash,

But it ain't for revolution, it's just for cash.

Punk became a fashion just like hippy used to be

And it ain't got a thing to do with you or me.

- Crass

Anything is professional these days as long as you can sell things with it.

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> punk is dead

I heard he was reborn as a cryptobro

… no? Although I do prefer my full title of “lord cyberpunk, sir lagavulin-consumer, the 1st Earl of pimpistan” if we’re being formal.
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Reminds me of a quote from Bill Murray's character in The French Dispatch: "Just Try To Make It Sound Like You Wrote It That Way On Purpose."
Quite a few examples of this aesthetic can be found on Brutalist Websites[0]. (Be forewarned, the Brutalist Websites site itself is brutal in a different way: it tries to load hundreds of high-res screenshots all at once.)

[0] https://brutalistwebsites.com/

This aesthetic brings back memories. I remember it was a look about 10 years ago with blogs like Hipster Runoff using it.
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Appealing to a small minority that is not your target group. Hence unprofessional.
Brutalist? What does it have to do with concrete?
You are missing the "Under Construction" and flame gifs. To me, those defined the early era. Those were truly the mark of unprofessionalism.
Also the guest book and the Web ring.
and the guestbook has to trigger at least 5 XSS alertboxes for it to be the authentic experience.

and the visitor counter.

God, this thread is a blast from the past. I love it!

Please do not forget the circling text or clock around the cursor.

And some stuff should be blinking.

Also, you must choose between a spinning logo or a flaming logo.

And the background should be a tiled animated GIF. Gotta keep it subtle.

I'm put in mind of an early client of mine that absolutely refused to take any of my advice concerning design:

https://web.archive.org/web/20011127214330/http://www.lvwedd...

See also: https://lingscars.com/

Yes, it's a real car leasing company. Desktop version is best but mobile is still great.

This must be the global optimum for car site freshness, super amazing.

https://m.lingscars.com/ghc

"god hates cars"

You can't make this shit up. I hope they can keep this up forever.

The copywriting is very fresh and to the point: “ You can take the Hyundai Tucson abroad to any normal destination (usually excluding dodgy places like Albania, etc), but you should apply for a VE103 form from the finance company before you go, which proves to the damn foreign police that you have permission to use the car.”
It's a multimillion pound business- she's been around for ages.
> Note to Americans: the £ is like the $, except bigger

This is just perfect. I love this website so much. If I lived in the UK I would seriously consider buying from this website. So I guess this advertising works for me.

View source, it's worth it.
I'm kind of sad they minified their CSS and some of their JS. Sure minification saves some bytes, but I really wonder how much we really save assuming the server uses compression. I love being able to see how different sites work and minification makes that a lot harder.
That assaults you with a mix of garish colors and animations, but sections of sanity break through now and there.

The site for Yvette's Bridal Formal, sadly now gone but archived [1], lacks the animations, but doubles down on the color assault and doesn't interrupt it with any sanity for arguably more effective inflection of mental damage upon the viewer.

[1] https://yvettesbridalformal.p1r8.net/

It even directly downloads a song, too. Incredible.
Mental illness in word usage and web design. Some of the words in there remind me of if a Terry A. Davis was untalented, and did web design instead of write compilers, langs, and OS'.
Pretty effective. A great validation that single-page approach to landers actually works really well.
This is a work of art.
There's something very appealing to me about people who name their companies after themselves. Ling's cars, Prusa Research, Linus Media Group. Maybe I'm only remembering the good examples, but when you put yourself out there, it seems like there is a strong incentive to not fuck up your reputation.
The 19th century feel it lends may also be a part of it, and is also not accidental: the naming scheme originates from the times before the modern corporation, where no isolation from liability meant a failed business could easily leave the founder on the street (but loans were also much less accessible). Not much to lose further, then, is there?
> There's something very appealing to me about people who name their companies after themselves. Ling's cars, Prusa Research, Linus Media Group. Maybe I'm only remembering the good examples, but when you put yourself out there, it seems like there is a strong incentive to not fuck up your reputation.

