Awesomoto

What’s Nice
The texture and colors give a 70s retro vibe.

20th year commemoration of a tragic event.

What’s Nice
Pronounced Cool, Cuil is a new search engine started up by former Googlers. Their goal is to compete with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and to do it with a better design. The search results don’t feel as spartan as Google’s with a friendlier 2 or 3 colum layout that reads more like a news site or blog than search results.

What’s Nice
The new Ferrari GT is not yet ready to be released, but the kind folks at Ferrari created a site to get folks charged up. Before you can see the car you can hear the sounds of the GT in various phases of driving. The only annoying part of the site is the numbering of the main menus. It reminds me of the tedious flash sites of the late 90s that did not bother with real navigation and either put up squares or other shapes you had to click on or numbers.

What’s Nice
The portfolio site of Bryan Katzel at first is not too different. What you notice is a long page, when you click on a link or scroll down the magic happens. The bleeding rainbow effect stays consistent ly on the background while going through several masking layers in front. Truly great work with transparency and the slide effect this time with Scriptaculous.

What’s Nice
Grungy header, wood floor style background and nice details everywhere. Another graphic designer site/blog which showcases their talent. Two menus, the top menu is reminiscent of Pantone color swatches while the left mini menu is reminiscent of a Mac style menu of old.

What’s Nice
Some of the best designs take a metaphor and run with it. Missy is a personal blog/Designer’s site that take the jeans metaphor and pulls it off nicely with the smallest details. Look at the stitching and denim patterns. This is a rich, beautifully designed site.

What’s Nice
Goldeny goodness is what you get when visiting Monofactor. The golden yellow highlights the lensflare effects bleeding through the bqackground give a nice warm feel. Very polished design which includes a vector cartoon guy with some grungy patterns and Web 2.0 style fades.

What’s Nice
The site does not waste your time loading flash for a simple effect. You can browse around without going to a completely new page to load another flash movie. The sliding effect is very slick and may induce motion sickness in some and the entire page slides to a different section.

What’s Nice
The Tour of California Tour Tracker is in it’s second year of providing a media rich view into the Tour of California. The site provides a live look at the daily stages with live feed video and live commentary. Live GPS rider positions are shown on a map so it is easy to keep track of the top contenders.

There is lots of live data available to show you what the racers current speed and what percent gradient of the current climb. This is a very slick use of Flex.