by Heather Champ
It was only a matter of time before the controversy of integrating frames
within a design solution faded into the background. True to form, designers
have co-opted the intended use and developed unique directions of
implementation going far beyond adding a frame for ad banners (Suck, Expedia, HotWired and even the ONION are just a few examples).
Too Revealing?
A dispute
earlier this year brought to the forefront one aspect of the fragility of
the Web's social contract with the "similarity" of the architecture between
The Fray's Meeting Peter and Salon's U
nzipped, Sizing it up.
While "viewing" a document's source is one of the greatest resources for
designers, it might be rather tempting for nimble fingers. It's hard to
define what is copyrightable design and that which is part of the medium.
While it's easier to point a finger at color layout and the graphic
identity, which bear a more than striking resemblance, the intricacies of
source code and uniqueness are somewhat more difficult to copyright.
"Revealing" frames are an interesting alternative to a "splash" screen or
typical front door, and a clickless maneuver at that! Word has taken
revealing frames a step further with the elaborate Diary of a
Garterbelt Feminist--a rather naughty jaunt through a series of
multilayered framesets.
Timelines
Typograhics's Timeline, a
nonframed, large, clickable image map, requires a user to jump back and
forth between the timeline and the linked details. A more elegant solution
employed by both Carnegie
Hall and Pulitzer
Prize enables a user to scroll across the top through a top horizontal
navigation frame.
A click within the frame presents the information in the bottom frame. The
timeline remains in view, which cuts down on the annoying back and forth.
While a timeline may have a larger file size than a typical document, the
unseen images will load while the users peruses those in view first.
Mission Control
Pixel perfect arrangement of a site's content is somewhat of a holy grail
for designers. While the use of highly formatted tables will ensure that the
relative relationships between elements will remain constant, their use can
lead to small concentrated islands of content in the top lefthand quadrant
of a browser window if a user enlarges the browser past the standard 600 x
400 design window.
Method Five, formerly the Myriad
Agency, has used frames to ensure that the user will see the intended
interface by floating the site within a suspension of frames. It's rather
antithetical to HTML's elastic nature, but it provides a solution for
precision alignment and arrangement. Floating or inline frames will
eventually allow for the reduction of the surrounding frameworlk.
And finally . . . Frames for fun
The Blue Dot--phramed!--announces quite
proudly that "this site will break your browser!" If anything, this site
will test the robustness of any browser.
