Site Design: Cushion — Peace of Mind for Freelancers (cushionapp.com)
over 7 years ago from Jonathan Suh, Designer at Planning Center
over 7 years ago from Jonathan Suh, Designer at Planning Center
Thanks for the shoutout, Jonathan!
Why does a business website needs to look like a child's coloring book?
Cushion has always had friendly, colorful vibe, so I really wanted to emphasize that. For Cushion, the target users are freelancers, so if it were too business-y, I might run the risk of triggering flashbacks to their old cubicle jobs. Kidding aside, I simply prefer a fun and playful look, and I think it matches the tone of the writing within the app and in my emails to users. I wonder why business websites need to look like enterprise software.
I get not wanting to look enterprise-y. But this is going overboard with ornamentation, on the verge of patronizing to users, as if they are children.
Jonnie - I absolutely did not feel patronized while I skimmed through the Landing Page.
Thanks, JT. :)
Children? You've been browsing 4chan it seems, the URL is cushionapp.com bro.
Why does Google logo look like primary school?
Because it's an awful logo.
It absolutely doesn't.
For a SaaS website, I find that Cushion does a great job a showing in a simplified way the product USP and how I could be using it. Great job!
Thanks, François!
I love this, and I've always loved the simplicity of Cushion's design. However, the one thing I find jarring is the position of the 'new' banner. It seems a bit weird just sitting there in the middle of my screen.
Thanks, Michael! I imagine the "new" banner lands in the middle of a 30" display, but on your average display, it should rest near the bottom—still showing space below the fold to indicate there's more to the page. I also think this falls into the working-too-long-on-a-website-that-I-don't-see-certain-issues. :) I do like that it gives me a crop area for the screenshot, but it'd also be great to have that top area blend into the rollercoaster illustration. I'm still considering this a work-in-progress, so I'll definitely be sure to think about this when tweaking.
Great website Jonnie! I've always liked your website for its simplicity and friendliness. One question, have you used Siteleaf V2 or stick to V1? I'm trying to switching over to V2 so just wanted to know what your experience was like.
Thanks, Kris! I did take the opportunity to switch to Siteleaf v2. Working locally and offline with Jekyll was so nice. I also love using Jekyll collections instead of hacking data with v1 pages.
Chiming in with another Siteleaf V2 experience, the initial move to Jekyll was a bit ?huh? at the time, but worth it for the new collections and the new metadata. Also the way it hooks up with Github Pages now is pretty slick, and I love the way the entire website is completely detached from the CMS.
could use some more cushion to the left of the logo XD
Interesting to combine the flat illustrations with the sketchy hand drawn icons - what made you decide to do that instead of keeping it flat?
The flow and tab layout in the middle of the site is satisfying to nav through!
Ha! At first, we tried flat icons all-around, but it looked pretty bad next to the flat, clean UI of the app. In my head, I thought it'd look amazing, but I'm glad we tried it out first. I do like that the sketch-based icons add more playfulness to the site instead of keeping everything stiff and uptight.
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