When I first visit MIX Online, I am drawn by the simplicity of the site mainly because of the colorful dots laying around above the top fold. Secondly, I like how the borders of each module, or section, do not fully expand all the way to each end, but stop before reaching the gutter. It gives the module more of a design element rather than just a plain border.
I am a big fan of print design. I actually started my career as a print designer, but then soon evolved to a web designer. In MIX Online, I like how the designer tried to bring in elements from print design to the website by the use of borders, spacing, headline typography and serif fonts to display content within a module. Another interesting element are the two-tone color images used for the authors pictures. Sometimes just using regular images can get boring and these guys went outside of the box.
The one thing I am NOT a big fan of are the icons used for the social networks on the homepage. I think they could have chosen better icons that don’t have a lot of shadows and apple reflections. I can’t stand when a designer has a nice website, but then decides to throw in crappy social icons. Here are 33 amazing icons that you can choose from just don’t pick the grassy ones or the beverage shaped ones. Overall this site is beautiful.
If you know who designed this website, please let me know. Thanks