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RFC: Frontrowcrew.com Redesign

AprecheApreche
edited September 2007 in GeekNights
As many of you may know, we have been trying to redesign frontrowcrew.com for quite some time now. This has proven quite difficult because while we have plenty of skill with web technology, we have no artistic skill in making web sites look nice. Also, we have very high standards and will not settle for a sub-par site. We want frontrowcrew.com to look really awesome as opposed to the cluttered mess we have now. We're also unwilling to pay the exorbitant fees that professional web designers charge.

Well, after many months of work, I have finally managed to create a site design that I feel does not suck every known ball in the universe. Please take a look and tell me what you think. This is, of course, just a rough draft of the front page only. Nothing is set in stone right now, I'm just looking for comments on this particular design. Obviously you click on the image to see it in full size.

EDIT: Visit this sample site in your browser. If you have weird problems, make sure to post screenshots, so I can see them.
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Comments

  • bees kneesbees knees
    Looks cool! Minimalist but totally effective.

    I can't see those shaded images in the background on my plasma monitor unless I tilt my screen though!

    That and I always get mixed up when in the forums of the current design because I click on the "Front Row Crew Forums" hyper link at the top of the page expecting to go to the forums home and get moved the full site home. :P
  • mrrobbobmrrobbob
    It looks nice. A news search will be good, but can you have a TotD search as well?
    And your fake things of the day made me laugh.
  • ThaedThaed
    I'm a big fan of minimalist/ utilitarian. Looks good to me.
  • AprecheApreche
    It looks nice. A news search will be good, but can you have a TotD search as well?
    And your fake things of the day made me laugh.
    The search will be the same as the search now. It searches the contents of all the posts as if it were a blog.
  • AprecheApreche

    That and I always get mixed up when in the forums of the current design because I click on the "Front Row Crew Forums" hyper link at the top of the page expecting to go to the forums home and get moved the full site home. :P
    That's part of the forum, not the main site. The forum won't be changing.
  • SailSail
    Looks good, but you should make those background images just a shade darker.
  • AprecheApreche
    Looks good, but you should make those background images just a shade darker.
    Then it will be hard to read the text.
  • SailSail
    edited September 2007
    Then it will be hard to read the text.
    It only needs to be slightly darker. It's really hard to see them at all.
    Post edited by Sail on
  • AlexAlex
    Looks good, but you should make those background images just a shade darker.
    Then it will be hard to read the text.
    You might get the best of both worlds by tinting the background images some color(blueish?), as opposed to a straight gray.

    I'm not a huge fan of no-color site designs in general, though. The layout is good, but it's kind of boring in its monochromeness.
  • AprecheApreche

    You might get the best of both worlds by tinting the background images some color(blueish?), as opposed to a straight gray.

    I'm not a huge fan of no-color site designs in general, though. The layout is good, but it's kind of boring in its monochromeness.
    I agree, but I suck at picking colors. With 16.7 million to choose from, I always choose wrong.
  • StarfoxStarfox
    LOL, I didn't see the pictures at all until Sail said something.
  • AprecheApreche
    LOL, I didn't see the pictures at all until Sail said something.
    Wow. Is this a case of bad eyes or bad monitors?
  • kiwi_birdkiwi_bird
    I couldn't see it as well until Sail mentioned it, although I'm looking at it on my Laptop.
  • RymRym
    I will say that those things show up fine even on the crappiest display we own.  Your brightness and contrast are -really- wrong if you can't see them.
  • GreatTeacherMacRossGreatTeacherMacRoss
    I can see the images, but only barely. They could be just a tidge darker.

    I think adding a light background color to the left menu bar would be nice.
  • AndrewAndrew
    Perhaps it would be better to judge the images if we could link to the site ourselves rather than just look at a screen shot.
  • VhdbloodVhdblood
    I like the design a lot. Keep up the good work.

    Btw, I can see the background fine.
  • SailSail
    I couldn't see it as well until Sail mentioned it, although I'm looking at it on my Laptop.

