Today’s post highlights the vibrant design of 84 Colors, the personal showcase of Cristiana Bardeanu. It has a strong nature theme that starts with desaturated earthen browns with slight background textures, continues with contained areas of desaturated season colors (red, orange, yellow, green) and is further reinforced by well-placed decorational elements of leaves and animals. An unintrusive flash animation of leaves and squirrel completes the picture and adds final polishing touches. Note how the images blend into the site design – including the main portfolio image, the artist picture and links to the latest photo / painting.

Active links have nice rollover effects, and the rollover effects for the navigation menu use the same season colors as the rest of the site. My only reservation is about using the orange color in “hello there” header which is the same color used elsewhere for links.