ReForm School is a site that sells high priced artist items. The navigation is, yet again, constant. There is very pretty left hand navigation with adorable (yes, adorable) doodled rollovers. The whole site is structured to look like doodles in a notebook at class, with the left navigation looking like schedules and report cards. The top of the page has a cart and a log in link at the bottom of a student id. The items for sale are at the top of the left navigation, and the information about the artists, site, staff, etc. are at the bottom. The navigation does not go away at any level, and if you click on an item within a category, you can navigate back to the category of your search items. You can tell exactly where you are on the site because there is an adorable doodle for the selected state. You can ALWAYS get back home (the top thing that says ReForm School takes you there). The site doesn't have deep architecture, as the navigation that is always present only has about three or four levels total. The architecture is flat, which is great for this, as the main purpose is that you can jump from shopping category to shopping category.
The typography is pretty obviously hierarchical (bold caps for headlines, lighter serifs for other things beyond that, title of the page in big serifed letters). Navigation labels are crystal clear, and the grid stays constant from page to page, and the content shifts a bit. On any page, the focal point is whatever content is in the center. It's illustrated by the product images or the illustrations that go with the content in the center. The doodles and the images add to the literal idea of the "school" portion of "reform school." All of the doodled rollovers have something to do with the subject as well. I think the amount of imagery is great, as it reinforces the idea of it being a note book. The colors are minimal and all working in terms of context on the page. The colors seem to have been chosen simply because they came with the scanned in images, but it works. You cannot search the site, but you don't really need to. The labels are clear and interesting (they're labeled as different school subjects with subheaders saying what the product is). The objective of the site is definitely to sell the product, and it does that by laying it out in a clear manner. It appeals to the artistic sensibilities of the people that are likely to be buying from the site. The most useful thing for me is actually the very simple navigation . There's nothing particularly confusing about anything on the site at all. It is well laid out and easy to use.