Brighton & Hove Web Awards! Passed up again, sob!
Yes, this year I’ve failed to make the last five in the Brighton & Hove Web Awards in the Best Personal Sites and Blogs category, sob! So I’ll take my rage and criticise the five finalists. Bitter? Me? :)
1. Adactio. Very well designed site. The content may be a bit too tech-happy and personal for my liking but for a look at the mind of someone who eats, sleeps and farts web design it’s very good.
2. Andy Budd. Just like Adactio the design is very nice. Unfortunately the content is a bit sparse. There’s a total of 6 posts in October and two of them were about booking train tickets. I now see where my site is going wrong.
3. A List Apart. This is the best of the bunch. I’m always using this site to read articles on CSS standards and cross-browser compatibility. The articles are informative, well written and cover a whole range of web design subjects. The only thing I can’t work out is why a New York based website is up for the Brighton & Hove Awards.
4. Brighton & Hove Councillors. No, this site isn’t for people needing to talk through their mental issues with somebody who will listen. It’s those other types of councillors, the local do-good political wannabes. And I’m very impressed. It works well with clear and direct links to the councillors blogs, all of which are regularly updated with interesting local issues. A brilliant idea which has been well designed and coded.
5. Clagnut. Not as funny as it’s name suggests. This has only four posts from the month of October so I wouldn’t go checking the site that often. Oh and the blogger is a web designer who, like the Adactio and Andy Budd site bloggers, has also written books on web standards. Hmm, I’m noticing a trend of selecting the Brighton web design mafia in this award every year!
So there you have it. See what I’m up against? Three of Brighton’s uber-elite web design cartel, councillors and a big American web site. My vote will be for A List Apart and I hope you vote for the same.
I do see where I have to improve though. All those sites have some great coding standards. This site’s coding standards are appalling but it was my first site ever and I was getting to grips with Word Press and a liquid content area which wasn’t that easy. It’ll get a redesign soon and then I’ll show them. Yes I will!
Hi John – Speaking on behalf of Jeremy, Andy and myself, I think you’re be a little unfair about us as an uber-elite web cartel.
I can see how it looks though. It was somewhat surprising, if not a little embarrassing – that all three of us ended up in the final 5. I can promise you we had absolutely nothing to do with that decision.
Personally I’d save your vote for the councillors site. A List Apart is a fantastic site, but as you say, it is American and not even a personal site by my reckoning (it has staff for a start).
Hi Richard, please don’t take my post too seriously. It was all a bit tongue-in-cheek. I have no idea if you three have even heard of each other before.
This post is really my inner child screaming out ‘unfair unfair, my website is the bestest’ when in most ways it is not.
Oh, and I think they’ve realised their error and listed me as a finalist now, woo hoo!! :)
Good luck! But yes, the Councillors site should get the award as it’s a lot more usefull than our ramblings.
Your post was taken with a pinch of salt, but Andy, Jeremy and I do know each other – in fact we set up in business together (Clearleft also shortlisted) which is what made it even weirder. Anyway good luck and I’ll see you tonight perhaps.
Wow, that was prophetic of me.
And the Clearleft site is wonderful. Top marks!
See you tonight.