hotel triton
June, 1999.
By Molly E. Holzschlag. (Link to original article.)
The next time I'm in San Francisco, I'm going to meditate with Carlos Santana. Or maybe I'll pay my respects to the memory of Jerry Garcia. I also could hang with Graham Nash. Or curl up in a Zen den and examine my inner self.
The Hotel Triton's historic legacy, reflected in the design of its guest suites and rooms, is summed up nicely in this poetic slice by Creative Director Sean Owens:
Lily Tomlin was first here,
Traci Lords rehearsed here.
Seal strummed here,
Harry Connick hummed here.
Sharon Stone splayed here,
Paul Hogan g'day-ed here.
Courtney Love crashed here.
Lassie did a no-no here,
Cher did Sonny Bono here.
Hotel Triton's wonderfully funky design is carried over to its eclectic Web site. Bright colors, clever cartoon art, and a few classic photos accurately represent the Triton's definitive presence among the world's more interesting hotels.
Figure 1. Hotel Triton's wonderfully funky design is carried over to its eclectic Web site.
Web designers should closely examine the backgrounds used on this site. Background graphics can be very difficult to do well, and even the best designers end up with simple, boring, or purely functional backgrounds on their sites—if they use them at all. But Triton's designers did a background job worth singing about. The backgrounds are essential to the vibrant design and exceedingly pleasing to even the most difficult-to-impress eye.
"If you're designing a fixed-width table for 640-by-480 resolution, you've got to drop below 600 pixels in width to avoid the evil horizontal scroll."
The site is well organized with straightforward but shapely navigation. While the navigation segment of the site resides on the much-used left column, the curvy design helps it break away from the norm. In fact, there's a lot of shape and movement to the site in general. The graphic page headers are bouncy and upbeat, and the sub-headers sparkle with energy.
Figure 2. The Hotel Triton's historic legacy, reflected in the design of its guest suites and rooms, is summed up nicely in this poetic slice by Creative Director Sean Owens.
Not quite a perfect five
Type is consistent, and the space is used very well. The photos are clear, but content points are lost because of the hard edges around them. Although a softer-edge effect might cause an imbalance because there's already a lot of visual antics going on, the two-pixel graphic border around each image is constraining. This is a problem in light of all the freedom and fun going down on this site.
But that's a minor concern compared to the quickly fixable but currently unforgivable mistake made by the designers at TOTALnet. An evil horizontal scroll bar appears on many of the pages when viewed at 640-by-480-pixel resolution. This is because the designers chose to set the width of their main tables to 622 pixels.
What's the deal with this number? I can understand strong-minded designers choosing to create their pages for resolutions higher than the lowest common denominator. It's not my preference, but if it's argued eloquently and carried through consistently, OK. But 622 pixels?
It's an ugly mistake.
If you're designing a fixed-width table for 640 by 480 resolution, you've got to drop below 600 pixels in width to avoid the evil horizontal scroll. Why? Because browsers take up a chunk of that 640-pixel screen real estate. Recommended widths for fixed-table designs are a maximum of 595 pixels for PC and 585 for Macintosh visitors. If you're going for a higher res, design to that res. But don't pick your numbers out of a hat, even if it does belong to Crocodile Dundee.
Figure 3. Created by the legendary guitarist, musician, and artist, Jerry Garcia, this suite at Hotel Triton positively pulses with good vibrations.
Harper's Bazaar calls the Triton Hotel "exceedingly groovy." Despite the horizontal scrolls, I absolutely agree.
critic's rating
Usability
Navigation
Graphic design
Content
Compatibility
Load time
Functionality
Overall
designer's interview
Molly: What was your role in creating the site?
Brent Oswald: Executive Producer. I managed the development team and client relations.
Molly: If this wasn't a solo effort, how big was the team, what was its composition, and what was the relationship of the team members like?
Brent Oswald: The team consisted of a graphics designer/production artist, an HTML author, a programmer, a producer, a writer (provided by the client), and a creative director (provided by the client).
The relationship was based on experimentation, good communication, and attention to the reality of budgets and time.
Molly: How long did it take from concept to going live?
Brent Oswald: Approximately six weeks.
Molly: How did you plan the design and functionality of the site?
Brent Oswald: The client provided the basic design direction and some base art. TOTALnet augmented these elements, devised the architecture, and worked with the provided graphic elements to optimize them for use on the site.
Molly: Did you start with an idea of the existing market and demographics?
Brent Oswald: Yes. The client provided demographics and hotel guest profiles.
Molly: Did the client or someone else impose any limitations that constrained your development of the site?
Brent Oswald: The usual budget and time limitations.
Molly: What did you have to leave out of the design that you would have liked to include?
Brent Oswald: An interactive map of the neighborhood around the hotel and dynamic pages updateable by the client. This is scheduled for a future development phase.
Molly: What feature on the site are you most proud of?
Brent Oswald: The look, because it evokes the unique attributes of the hotel.
Molly: Is there anything you'd change on the site now that it's live?
Brent Oswald: No, but we would like to add the components mentioned above, plus Flash elements, audio files, and multinode panoramic files.
Molly: What was the most important lesson or tip you learned while building this site that you'd pass on to other Web builders?
Brent Oswald: Do the early groundwork—such as intended audience profile—to get the concept right. Learn what is important to the client and what is open for discussion; brainstorm, get a consensus, then reign in the chaos of creativity, and deliver within the given parameters. Also, make certain an inspired graphic design can be realistically re-created, given the limitations of the Web.
Molly: What's your favorite Web site?
Brent Oswald: That's a hard one, because it depends on so many issues. For pure functional and intuitive elegance, United Airlines. We are pretty wild about Flash, so sites such as Gabocorp Studios are favorites. We also are partial to Paramount's Great America and Hotel Allegro Chicago, which we created.
Molly: What site do you wish you had designed?
Brent Oswald: Those just mentioned that we didn't do.
Molly: What was your background before becoming involved with Web site design and development?
Brent Oswald: In reference to the development team, it's all over the map: film and video production, feature film special effects, 3D animation and video graphics, advertising, programming, and print graphic design.
Molly: When you're not busy building sites, what do you enjoy doing?
Brent Oswald: Again, in reference to the development team: mountain biking, scuba diving, acting, drumming, sleeping, computer games. And coffee.
