This (http://www.spunky.co.uk/world.html) store design is amazing, I love it, but I cannot believe they have used a sperm graphic as the entire basis for their brand!

Now that is daring branding if I’ve ever seen it. So lets starting breaking down what elements of the design I think are great;

The Header Area
This (above) is beautiful – lovely colour and pattern, and a nice bevel to the header bar to add a bit more interest and ‘weight’, as if it’s not interesting enough even without that.

Also each navigation title has a trendy graphical icon or text.

Then just a few spaces down
they use a cool retro tv to contain a flash portfolio of their products:

One each page you can note a completely different page background for the browser window, and absolutely funky in each and every instance. Again, very very well branded with the Spunky feel and imagery….spunky are very into stamping their brand all over their site design.

I want to point some backgrounds out that are my favourite but they rotate on clicks rather than being fixed to a particular page and I can’t face doing any more screen grabs One of them is very gory and is black and white, that is my favourite one.

I even love these cute little shopping bag icons they have;

They have some fantastic designers working for them but I don’t think they pay them much - however Spunky also sell to designers the notion of getting their design onto a Spunky product and the press associated with that.

Often new designers fall victim to offers such as; “design for low cost/free and your design itself will get pr and that will be massive advertising for you”.

Unfortunately this type of drivel usually comes from small business startups and it’s unlikely you will see your design on the cover of a fancy magazine – thus you have worked for free with no return, or for very low cost that won’t pay the rent if you keep it up.

An excellent website for designers wanting to re-inforce the value of the design industry is www.no-spec.com - which discourages designers taking on speculative work (design first and if the customer likes it they pay for it, if they don’t like it, they don’t pay)

But in Spunky’s case I have to say it could be worth it for a designer to submit as they do receive enough press that the notoriety alone could cover the cost of the design time that could, in the case of a complex design, exceed what Spunky is willing to pay for a design.

So shall I submit? Nah, never been a gambler ….I like the feel of cold hard cash in my hand first ha ha ha….

Amanda