What the hell happened to 2A's XS Engineering!?

[nizamm]

XS Engineering has been changed!!!!!!! Did someone take over shane?!

[sk8Krog]

Actually it looks really good. I like it. Great colors, layout, and nice photography.

[nerv_03]

yeah it looks like someone else did. I think maybe Xerotalent did it. Their name is all the down in tiny font.

I think it looks good.

[Johnny Shiro]

Wow that site was actually really nice. Doesn`t look like 2A at all .
Impressive anyways

[revenanted]

Very nice site, 100 times better then the old one. Valid XHTML/CSS as well.

Bookmarked!

[pixelranger]

The old site was 4 years old. I think they're entitled to upgrade their site.

Besides web standards weren't even important 4 years ago

[0vidiu]

looks good..

[nizamm]

....Besides web standards weren't even important 4 years ago

Aha! So that's how you got work then!

[zakp0]

Aha! So that's how you got work then!

LMFAO

[junior_ab]

Aha! So that's how you got work then!

Damn you guys are always trying to get a crack at 2a. When are you going to grow up, sheeesh.....if you asked me the new site looks like a big tear sheet from a magazine page. I'm not defending no one but i figured after 4 years we come to realize that its not designers vs designers theres plenty of work out there you just have to get your lazy a** of that chair and close those deals.

[crinkler]

Damn you guys are always trying to get a crack at 2a. When are you going to grow up, sheeesh.....if you asked me the new site looks like a big tear sheet from a magazine page. I'm not defending no one but i figured after 4 years we come to realize that its not designers vs designers theres plenty of work out there you just have to get your lazy a** of that chair and close those deals.

Hey junior, it was a joke man. Lighten up.

[crinkler]

By the way looks like it might have been a site done by this guy http://www.jasonwoan.com

[>flashl!ght<]

Nice. Clean, slick, and usable. I don't remember much what the old XS looked like(I rarely visit sites twice if I don't need to... you only need so much 'inspiration' before it becomes purposely influenced), but the era of sweet animated sites that don't give you anything extra may be over. Clean design is in, and this is a decent example

[nizamm]

Look for the same site in pixelranger's portfolio.......frankly speakin, the new one's hot alright, but I still like the old one

[sk8Krog]

By the way looks like it might have been a site done by this guy http://www.jasonwoan.com

Can't find anything on either site that says he made it. On the XS at the bottom it says "Xerotalent Production" but that doesn't link anywhere and google turns up nothing :-/

[villain2]

That's right folks, turn in your copies of Flash8 because the web is going towards cluttered magazine ad type of sites.

I always love it when people point to the demise of animation on the net. One goes down, and two others pop up. The web will not be static pages forever. It is an electronic visual medium, not a flat piece of paper or canvas.

As for this new site, I like the style but something about it just seems too cluttered. The typography is off somewhat on some of the pages, especially the front page. That's probably in contrast to the 2A site which was using those small 8px 04b fonts for the text.

It's very slick and polished and the actual content boxes are well done. It does look very flat though, like someone said before, like you're looking at a magazine ad and not a website.

They don't adhere to above-the-fold either as in 800x600 you're not going to get much content before having to scroll, it's just a big photo of a car ... so I'm not so sure about the whole animation-without-content argument someone made earlier when here you've got a big car and have to scroll to the right to see the content.

I'd say this is about even with the old site, just different. I'd rather have seen a mix of the two.

[>flashl!ght<]

Sorry to offend, I wasn't making an argument that animation is out. I myself am an animator, not a web guru, so I'm glad this isn't the case either But the initial craze of making everything and anything(slight exageration) animate on a website just for the sake of animation is not sustainable(although personally, I don't mind it[so long as it's quality, like 2A and others], as an animtor). This new static site is in no way awesome either(as I said it was a 'decent example ... [of] clean design"), but you may notice how many of 2A's slick and impressively animated sites have been later replaced by static ones. This isn't a bash at 2A, or animation on the web, but I submit to you that there was an 'era' in which it was acceptable to animate a website without it giving you anything more, but now the line between useless and useful animation is being strengthened. There is and always will be a place for animation - specifically on the web - but it is being defined and constrained better now than it perhaps used to be.

Again, sorry to offend, but I think we may be talking past each other. I personally am pre-ordering Flash 8, the first MM product I've ever dared to pre-order.

PS - I found the mortgage site in your signature a decent example of good use of Flash and static(although the server seems to be running slow, FYI)... I'll look forward to the redesign of D-Studio.com...

[villain2]

Yeah, my whole thing with using Flash animation, especially in that example for Equity Builder, is to make it useful. Here, instead of using a big slew of boxes, I was able to condense the whole thing and make it something people would want to "reveal".

I hate overhyped animation too, but there are some people on here who hate ANY animation whatsoever (which makes me wonder if they just come on to FlashKit to play Devil's Advocate ... if you don't like animation on the web, then a flash website wouldn't be my first place to visit everyday).

Again though, as far as useability goes, I'd take a counterpoint to saying this site is more useable. As stated, you can't see the whole page in 800x600 which goes against web standards ... you have to scroll to the right and down in order to get to the content, which isn't good.

If you're talking about animation as far as Who's We kind of stuff, where everything animates for eight minutes before you get to the actual site, yes I'd agree with you on that. Great art, bad site.

The AOE D-Studio long overdue redesign is still some time off, but I'm coming to a close on a web channel that I'm developing which uses flash in the same kind of context, for displaying dynamic, xml driven, database driven content with animations to give subtle life, not overbearing BOOM.

[>flashl!ght<]

PS - 800x600 is a plague! Yes, we have to keep it in mind, not disagreeing with you, but it's such a collosal pain Oh, and don't get me started on 640x480! I recently saw my site on one... I nearly cried...

[lesli_felix]

This is the only webpage on the internet that needs to look good in 800x600:

http://www.google.com/search?q=19%22+monitors