New site layout

[Calash]

Working on a possable new site layout and I would like some opinions on if it is better/worse than my current one

Current site

http://www.necrotania.com

New layout

http://www.necrotania.com/test2/

There is no content yet, but it will contain the same content as the main site, just altered to work with the colors and variable width.

Thank you for your input.

[YvetteKuhns]

The original logo looks better, though the designs look more creative on the new version. The CSS simulated buttons should be the same size. You will agree after you add a few of varying size! ;) The new graphics design in the upper left corner may have more colors introduced than you need to carry into the rest of the design.

The original color scheme looks better. What? Those are the same colors? Yes, they are, but the darker color for the background looks nicer from original. The pinkish/mauve color behind the buttons on the new version is not attractive to everyone.

The idea of taking away the boxy newspaper look is a good one. The design is good, but experiment with where each color goes. For some reason, the colors looked better on the original for me.

[Batchman]

This looks like it is probably a sort of a portal page for a forum, which would explain to me something of why the original design looks just a little bit bland ... no graphics or things because it probably just inserts text from the forum.

This is what I like, so far, about the new design. The graphics and the difference in design add greatly to the correction of what had been a really gray page. To go much further on being able to comment, however, I'd have to see what it looks like with some of the content in there, rather than just a mostly empty page.

I completely agree on having the buttons be the same size. Would help.

[Calash]

I totaly agree about the buttons but there is a bit of a problem. Only IE will recognise the width statment in that tag. Netscape, Firefox, and Opera all ignore it, making the buttons look the way they do now. I am still working to find a good solution.

Thanks for the input. I am not sure if I will go with this format, but it never hurts to try out something new :)

[YvetteKuhns]

It works for me, but I made my buttons differently. Look at http://www.healthyweightlossplans.com on which I am currently working. Look at the source code with a#menu to see how the buttons are simulated. This was done with several other websites that I tested in both IE and Mozilla.

[Calash]

ooOOOooooooooh I see. I added the display:block; tag and now the menu looks good.

Now to work on the other stuff :)

[YvetteKuhns]

Yes, the buttons do look better when they are the same width. Nice job. :)

[MacTech]

your first link is much better then the second, graphic wise the second is not as pretty imo then the second. Also your layout in the first link is already pretty good and the grahpics are pretty nice. However i would suggest you redo the banner image at the top to at least if anything continue the shadow of the text down cause it is sorta cut off right now. I really like the menu on the right, don't see to many sites like that and always nice to see something different. The menu could use some spaces but is ok.

nice work and plus you have aqua buttons :)

[Jade Dragon]

but...but...but... I *like* the blue design you have now :)

I'd have to see what it looks like as a whole - but I do not like the dark grey buttons with black text - it is hard to read.

=)
Jade

[R.Reinhardt]

I like the new design...

*good dragon... nice dragon... go fetch!*

[Calash]

heh, you know me....ever 4-6 months I go through a redesign phase :)

I do like my current site but it does have some areas that I do think need to be improved. I really could use a better logo....I just need some time to practice how to make them look good :)

The narrow layout does have some problems in non-ie browsers. If the menu gets longer than the main div it will extend outside. and does not look good.

Personally I am not 100% sold on my new design yet. While the variable width would make the best use of the visitors available space I do enjoy the origional look I have with my current site.

Thank you all for the input. I may end up reworking the current layout to resolve some of the issue I have with it.

[Calash]

Well..I got started with design ideas and now I can not stop :)

Here is a new logo idea I had. My vision will be to have a layout similar to what I have now, but the bottom can expand to about 90% while still retaining the same look at 800x600.

http://www.necrotania.com/nec_logo/index.php

Hit refresh and the logo will change :) (yeah...I am hopeless :) )

[YvetteKuhns]

The logo designs are neat, but you should really pick one and stay with it. Though your site is not for business, it is still useful to have a logo, which is a brand recognition symbol. It represents you, your business and/or website. If a business changes its logo, people may think that someone else owns that business.

I am not sure that your text color goes well on that blue background. Or the combination of that text color with the effects. The pale yellow on the designs look good with the blue, because there is more contrast. If you do keep the text styles the same, just do it for the website name and not all of the text.

