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You’re Killing Me Zappos

You’re Killing Me Zappos is a great redesign project undertaken by Andrew Wilkinson. The project began after his disgust at their current design:

I’d like to start by saying that I think Zappos is an exceptionally cool company – everything I say from this point on is exclusively in the interest of helping. I understand why you guys are successful. I’ve been floored by stories of your generosity towards your customers, and your company culture sounds wonderful. So, when I heard about the Amazon acquisition, I grinned wide. Then, the other day, I checked out your new website and wanted to stab my eyes out with a sharp object.

As Andrew discusses on his project page he improves several elements of their website in the redesign:

Clear Iconography
Visual Hierarchy
Unified Link Styles
Blurry Images
Who, What, Why?

Redesigning the Boarding Pass

Boarding Pass Fail is a really interesting redesign project undertaken by Tyler Thompson. After he decided he hated plane boarding passes, he decided to redesign one.

“The design of boarding passes makes me want to scratch my eyes out.”

Tyler made the boarding pass design much clearer to understand, as the most important elements are given visual precedence through the use of color and typography. The entire design feels much cleaner and better organized:

Even better – many other designers were inspired by Tyler’s project and submitted their own designs, the best of which he posted on his project page:

Dear American Airlines

Dear American Airlines is an intriguing redesign project undertaken by Dustin Curtis. After contacting American Airlines directly, an ongoing conversation ensued, discussing the problems with AA’s current design, as well as the limitations of a redesign.

How did this happen? If I was running a company with the distinction and history of American Airlines, I would be embarrassed — no ashamed — to have a website with a customer experience as terrible as the one you have now. How does your CEO, Gerard J. Arpey, justify treating customers this way? Why does your board of directors approve of this? Your website is abusive to your customers, it is limiting your revenue possibilities, and it is permanently destroying the brand and image of your company in the mind of every visitor.

Dustin’s redesign is amazing, and is infinitely clearly than AA’s current design. It gives us some hope that great design can ultimately triumph, despite the short-sighted employees of some large corporations.

Facebook Facelift

“The Facebook Facelift is a self initiated project to challenge the form and functionality of Facebook. It’s streamlined, structured and linear interface is more comprehendible, enhancing the user experience and absorbability of content.

The home page features many new benefits: the publisher toolbar enables users to post content from any page within facebook, saving time in navigating needlessly through profiles; the streams’ two-tiered filter (content type & content contributers) also creates a more coherent structure with the core elements retaining their position throughout most of the site; and the live feed displays a constant stream of all content posted in a users network, which expands upon mouse over.”

Chris Spooner

Chris Spooner is a favorite designer of mine, we’ve actually interviewed him a couple of times at PSDFAN.

Our First Interview with Chris Spooner

Our Second Interview with Chris Spooner

Here are a couple of awesome redesign casestudies of his:

Envato Marketplaces Redesign

We Function produced a stunning redesign of Envato’s designer marketplaces. In this casestudy they show earlier drafts for the design, as well as an analysis of their design process:

Zymetis Redesign

Viget Labs posted a fantastic casestudy of their Zymetis redesign. The post includes mood boards and a detailed account of their design process:

NDesign Redesign

Nick La posted an awesome redesign casestudy at his blog, detailing the exact design process behind his NDesign Redesign. He posts sketches, mood boards, as well as screenshots of the semi-developed site:

OutLaw Design Blog

Danny Outlaw gives WeFunction a sneek peek of his (now launched) OutLaw Design Blog redesign. The post features an analysis of the designs best features, as well as great screenshots of his work:

What Makes a Good Redesign?

I would love to hear your thoughts on what is required to make a good redesign. Please feel free to share your own redesigns here for discussion.