The Envato Marketplaces Re-Design: Our Involvement
We Run Through our Involvement in the Project and show some early drafts
We’ve recently had the pleasure once again of working with Collis Ta’eed and the team at Envato, a company we admire - and one full of creative & down to earth guys - running a very successful network of sites. Having them use your icons on their site(s) is one thing, but working with them is a true honor.
Here’s our write up of our involvement in the recent re-design, our thoughts on it - and our early design drafts for Collis.
A look at the new Envato Marketplaces
There’s a lot of people to please when you’re re-designing such a huge network of sites, and a lot of pressure on the team behind it, it calls for some creative thinking and a fresh look at things. The first time I saw a near finished Envato Marketplaces re-design I knew right away that I was looking at something that people were going to love, and I think that’s probably a big hurdle when you’re making a big change to something people are used to.
Anyway, here’s some screenshots for you to gawp at first!
What Work Did We Do?
Well, we’re going to show you some of our early mock-ups that we sent to Collis months ago. Now I must explain, you’re going to look at the mock-ups and wonder why our drafts look nothing like the final designs showcased above. And you would be right to be curious. On the face of things it’s hard to see the relation, but I can assure you we played our part(s).
The Interesting thing about this Re-Design
Before you look at the mock-ups then, it’s probably interesting to know how Collis went about the project. He approached 3 designers, myself, Aaron Lynch & Kai Loon informing us of his master plan to give the Marketplace a refresh. He wanted a new perspective on the design and some ideas from outside of his own head.
Our brief was to create something from a fresh pair of eyes, and offer something different to Collis. We had a lot of creative freedom as we we’re always aware that Collis was going to take our designs and create something himself, we just had to offer him something different that he could take away, take elements from - or simply just use them as inspiration. For me it was a clever approach on Collis’ part, it offered him a variety of styles from a variety of designers that he could take and shape into a fantastic design.
Our Early Design Drafts
Now I wouldn’t normally share screenshots of work that didn’t follow through into the final live version, but this was such a unique and different approach to a re-design process that I don’t mind sharing some screenshots with you all. Keep in mind these snippets are from 3 different design concepts.
You can see from the details above the overall level of finish and quality. Something that Envato uphold throughout all of their websites, but other than that I wanted to try something that I purposely wouldn’t normally do, rather than trying to create that typical Envato look I though that Collis would much rather appreciate something that was different, even if it wasn’t ever really going to be used as the base of a design there’s various elements that I offered in a different light.
Full Screenshots of the designs (if you must)
Concept 1 - A polished finish with a minimalistic approach.
Concept 2 - A slight hint at texture and injection of colour.
Concept 3 - A lot of colour & big bold typography.
Looking through the final live version of Flashden for example I can see things that could have been made as a result of my designs, but there’s a lot of it that never crossed over - but that was never really the point of this project.
It’s also worth noting that a lot of our Icons, that are on sale - are being used throughout the marketplace, and we just love seeing our icons used, especially when they are executed so well. Feel free to share in the comments where you are using our icons.
Custom Icon Design
One thing we did complete from start to finish was a re-vamp of the Envato badge icons that are used throughout the Marketplace, on profiles & portfolio’s of all of the users. There was already a full set of icons that were being used, so we had to touch-up and re-draw the ones that worked well enough, but then come up with a completely new concept for many of the icons.
Why not check out all of the badges out for yourself.
Now Go Check It Out
Now that the site is all new and shiny it’s the perfect time to sign up, if you haven’t already. *Note Signing up an account will give you access to all of the network sites. There’s a lot of offer across the Network, everything from Icons to Sound & Video files, a truly remarkable network of sites, and a huge pleasure to work on.
Follow Me
You can now follow authors on Graphic River & the other Marketplaces. It’s a great way to keep up to date with your favorite authors and the recent updates are shown very neatly on the front page for you. It’s a fantastic way to keep your eyes on what is going on.
Graphic River Updates
Twitter Updates
Follow the other people mentioned:
@collis @aaronlynch and @kailoon - *all well worth following!
Written by liam on September 28, 2009
Matthew said:
Wonderful post, thank you so much for sharing it!
I had no idea you were involved. I really like seeing what parts of your designed were carried through.
kailoon said:
Cool
I think there is still alot I need to learn from you, I am not sure which part of design or idea is from me …
Anyway, it is really a pleasure to have a chance to work directly with Collis!
Matt @ DVQ said:
I really like concept #2. Great work as always.
Jasmin Halkic said:
Really nice. I like it very much.
Kai said:
I’m a big admirer of Collis’ success and love Envato’s work (also worked in the same office with most of the crew in Melbourne for a while)
One thing I always critiqued about their market places and some of their other websites is the compromise of features and usability for design.
Although all these websites look great (as always) in my opinion they work to generously with whitepace, large font-sizes and colours, and minimalise features that could heavily enhance the user experience. I find navigating through the products within the marketplace quite tiresome and I always experience a bit of a keyhole effect when it comes to the preview of products in the gallery view.
iStockphoto and fotolia certainly can’t compete with the visual appeal of Envatos marketplaces but they offer a lot more navigation and search options, and put the products in the foreground, not the design, which makes the purchase and research of products more enjoyable.
