UzUz – Clean & Simplistic
This week I have cast my website of the week net out to Japan to find UzUz, a graduate recruitment website designed and created by Bees/Honey Inc.
As you open the site – and each time you navigate to a new page – you are greeted with a minimal loading screen, showing a small UzUz logo with a progress bar flowing through the middle. It’s a nice intro to the clean, simplistic feel you can expect from the rest of the site and I absolutely adore the uncomplicated sans serif typeface used in the logo, set centrally in bright orange on a vast sea of cream. Admittedly though, as nice as it is, this loading animation does get a little tiresome after the 10th time of seeing it, but it’s better than potentially landing on a slow loading page I suppose.
Once the homepage loads, the simplicity is retained with a large full screen slider overlaid purely with essential UI elements. The slider images themselves create the real wow factor on this page, with each of the 5 carousel images consisting of a large profile view of a different person, with an animated jagged line highlighting different parts of their head or face. These images are covered by a persistent message (which doesn’t get translated from Japanese – so I’m not sure what it says, but it looks lovely) that’s neatly designed in a square grid.
As you scroll down you begin to get a taste of the bold use of bright orange, as well as a more formal grid structure that feels crisp and modern, which sets the tone and structure for the rest of the site.
I think what makes this site feel so nice is the use of animated transitions and hover effects; there are circles that burst out from the corner and full screen colours that swipe across the entire viewport keeping our eyes constantly busy and excited. The neat way in which the logo area ‘folds’ itself away once you leave the head of a page is also a very nice touch.
The designers have left a consistent thin border around various sections on the site. This style choice is unique and helps to set the site apart from the current fashion of full bleed backgrounds, whilst still keeping an edge-to-edge, responsive feel.
Overall it’s the simplicity and minimalism that I really love about this site – coupled with the bright colours and quirky imagery makes it a great place for graduates looking to begin their careers and to find inspiration.
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