Today’s post highlights the design of HelloSquare.co.za. I like the simple three-column grid and a muted color palette of beige, light blue and dark slate gray. Noise-based textures bring a welcome relief to otherwise unoccupied stretches of white space, with varying line styles used for element borders (dotted patterns on section headers, double lines on the footer icons and “postal stamp” wavy outlines of the portfolio thumbnails). Note the overlapping elements along the transition lines of the content area from the header and into the footer – bringing further element of interest into the visual flow.

With the great layout and typography of the embedded tweet, i wonder whether the main description section can use a more distinct and flavorful web font – instead of relying on the overused Arial. It also feels that centering the multi-line content of the “expertise” cells is quite distracting and significantly decreases legibility. On a more positive note, see the consistent usage of the color palette when you move the mouse over the footer icons – with the main light blue color used for the rollover effects on the otherwise greatly styled monochrome social icons.