Opinions needed please =)

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat May 24, 2008 12:33 pm

Been tinkering around with my index page, and just wondered whether people thought it looked best in colour or in b&w (all I've done is greyscale the screengrab; the text on the buttons would be made more solid on any final version). Any other general feedback is also appreciated

slartibartfast · Post by **slartibartfast** » Sat May 24, 2008 12:52 pm

B&W with the color as the rollover image?

Personally i think the look of the site is brill. nice and simple. The button navigation makes it really good for browsing. Does it need a search engine or do you get people googling pages directly?

edit1 : nevermind.
edit2 : otherwise i prefer the b&w.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat May 24, 2008 1:25 pm

Bollocks, new I had something to bump the useless profile page... yeh, there'll be a search button replacing the "profile" button

I thought about roll-overs, but it'd double the load time on the page... Maybe, though

Thankos muchos!

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat May 24, 2008 1:47 pm

I'd say colour, mainly because the contrast is so poor that grey on black doesn't show up so well. Yes, you should design your site around my needs...

EDIT: That should be the contrast on my computer, rather than the page itself.

Post by **Denyer** » Sat May 24, 2008 1:50 pm

Colour. And a white background.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat May 24, 2008 1:57 pm

Denyer wrote:And a white background.

I've been wracking my brains for some way of doing dark-on-light that I like, and I just can't think of one without just half-inching someone else's

Aardvark · Post by **Aardvark** » Sat May 24, 2008 2:10 pm

I like the chalkiness of your site. Colour would liven it up a bit, but I'm not particularly keen on the coloured version you have there. Just my opinion etc.

slartibartfast · Post by **slartibartfast** » Sat May 24, 2008 2:21 pm

For white on black, you could go for a gothic parchment, or burned paper vibe.
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh16 ... _paper.jpg

Post by **Denyer** » Sat May 24, 2008 2:52 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:I just can't think of one without just half-inching someone else's

To slightly amend a quote from someone: bad designers copy, good ones steal.

Pretty much all of mine have been half-inched from elsewhere; by the time they're actually implemented, you'd be hard-pressed to recognise the roots.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat May 24, 2008 2:59 pm

One thing I might tinker with is table background... as pretty much any page I've updated recently uses a table, I could use a specific sub-scheme for a table in the middle of a page, making the bulk of the text dark-on-light, but keeping the overall feel the same (and saving me redoing lots of paintaking graphics and working out various other solutions). Hmmm... something like... http://counter-x.net/sandbox/maybe.html - or does that just look too much like I don't have a clue what I'm doing? Obviously there'll only be a limited number of background colours that aren't distracting...

TBH, aside from this place, I've not seen a massive amount of web-layouts I find particularly appealing... the main other site I've always like dthe look of is F1 Rejects... which, erm, the domain appears to have expired on yesterday

But for general text layout, think the above, but split into paragraph 'blocks'...

slartibartfast · Post by **slartibartfast** » Sat May 24, 2008 3:11 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:but split into paragraph 'blocks'...

what he said.

Is the lighter grey too harsh?

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat May 24, 2008 3:17 pm

Yeh, next one lighter does seem a little bright - http://counter-x.net/maybe2.html - I'll probably change the link colours to something with a bit more contrast with the background (possibly even just black, letting the underlining do the work).

That's growing on me, y'know. Gives me an excuse to use tables constantly as well. I mean, I do anyway, but now there's an excuse beyond borderline computer illiteracy...

EDIT: Damn, changing the link colour changes the ones at the top of the page... though actually, I'm not that sure I need them... They'd need overhauling anyway, the logo takes people back to the index... I dunno, anyone else use links like that?

slartibartfast · Post by **slartibartfast** » Sat May 24, 2008 3:31 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:http://counter-x.net/sandbox/maybe2.html

Compared, I'd go for the darker too, although it can seem a bit dingy after a while. Minor gripe.

I use the top banner if I want to look for something else, it's just as quick as the links underneath.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat May 24, 2008 4:33 pm

Yeh, I think I'll junk them all... 12 along the top would be hella unwieldly anyway, possibly not wrap. Back buttons (mental note: change to buttons) and homepage link should be enough

Latest fiddle of the index: http://counter-x.net/sandbox/front.html - if I'm going for colour, might as well do full colour rather than slightly faded. The only bit I have reservations about is the Convertors button, but then material's so low... maybe extreme close-up of a figure?

Civ · Post by **Civ** » Sat May 24, 2008 4:46 pm

To answer the opening post, I'd go with the color version simply due to it being more eye-catching than the grayscale version. With the color version, I can clearly make out the Gobots, Transformers, Linkits, Legos, and Voltron logos instantly whereas the B&W version takes another second or two to realize what I'm looking at. I'd also go with a dark background since I've found white ones to be harder on my eyes even with the contrast and brightness on my computer set to really, really low values.

Ackula · Post by **Ackula** » Sat May 24, 2008 7:15 pm

I despise the color. Stick with the black and white monochrome look. Of course if you have ever seen my site you would know that A) I know very little about web design, and B) My site is all black and white monochrome look. So take that as you will, I think everything is better simple and basic.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat May 24, 2008 7:47 pm

I should probably mention now that I've pretty much gone with the colour

I love the look of monochrome, but the practicality - at least the way I have it laid out - was not so good. The buttons were in for a total redesign (the font-based ones suffer the problem that the words have to shrink for something like "Transformers" compared to, say, "Lightan", whereas at least this way the non-uniform look looks intentional) anyway, and using logos doesn't tend to work as well in b&w.

And I'm just going to mention here that I hate the Gobots logo. It's the wrong shape, it's ****ing difficult to cut around, and it makes everyone think there's a damn hyphen in it).

Ackula · Post by **Ackula** » Sat May 24, 2008 7:50 pm

Well as long as you still have the link to TigeRR Benson's site on your page I suppose that is forgivable. You could do with more images of her, and maybe some video clips to boot though, since you are doing a site upgrade/update

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat May 24, 2008 7:54 pm

That gallery gets something like ~500 hits a month, behind only the Gobots stuff... I don't dare add to the damn thing until I find out how that compares to her own site... I'd rather not meet her in court for copyright violation.

Ackula · Post by **Ackula** » Sat May 24, 2008 7:58 pm

I can't tell you whats on her site as I'm too poor to pay for a membership, and honestly have never paid for a membership to any site of that sort, and can't really ever see myself doing so. I can vouch its damn hard to find any clips of her online though, I was bored as hell last night (wife started a new night job) and was looking for some to ease the boredom, found only 3 low quality video clips by chance.