Just my 2 cents. Other than that, great work as always…
Nokadota said:
I am a fan of big typography like you displayed in the 3rd mockup but the actual finished product is very “Envato-ish” as well. LOL, that doesn’t really make much sense but it seems to fit well.
Nicely done and thanks for the write-up.
Rafie said:
Utter perfection!
From now on, I believe there will be people who will just sit and stare at the design. It’s okay if they don’t buy anything from the store because they already did once they enter the website.
It is an eye candy that doesn’t cause cavity!
Branden Silva said:
I have to say I agree Kai.
The site looks good but the design’s usability is very poor. Particularly the navigation. If I wasn’t an existing user and knew what Theme forest was about I think I’d have a hard time in understanding what I’m looking at on the front page. The isn’t much description. The numbers are more important (larger) then actually explaining right away what the site is about. Obviously you can get a general idea once your venture into the page some but a user shouldn’t have to do that to know exactly what they are getting from the site. The logo is nicer but was a bit to small to easily see when I first arrived on the site. In scanning the typical “F” pattern that users do I was uncomfortable, confused, and didn’t know what to focus or click on.
I hope you don’t take my words as harsh. I’m not here posting on your blog to be negative towards your work but simply providing constructive criticism. I love what you do and I’d even say the first initial mock ups where much nicer than the final product. I have to make an effort to focus on certain elements and I shouldn’t have too. If I was a new user I feel I’d be more lost than I already was.
Anyways, I think it’s pretty but I can’t say it’s fun or easy to use.
Jaswinder said:
I love all three of the concepts especially the third one.
With the actual redesign i like it but the nav feels off to me.
Good work as always Liam (& Spencer)!
Brad C said:
It’s awesome to see where you started and what you were thinking about at the beginning stages of a project. So often we see the final result of a design without realizing all the trial and error it takes to create something outstanding.
liam said:
@Branden - Thanks for your comments man, other than the early drafts we didn’t really have much of a say in the final design. I can see your concerns about the navigation, but I’m not sure I’d agree on all of your points.
I think the Navigation works very well, but we’re all entitled to our opinions, and thanks for sharing yours.
Thanks for the kind comments guys!
Propagganda said:
Great job, enviable. Congratulations.
Dmitry said:
Wow, great stuff. Love the concepts. I don’t quite agree with Branden about the usability aspect because the pages you have for the concepts aren’t landing pages, and so the content is really specific to those locations (download and discussion). It’s difficult to judge how the new user will find it without first seeing the front page.
I love the final product as well, though I’m not so sure about those automatic popup menus. Might be just me, but I find it a little annoying to have things pop up when mousing around
Rahul - Web Guru said:
Envato Marketplaces looks very good now than before.
Very very good.
Martin Leblanc said:
Nice work Liam. I love the concepts.
The final redesign turned out really great.
/Martin Leblanc
Donmastercarelinks@gmail.com said:
I must say that there are few people who dare to think and even less who implement something which is quite different from the accepted experiences of the people on the net.
This is the gamble every new idea has to face if has to be accepted as an idea in the first place !
I commend the outcome of this effort.Really enduser friendly.Keep it going
Andrew Gerber said:
Hope that the redesign of this marketplace will look better after such experienced professionals will work on it. No doubts that new looks will exceed all expactations in the future. Great news!
Diego said:
Great work! I really LOVE how the typeface looks on the site; btw… do you know which font they use on the “Tuts+”?
discount tiffany jewelry said:
goooooooooooooooooooooood
Cody said:
Nicely Done….I think the redesign is a lot better.
David Moreen said:
I really like the second mockup, it is great inspiration, for a different type of look then what I am use to doing. I would not be surprised if one day I make something similar.
siteler mutfak dolabi said:
Great job, enviable. Congratulations.
boyaci said:
Envato Marketplaces looks very good now than before.
RUGRLN said:
Wicked stuff, I thought you guys only did icons…I see you do a whole lot more amazing stuff!! The early mockups look stunning too!!
Wheat said:
Hi,
Thanks, for this nice post . Your Re design is very good.
We are leading Web Designing Company develop and design website in India.
Online Elearning Softwares said:
nice one!
I think there is still a lot that i need to learn from you, I think the redesign is good.I have to make an effort to focus on certain elements and I should have too.
nice screen shots
thank you so much for sharing it!
Great job, Congratulations.
Penny Bid Auctions said:
I loved concept 3 very much. i just bring water in my mouth by just watching. So keep the good work continue.
Incredibly Inspiring Redesign Projects « PSDFan said:
[...] We Function produced a stunning redesign of Envato’s designer marketplaces. In this casestudy they show earlier drafts for the design, as well as an analysis of their design process: [...]
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optimize said:
nice collection, I use the new envato website and i love the design. You guys are really setting a precedence for other people in the industry.
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