Paper Strips Menus
The beauty of an excellent design lies in designer’s attention to smallest details. Conventions are our friends; however, to stand out, a design needs a creative spin, an elegant play of colors, some unique flavour — a small detail that would make a big difference.
Where the boundaries between traditional solutions and unusual approaches become fuzzy, designers tend to get creative. However, to come up with unusual ideas isn’t that easy, particularly if you are dealing with some daily routine-tasks.
Still, nothing is impossible. Even if you’re designing a navigation menu there are a number of possibilites you can explore. For instance, have you ever thought of… navigation in form of paper strips?
Deb Sofield sticks posts on a paper pile.
A menu in the shape of coloured loops.
These ties will never hang on the neck of a web-developer.
The navigation menu is simple, nice and fits perfectly to the overall design; navigation options appear to stick out of the content area.
Andrew E
December 17th, 2007 6:02 pmvery nice!
Andrew E
December 17th, 2007 10:15 pmVery Boring!
Aakadasch
December 17th, 2007 11:07 pmA bit short, hmm?
Anthony
December 17th, 2007 11:33 pmhmm.. holidays got smashing down? posts have been thin lately… thanks for the monday post
Nick
December 17th, 2007 11:51 pmInteresting, but not very inspiring. :-)
Tim
December 18th, 2007 12:04 amOne post per week and this short?
I still love this site though ;-)
Ufucuk
December 18th, 2007 12:28 amI think subjects have finished for your blog.
dagobert renouf
December 18th, 2007 1:38 ami love you guys but this post is just not what i can expect from this wonderful magazine.
1 post a week and still that short ? we got a problem here ..
matt
December 18th, 2007 2:12 amuhh…smashing rules, think maybe they have lives? or family? calm down guys!
Jestep
December 18th, 2007 2:32 amI would suggest staying away from the mystery nav like example 3. Most people will have no idea what those are supposed to mean.
imaginepaolo
December 18th, 2007 2:34 amNice gallery and idea. Smashing magazine is the best webDesign Gallery.
tom2strobl
December 18th, 2007 2:34 amsomehow i hope SM will find better topics, but i’m yet thankful for those great resources of the past.
Jeff
December 18th, 2007 3:09 amAnd you guys are paying … how much? … for this content?
Zero.
Thanks for the creative finds, SM. The world does NOT need another stupid web resource with unimaginative posts every day. Take your time to find neat stuff like this!
Miks
December 18th, 2007 3:31 amInteresting, thanks!
Cutting_Crew
December 18th, 2007 3:46 amNext week on smashing magazine : How to build a 3 column, 2 row table using only .html
Ash
December 18th, 2007 3:54 amlooks really effective, love the tie idea.
Good stuff!!
Rob Hawkes
December 18th, 2007 4:03 amPlease tell me the spelling of “Tonight” on the first website is a deliberate mistake! If not, that voice coach needs to change jobs.
Carlos Eduardo
December 18th, 2007 4:07 amI dont like the third example… These icons doesn’t show clearly what they mean…. =/
juanclaudio
December 18th, 2007 4:33 amnot inspiring, sory
Jummy
December 18th, 2007 4:48 amFrom the “About us” section of this site (emphasis is my own):
Katie
December 18th, 2007 4:55 amHey look this http://www.valentinaolini.com
Katie
December 18th, 2007 4:58 amhello!!! look this!!! the menu is very similar!!! http://www.valentinaolini.com
Roweena
December 18th, 2007 5:00 amI’m at college having to design a cool site with cool navigation (and over the xmas holidays) so this is a GREAT help, thanks!
Mrs. Micah
December 18th, 2007 5:19 amBeautiful. If only I could do cool site design…I’m learning, at least. :)
Andy Gongea
December 18th, 2007 5:21 amNice but useless
A3brasil
December 18th, 2007 5:38 amThx! Very intresting links!
Grant
December 18th, 2007 5:52 amSomething we didn’t all know would have been nice!
Prasanth
December 18th, 2007 6:13 amThese menus are nice to look at. Difficult to use.
Kiki
December 18th, 2007 10:12 amBeen there… done that. Shall wait for next Monday’s Inspiration.
