replacement homepage program
polycounter lvl 19
well, my monster of a homepage is looking a bit rough these days, it's basically had bits bolted on over the past 4 years, mangling it from any real purpose I actually set out the last time I re-designed it.
So I've come up with a new design, it's floating my boat so far. I hope to run the site totally in wordpress - the current site has 100+ pages so I need a decent CMS.
the plan is to run it for 1024x768 as the lowest rez, and font big enough to read without being hunched over licking the screen. Designers should start taking more hints from print. Also I want users to be able to read my site on plasma screens without having to up the font size.
My only worry is the font rendering on windows, so I'll have to do a few tests to see where windows starts smoothing fonts, if it doesn't smooth 14pt - 16pt thne it may look weird.
The layout was done entirely in Illustrator (I usually use photoshop), and I can humbly recommend trying it out. Really gives you a feeling for fonts, grids and all that jazz. Helps you think about CSS, not bitmaps.
Any feed back is welcome, good or bad.
Oh, and it's a wide one alright
http://www.dadako.com/forums/newsite.png (illustrator layout)
So I've come up with a new design, it's floating my boat so far. I hope to run the site totally in wordpress - the current site has 100+ pages so I need a decent CMS.
the plan is to run it for 1024x768 as the lowest rez, and font big enough to read without being hunched over licking the screen. Designers should start taking more hints from print. Also I want users to be able to read my site on plasma screens without having to up the font size.
My only worry is the font rendering on windows, so I'll have to do a few tests to see where windows starts smoothing fonts, if it doesn't smooth 14pt - 16pt thne it may look weird.
The layout was done entirely in Illustrator (I usually use photoshop), and I can humbly recommend trying it out. Really gives you a feeling for fonts, grids and all that jazz. Helps you think about CSS, not bitmaps.
Any feed back is welcome, good or bad.
Oh, and it's a wide one alright
http://www.dadako.com/forums/newsite.png (illustrator layout)
Replies
Really don't like the bottom right and the anti-IE tone, but thats your choice I suppose, just feels a bit ignorant - and with the link to stopie.com. I understand its not your choice but a Mac isn't my choice - I don't prech windows to people.
I like the design as a whole, I'd perhaps use more burgandy than orange.. give it a bit more of a mixed feeling. Nice as a whole, though.
Well I'm glad it's only the content you have issues with
I am anti IE because it wastes my time, and other designers time. In fact I guess most web designers will tell you that while they try to make sites that are compatible using standards, debugging things to work in IE take up the most time because IE doesn't follow all standards or interprets them differently... no-where do I state that I am anti windows
(I may just switch it out for an apple logo and a picture of steve jobs though)
The overall design of the homepage is a little bit of a turnoff for me because it doesnt feel like an artist's portfolio. now I do realize that your site is filling a lot more roles than a regular artist's portfolio site - but the first visual impressions I get from this design are those of a news site, a mega-portal site made for processing thousands of hits, or maybe even a blog template. seeing your artwork on the left saves it somewhat, but the initial impression is a lot dryer and "uncreative" than I would hope a site for your art would be.
I mean the illustrations you have thumbnailed are really cool and offbeat, but the design of the overall page feels so dry. newsy.
course this is all just my opinion. and my opinion is the minority, more often than not.
also I think you misspelled "Ideologies"
I think the standard text should be smaller, set to grouped style with a higher line spacing.
It feels very compressed right now..
I checked it on a laptop screen, it all seems too big... Also, I thing that some breathing space on the sides might help. I have seen many websites changing their layout to 'fullwidth' 1024 recently, and when displayed on an actual 1024 laptop screen it really feels overbusy.
I just quoted the points of criticism, because the nices points are obvious!
Can't wait to see more.
The reason the font is so huge is because I just realised this guys is right: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/100e2r
disciplines.
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bah. I guess I'll have to run the lot through a spell checker, good find!
The reason the font is so huge is because I just realised this guys is right: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/100e2r
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Ah, but the main reason for what they're talking about is actually the excess of text, not entirely the size of it... sure, lots of tiny text is bad, but lots of big text is nearly as bad.
You want big text, just less of it. IMHO a lot of what you're saying on that site is superfluous anyway. You should let your work speak for itself, I reckon - more images and large, concise captions containing all the information a client/visitor might want. Not long sentences with fancy words promoting yourself.
That's my thinking anyway, the actual layout and design scheme seems good, just I think it's a tad word-heavy at the moment.
if someone could post me a picture of it on their favorite browser that would be much appreciated. On Safari, it looks just like the image at the top of this page:
http://www.dadako.com/forums/newsite.png (illustrator layout)
all the stop ie junk is gone now...
well.. horizontal scrollbars are not that good lonking.
im using a 1024+768 resolution on my dad's laptop.
Really don't like the bottom right and the anti-IE tone, but thats your choice I suppose, just feels a bit ignorant - and with the link to stopie.com. I understand its not your choice but a Mac isn't my choice - I don't prech windows to people.
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preching against IE doesn't mean preching pro mac...
there are so many reasons not to use IE.. and as hawken said opera and firefox are also under windows...
hawken, it looks good on my firefox 2.0 under windows except the fonts are aliased...
I like the design, its cool.
I think the logo and the image should be more flush however, feels a little far apart. The red blocks seem like they should have red hovers, not blue ones. Dont think you need a title for the illustration on the left, nor a date. The headers feel too wordy. The first header "following and...." feels like it could be a supportive sentence in your body as opposed to a headline. Would save you some vertical space on the right too i think.
I almost feel the gutter between the image and body on right is too much, but only by a couple of pixels.
Is there any reason why in the logo, on the right hand side (by the intersecting L and I shapes, sorry dont know Japanese) that there is only a 1px space between the characters as opposed to the 2px distance throughout the rest of the logo? almost makes it feel like an error, then again, i dont know japanese
cool site, flesh that sucker out!
thanks for the comments, the data is just from my normal site, I've written far too much about my images
About the gutter, I'll have to defend myself on this point, as the site is made up from 4 columns (as one might find in a magazine) and the grid is what holds the site together, using 16px spacing between all the elements.
People are saying it's too wordy, I guess thats a font size thing, there's so much less copy than my normal site!
Well picked up on the logo and roll overs. You pixel hawk-eye is enough to rival my own! Did mean to fix it but photoshop takes ages to open on this machine, will change!
Anyway, thanks for the screen shots, Bitmap -> I think you have your browser font size set above normal, can you check it out? Would be much appreciated!
I 100% agree with the previous link you posted, especially about the width of columns for legibility. The font sizes don't bother me personally, i like the style. I only suggested it being too wordy because there were a lot of words in that first header, nothing more
and it's not just because i think your websites are super sexxxy, i think you've got a lot of great content, too. i love your mind and your body! *sob*
if i were cheeky i would like to point out that my much-maligned polycount front page design, while not exactly the classiest girl in town, DOES follow the principles of what that information architects site was talking about. but i'm not cheeky, so i won't mention it
anyhow, i seriously approve wholeheartedly of your new site design. it screams professionalism with an understated beauty to the whole thing--definitely a transparent showcase for your portfolio. makes me want to redesign my own site, which i ought to do anyhow, given that i've just got a pile of dusty bones plugged into a fucking blog right now.
oh, and i'll be in tokyo on december 13th. fyi. i'll be sure to contact you again closer to the magical day...