    I will say that those things show up fine even on the crappiest display we own. Your brightness and contrast are -really- wrong if you can't see them.

    I am also on a laptop, so that might have something to do with it.
  • AprecheApreche
    Perhaps it would be better to judge the images if we could link to the site ourselves rather than just look at a screen shot.
    The site is on my laptop, so that's not going to happen anytime soon.
  • snookernetsnookernet
    The pictures showed up alright on my MacBook, but I had to slouch down in my chair to view from an angle in order to see them on my PC. It's a really good monitor too, I guess I need to mess with the contrast, though.

    You might get the best of both worlds by tinting the background images some color(blueish?), as opposed to a straight gray.

    I'm not a huge fan of no-color site designs in general, though. The layout is good, but it's kind of boring in its monochromeness.
    I agree, but I suck at picking colors. With 16.7 million to choose from, I always choose wrong.
    Scott, you can pick any color, anything looks good with gray.
  • trogdor9trogdor9
    It almost reminds me of Wikipedia's design.  I like the design, but I think a few colors wouldn't hurt.
  • VigaViga
    I'm a big fan of minimalist/ utilitarian. Looks good to me.
    Less can equal good a lot of the time. That faint background image is a nice touch.

    Not everything looks good with grey but some nice blue tones would be cool. I only say that because blue comes to mind when I think Geeknights. Weird huh?
  • VentureJVentureJ
    edited September 2007
    I could barely see the pictures in the background, though I did not notice them at all until Sail mentioned it. Still, I am forced to squint in order to really see them.

    Edit: Actually, I can see them clearly, but only from a strange angle. Hm.
    Post edited by VentureJ on
  • RymRym
    Edit: Actually, I can see them clearly, but only from a strange angle. Hm.
    That means your display is one of the old TFT (or whatever, I forget the acronyms) types with a really bad vertical viewing angle.  Most cheap LCDs have this problem.  Expensive ones do not.  ^_~
  • VentureJVentureJ
    Awww, man. My laptop sucks.
  • RymRym
    My laptop sucks.
    Practically zero laptops have "good" LCD screens, so don't feel bad. =P  They use more power.
  • JukeBoxJoshJukeBoxJosh
    I love the new look! I would make that my homepage on my computer it looks so beautiful!
  • raquorraquor
    I like it, no worries about long ass loading times because of a shit ton of unnecessary pics. I too have to stand or slouch to see the pic on the page but I'm not heart broken by it...If it were darker great...if not that's fine too. I wouldn't mind a bit darker border color for the various boxes though...I like my sections to be nicely defined...but that's me. :D
  • Double ZDouble Z
    I like it a lot, I'm a big fan of clean designs, and all of the logos are awesome, I don't think I had ever seen any of them before.
  • MamathMamath
    I don't like it all that much but it does look functional.

    Needs moar colours! As is, it is kind of painfully boring to look at because everything is so so grey. I can see the background images just fine but people probably aren't seeing them initially because they were focusing on the text. Which is fine, I guess. Pick a colour (probably a light blue?) and post a screenshot and the forums will happily tell you if it sucks balls. That's what we are here for! :D As an alternative, keep the background images gray but turn the frames around the navigation through to polls menu light blue to differentiate them more and add some colour. You could also trying doing both with different shades of blue but I think that would be overkill.

    Maybe make the individual background images a bit smaller. Except for the anime one. It looks like they are all done so that they have a circle around them? But the anime/comics theme one is a smaller size in the layout you've shown us so it's inconsistent. Plus I think the other ones are slightly too big anyway. Not big enough to be a pleasant blend of nonsensical shapes and not small enough to be an instantly recognisable image. Well, in my opinion. And uncenter the anime/comics one cause that's throwing it off as well. I can see that you're trying to keep the cape/wings/whateverthoseare in the image or something but they're not important enough for that. Actually if you just made that one bigger and uncentered it the whole lot would probably look a lot better.

    I inexplicably feel like the logo needs to be bigger or stretched across the top or something. Or the news box needs to be lowered a bit? Not sure, that might just end up looking like crap.
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