34 comments

  • Guy RoutledgeGuy Routledge, 8 years ago

    The nav-icon on mobile is a nice touch

    14 points
  • Craig LockwoodCraig Lockwood, 8 years ago (edited 8 years ago )

    May the force be with you

    11 points
  • Jonathan CutrellJonathan Cutrell, 8 years ago

    Anyone know who actually did this project?

    4 points
  • Wes OudshoornWes Oudshoorn, 8 years ago

    I think there was more potential than this. Especially the scroll with the animation isn't smooth for me on a retina. Missed opportunity to create something great!

    3 points
  • Erick De La RosaErick De La Rosa, 8 years ago

    Woah. Light saber mobile nav icon. Pretty cool

    3 points
  • Javan GriffithsJavan Griffiths, 8 years ago

    I agree with what some people are saying here. It is a great site that has great attention to detail as far as the design of it is concerned, however it would have been nice if the same attention to detail was carried over to the development of the site.

    2 points
  • Hawke BassignaniHawke Bassignani, 8 years ago

    This is a great example of a common industry question: how do you merge strong visual design (think Star Wars, video game companies like Blizzard, etc.) that can be heavily textured… and merge it with modern design trends (flat, minimal, etc.). I am a fan!

    It’s a little jumpy on scroll, though. I’m sure they’ll clean them up soon enough!

    1 point
  • Matt Lambert, 8 years ago

    What no book section?

    1 point
  • Niraj PatilNiraj Patil, 8 years ago

    I like what the Disney Lab has done. The kid in me wishes the brand's magic showed more in certain places, but to be honest, we're talking about 3+ decades of content aimed at both adults and kids. With such a huge demographic, it's not easy building the awesome-super immersive experience we want. It's going to be content rich first and foremost, and that's fine. Lay the foundation, and build all the immersive stuff on top.

    The site's acid test for me is Search and the Databank, and both work really well, I think.

    1 point
  • Nick TassoneNick Tassone, 8 years ago

    Looks like it was done in house by Disney Interactive according to Bobby Solomon.

    1 point
  • Darth BaneDarth Bane, 8 years ago (edited 8 years ago )

    I don't understand how a company of Disney's size can't afford a decent web agency to create the Star Wars website, especially since it's arguably one of the biggest brands in the world.

    • Images and fonts are blurry
    • Transition from normal header to fixed is jumpy (it's triggering a few pixels too early)
    • The category text and icon is too small
    • The cover images are just low-res screen grabs from the movies, how about some HD archive footage instead?
    • Icons are blurry

    ...etc.

    1 point
    • Tom GurkaTom Gurka, 8 years ago

      Ib do you work at the Jedi academy? http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_Praxeum

      ;D

      0 points
    • Al HaighAl Haigh, 8 years ago

      Everything looks crystal clear to me on a retina 15"?

      1 point
    • Trevor HenryTrevor Henry, 8 years ago

      Everything is crystal clear to me save for the odd non-retina image, though I do see a slight jump in the nav as I scroll down that could be easily remedied.

      1 point
    • David SinclairDavid Sinclair, 8 years ago

      Is the implication here that a 'decent agency' is somehow superior to an internal team?

      4 points
      • Darth BaneDarth Bane, 8 years ago

        It would seem so in this case. The internal team doesn't seem to pay too much attention to detail?

        0 points
    • Paul MacgregorPaul Macgregor, 8 years ago

      Haven't looked at the desktop version yet but it performs brilliantly as a mobile site. Fast, crisp, responsive etc.

      Maybe you think a decent agency would have insisted all assets were retina before they launched? It's a little naive to put that blame on the design / dev team.

      A pixel shift on the header is unacceptable though, you can tell from the pixels.

      0 points
      • Darth BaneDarth Bane, 8 years ago

        I'm not even on a retina screen.

        The main Star Wars logo is blurry in some parts, it hasn't been sliced very well. Top and bottom edges are razor sharp, the others are fuzzy. It looks like a clean 300px wide export from a vector file.

        The social icons vary in quality - the Facebook, Instagram and Youtube icons aren't sliced nicely - and the social icons are placed oddly on the fixed header.

        The parallax effect on the disappearing header is a bit clunky, and there is no transition effect when the fixed header comes in.

        There is no site menu on the blog section - the nav links aren't rendering in the DOM.

        So many small errors, quite surprising.

        0 points
    • Kyle ConradKyle Conrad, 8 years ago

      Can you highlight where icons and images are blurry? I'm on a 15" retina and everything is crisp to me. And every image on this page is large enough to work and look great on retina, from what I can tell, at least by looking through the page design and even the direct images via the inspect elements and resources panel of Chrome.

      1 point
      • Darth BaneDarth Bane, 8 years ago

        See above, I'm not on a retina screen.

        0 points
      • Aaron ShekeyAaron Shekey, almost 8 years ago

        This is the image they're serving to standard resolution folks http://a.dilcdn.com/sw/shared/section_icon_sprite-1dc632f82db1.png Really blurry and isn't pixel fit. Easy enough to fix.

        1 point
        • Kyle ConradKyle Conrad, almost 8 years ago

          AH, that's super weird that they don't just use the large one (http://a.dilcdn.com/sw/shared/section_icon_sprite@2x-1524467d2d2b.png) and scale it down for everyone? It can't be a size thing, can it? That just seems strange, because it's crisp on retina.

          0 points
          • Darth BaneDarth Bane, almost 8 years ago

            I think all of it is quite strange, the design and implementation looks like something that would be impressive 5-6 years ago. I understand the appeal of doing it in-house, but Star Wars is such a huge brand (and Disney such a wealthy company) they could've had the ten best web agencies in the world battle it out for the contract.

            As a huge Star Wars nerd, I'm very disappointed.

            0 points
            • Kyle ConradKyle Conrad, almost 8 years ago

              Personally, I really like the design (I liked their old one, too, but that is what it is) - I think it conveys the "tone" of Star Wars well, even with the issues that you've pointed out. Obviously the site is more meant as informational, especially with all the new activity in the Star Wars universe. Unfortunate that it launched with those issues in place, hopefully they can fix them soon.

              0 points
  • Trevor HenryTrevor Henry, 8 years ago

    Interesting, Big Spaceship just redesigned starwars.com a couple years ago so I'm surprised to see this redesign happen so soon.

    1 point
  • Per VPer V, 8 years ago

    Am I the only one who hasn't seen a Star Wars movie?

    0 points
  • John LeschinskiJohn Leschinski, 8 years ago

    Video player is sketchy at best.

    0 points