PixlNinja
December 18th, 2007 10:25 amquite different menus, I like it !
Sean Hodge
December 18th, 2007 10:37 amI was wondering if you had some samples not requiring the use of flash or javascript, but just straight html/css. Thx for the post.
IT Certification Training Videos
December 18th, 2007 12:07 pmGreat magazine, a little light in the post yes…. but great overall. I think the amount of great information you guys have been posting up until now more than cover a few light posts.
I’d really like a good article on html/css menus without flash/javascript, etc. Perhaps showing some great horizontal and vertical menus, and it’s effectiveness for SEO. Seems everything I’ve read about java menus, etc., have had some type of negative impact on overall SEO effectiveness.
Anyone else care to comment, I’d love to hear it.
c.crack
December 18th, 2007 12:45 pm.ah,
this was ok.
i dont know anything about design, or poofs for that matter.
no.
anyway,
I subscribed to your feed, but its doesnt come through enough.
I usually like it when it does.
keep on trying!
Yalcin
December 18th, 2007 2:38 pmcmon guys.. it’s almost end of year… I don’t mind a short post. got a bit on anyway.
outwindow
December 18th, 2007 3:10 pmgood jobs !
but they are difficult to use in commercial websites
Rhonda
December 18th, 2007 5:32 pmOr you could use fridge stickers for your navigation as a friend of mine has done – see: http://impress-cc.com.au/
tux86
December 18th, 2007 6:53 pmI thought about designing a paperstrip navigation months before, but this does not help me to create something brand new. It’s not as inspiring as the last weeks post was.
Merry Christmas (i guess this is the reason for the few posts in the last time)
Michael Skirde
December 18th, 2007 7:00 pmGreat idea! This will make the web more beautiful.
Barry McGee
December 18th, 2007 7:37 pmSmashing Magazine is awesome, keep up the good work…
Those who criticize, you would almost think you were paying for the service!
tom
December 18th, 2007 7:43 pmSimilar navigation at http://www.abedi.de
deathhead
December 18th, 2007 8:11 pmi don’t think these is greatest article you do. the paper strips is ugly. but smashing magazine is the best. i love you. will you marry me?
Evangelist
December 18th, 2007 8:37 pmA good introduction to this style and some nice examples. It’s about time we had a short post ;) – it is Christmas after all and, a very Merry time to one and all..
3G
December 18th, 2007 11:21 pmdecent post, not sure why everyone feels the need to be 133t, but what i cant get over is when a site is very nice looking and its get butchered by a developer. Im a developer myself and i would never goof up like the first navigation did. Text is running into an image….eh whatever now i sound l33t, haha.
Yogi
December 18th, 2007 11:47 pmVery very nice indeed.
Great post dude.
Nytryk
December 19th, 2007 12:48 amWoW :-O
Robert
December 19th, 2007 6:38 amThey look nice but for my taste too playful to use on a serious website.
Hope
December 19th, 2007 9:31 amThere’s a similar paper strip or bookmark look here: http://www.rosefu.net
hurben
December 19th, 2007 2:27 pmerr.. outline:none;
Chris
December 19th, 2007 7:33 pmHappy Christmas Smashing Magazine + F**k the begrudgers and moaners!
Steve Ranford
December 21st, 2007 6:30 pmHmmm… not sure about that. Interesting, but not very inspiring to be honest… still worth bringing to our attention though.
Keep up the good work.
Merry Christmas everyone!
arman
December 26th, 2007 12:57 amwow!!
that is very nice
(a lot of a lot)
thanks
Robert Marbun
December 27th, 2007 12:33 pmvery nice!
kamal
January 1st, 2008 3:36 amGreat Resource
Jylan Wynne
January 3rd, 2008 2:36 amI agree with the people saying that menu #3 is no good. It isn’t. There is no way that anybody could easily tell where the links go to.
sri
January 8th, 2008 7:02 amKeep up the good work.
Ivan
January 23rd, 2008 1:13 pmTo the critics with menu#3: Are you going blind? Didn’t you see the hover effect on those big-big-reallyBIG letters on the top of the frame?
OMG…
ivan
April 23rd, 2008 9:10 amno inspiring