So it would seem, but companies can and do survive their founders, and at that point they are no different than any other. Not to mention that founders can be motivated by reputation in an idiosyncratic manner.

You're thinking McAfee?
I wasn't particularly thinking of tech companies, more along the lines of Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Trump, etc.
Dell is another big one I can think of.
A/B tests led down the uncharted path.
it's gross, i love it
I've leased a car from Ling's, don't be fooled by the website. Their back office systems are fantastic and optimise the paperwork process perfectly.

Great customer service too - she runs an excellent business.

She was on UK dragon's den too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc1ktZRZ5ZM

"Made in the People's Republic of China (Ling, not the website... which was handcrafted by Ling, in the UK)" :)
I was expecting a cookie consent form...

and then a prompt to subscribe to your email newsletter...

and then a modal box offering 15% off

UX is probably in the top half of commercial sites

Yeah this has nothing on:

"Hey 50.000 people are looking to book this exact room at this exact moment".

So unannoying, this site, that it's not even funny.

Don't forget scroll-jacking and loading in 5MB of framework files
install to your home screen, install the app
Actually those things are all super "professional", they just shouldn't be...
And a notifications permission from your browser or directly from the Operating System

Followed by the same for location access

And then finding out I have to consider turning off ad block to consider consuming the content

And then turning it off and refreshing the page just to find it was paywalled all along, just under the fold!

It also renders fine (and quickly) with no Javascript. I'm going to guess it's probably also friendly on the data. It's (mostly) legible, despite the color scheme. There's no autoplaying video or audio that assaults my senses.

I think we could use more design like this on the web, but, you know, with interesting stuff to read.

bringing me back to when the internet was beautiful.
the googly eyes are chef's kiss
They should be more toward the middle of the page so they look down more often. Maybe are there because of 'follow on Twitter' and that was best on the bottom of the page.
Hey guys, straw.page is a drag and drop website builder that works on mobile.

I just redesigned the landing page, in preparation for a huge update coming next week (blogging!)

Twitter for updates:

https://twitter.com/okozzie_/status/1467951581408727047

Some time ago this was showcased on hn too: https://build.mmm.page/ It too is a dnd website builder that prone fun and brutalist design and whole tld also is .page. Are these two projects related ?
Nope, not related. Straw.Page actually released first haha
straw.page has been posted by okozzie 16 times in the last 10 months, sometimes the odd URL hack to get past the repost filters (+?, /start, +?ref=hn, +?ref, +?utm) but mostly just the same page.
"Straw.Page lets you create unique websites straight from your phone. A drag and drop website builder that works on mobile."

It clearly tells me what the product does unlike many landing pages these days. I often have to read docs to understand what a product does because someone decided to put too much effort to make it look unique.

I think we need to bring back cursor-tracking googley-eyes. No doubt it would increase average time on page.
It ain't unprofessional until there's blinking text.
How unprofessional is it? Can you guarantee that i will lose customers if i use it? How many will i lose? How am i supposed to trust this service, it's so doesnt look very professional
Not in Asia. They do love colors.

You should switch more font sizes and mix in bold and italic

You need the classic geocities trailing mouse text
Needs a guestbook at the bottom of the page
Needs animated gif of bill gates growing horns
Needs more "Under Construction" Man with shovel sign
I love the textual replacement for the dull/predictable vector graphics header/footer.
I like your website for the same reason I use HipsterDB for all my database needs: https://github.com/robmerrell/hipsterdb

From their Github README.md:

"hipsterDB is a key/value store that only returns data as long as it isn't mainstream. The more often that you access a key the more mainstream it becomes. After data has gone mainstream you will have to wait for it to go out of style before using it again."

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> 420 page views > 5 somaliland

Guessing the stats are fabricated

Just to be clear, those aren't stats for my site (or any site) haha.

Premium users get analytics on their website - that was just supposed to highlight the analytics feature. I'll try to make it more clear that they aren't real stats (it's a demonstration of the feature)

The scrolling 'clouds' got me right away. Awesome.
What's the conversion rate on that baby?