Nameless Voice on 26/2/2009 at 12:28
Quote Posted by Esme
no flashing gifs, no gifs that move to draw the eye to subjects of interest and unless it can be turned off please no music
I think you missed the sarcasm there. ;)
Esme on 26/2/2009 at 12:43
I didn't want to take the chance that they were serious ;)
Judith on 26/2/2009 at 13:06
Awesome, clean, pleasant and user-friendly (at least it looks so). Great job :)
LarryG on 28/2/2009 at 03:47
Glad it's optional. I'm with ZB on this. I want it easy to read, thank you very much.
Kolya on 28/2/2009 at 10:27
Yeah me and Dave are still working on the script that makes it compulsive for people who complain about it. Should be on any minute though.
Wille on 28/2/2009 at 11:08
My suggestion for donate buttons as they seem too dark now in your design Atchoo:
Inline Image:
http://i41.tinypic.com/2a7tthg.jpgMy vote is on Atchoo's work too :).
Esme on 1/3/2009 at 18:20
Quote Posted by Wille
My suggestion for donate buttons as they seem too dark now in your design Atchoo:
Inline Image:
http://i41.tinypic.com/2a7tthg.jpgMy vote is on Atchoo's work too :).
yep they stand out a bit better :thumb:
Al_B on 5/3/2009 at 23:09
Very nice design - couple of minor comments:
* I'm not sure about the LGS logo being split white and black. It fits in with the top blue line, but makes that part of the design a little 'blocky' to me.
* On the subject of the top blue line, it's possibly still a little strong - perhaps it could be gradiated?
* I'm not convinced about the robot. As the first (non-logo) image that is presented on the page it seems a bit 'regimented' and doesn't seem very LGS (although I'm sure it is).
* Do google ads need to be considered as part of the layout? They're certainly part of the existing front page and forums and although they may not be desired they will have an impact on the visual appearance.
None of the above are meant to be taken as negative criticism, just the first thoughts that occurred to me.
Nab on 10/3/2009 at 14:36
I like Atchoos proposal very much at first glance. I am refering to the image posted in this post:
Quote Posted by Atchoo
[...]
Like Al_B I am somewhat confused by the topleft box. I do not see the LGS - robot connection at all. Neither am I sure that greeting new visitors with a 'Donate' button as one of the most predominant 'features' is such a smart move. If people want to donate, they should easily be able to do so. But this puts too much focus on the money. I would prefer the call for donations banished to any other corner but the topleft.
The larger the area given to a certain item, the more importance I assume it to have.
The largest part of the screen is given to the news headline, or in this case the call to redesign. The current news on the ttlg.com frontpage has been maturing there for 2 1/2 years, which is hardly a sign of an active community portal.
Putting a prominent news item on the frontpage is great, if you have news...
I could never design a website which holds enough eye-candy so I won't even try to create a mockup. Being a technical guy I would like the frontpage to represent this Hub for what it really is. This site has a number of topics:
Itself(Community), Thief [X], [X]Shock, Underworld [X], Deux Ex[X]
For each of these topics there are
news from related sites, links to related sites, forum coverage on the games
This all but screams "I want to be a table layout" to me.
Don't get me wrong, I like the design proposal. It looks great but I do not think it caters to the dynamics of the page.
Atchoo on 10/3/2009 at 19:44
Work has taken over life at the moment, which is why I haven't posted any modifications to my proposal for a while. A few comments on the choices I made:
In addition to some TTLG concept art to give the site a 'gaming' feel without going over the top I felt that the 'hub' site should be differentiated from its sister sites. The robot is concept art from SS2 which I haven't seen used prominently elsewhere, which is why I chose it. I'm sure I can find a more suitable one as this one doesn't seem to have hit the mark.
The donate box is really meant to be an about box, but given the main topic of discussion when I did the first mock-up was how much people had managed to raise in just a few days I thought it wouldn't hurt to add something about it to the design - I also wondered whether psychologically people might be more inclined to donate if the buttons were in an obvious place, particularly as that's where people tend to scan when looking down a page (I love Willies revamp of them :)).
I agree that the news items haven't been updated in a while but I get the impression that there are plans to update on a much more frequent basis, with the hub being very much its own site and not just a link page to the other sites (please correct me if I'm wrong though).
I'm not sure about gradients on the top bar, they're done everywhere at the moment so I tried to avoid them, but I can give it a go at least.
I'll try to find some time this weekend to do a proper update and see if I can get the files to a state where I can just release them for other people to modify too (the layers are a bit all over the place at the moment).