[Calash]

You think the rotating logo is too much?

heh..you are probably right. I get carried away with flashy looking things at times :)

Still...I just feel that my current site is lacking something. Not sure what it is but it just does not feel right to me.

Well...it is still fun to try new things out :). Even if I never use it the rotating logo is cool to look at :)

[YvetteKuhns]

If you like rotating things, you can have rotating banners that link to other websites. But try to use only one rotating/animated thing on a page, because anything that changes or moves distracts viewers, especially when trying to read. It was cool, though.

With so many logos, it will be difficult to pick one. Maybe you should have a vote here.

[Calash]

I was thinking of setting up some kind of voting system on that page. Some of my site staff agree with you on the single logo as well. Simple is often the best way :)

Been thinking about simplifying things a bit. I feel I am on the right track but I may be trying to hard. I went back to photoshop and redid a the logo in a much more simple form...or so I think :)

http://www.necrotania.com/index-test.php

I had to remove the menu because the style sheet would need to be altered and that would effect the live site, but the spacing is correct. Do you think this is the better way to go? The menu links will probably be roll-over type links. This would keep the rest of my page formatted the same basic way. The text will not be black, I still have to decide the best color and style. I may also change the background image depending on what one is most popular.

Again…thanks for all your help. I am quite design impaired :)

[YvetteKuhns]

You can put the menu in a separate includes file, so if you need to change the menu, you can just change that one file. You can use images or simulated buttons using CSS to avoid having to create more images.

The new, simpler logo is nice, but I liked the dragon design from your rotation (fourth one, I think) because he wasn't a skeleton. ;)

[Calash]

Ooh..never thought of breaking the menu CSS away from the main. I am not sure that would work well with my setup though. The site pulls all of it's CSS info from the Invisionboard skin. This way I only have to edit one place and the whole site is changed. I never tried an include in this area, but I do not see any reason it would not work.

I altered the image to one that struck me as a good image. I also made up a couple of others based on my old image rotation

http://www.necrotania.com/images/logo4.gif
http://www.necrotania.com/images/logo5.gif
http://www.necrotania.com/images/logo6.gif
http://www.necrotania.com/images/logo7.gif

I may be getting a bit off track for this forum since this is more of image editing at this point. If I am let me know...I get carried away at times :)

[YvetteKuhns]

From those choices, I like logo6 best.

[oatesj77]

#6 looked great, and i bet you could work that dragon image or parts of the image into other areas of the site. or even just the style that the image is rendered in could be applied to other hearers or?

[Calash]

http://www.necrotania.com/index-test.php

This is the current design I am thinking of using for the logo. The buttons work, but I have not decided if I want to try and setup a roll-over or not. I do not want too many images since that will slow down the page loading.

[YvetteKuhns]

Nice logo! Why don't you make one blank button and use text to name each button? You would only need to load one image instead of 8 different images.

[Calash]

Well....I have a very good reason why....... I do...............really


heh...never thought of that :) That way would let me get a nice roll-over effect without extra images and reduce my load time.

Thanks. I will have to give that a try :)

[Calash]

After a bit of fighting and having to use a table I got the menu working. It does load much faster now.

I altered the layout a bit and made some minor changes to the right menu bar. Let me know how it look :)

http://www.necrotania.com/index-test.php

[oatesj77]

i'm liking the layout more and more, but the navigation is bugging me, something about the color and the 3d look. you might see what it looks like with a blue, just darker than your header and w/o 3d, maybe just a line to break up the links. the reason being, there is are no other 3d images other than your section headers that are in a different style (imo don't fit as well). the navigation just sticks out like it is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[YvetteKuhns]

To be honest, I wasn't that thrilled with the navigation menu, either. The color was too yellow and I didn't like the fonts. But your edit looks better.

[Calash]

It turned out I had an issue with the font showing different at work than at home. I also noticed the nav bar rendered poorly on another system. I have adjusted it to the darker blue and fixed the font issue. Once I get home I will check the color on some different systems and see if it is any better/worse than the gold.

[YvetteKuhns]

Yes, that looks much better. :)

[oatesj77]

looks much better, though you should look at it w/mozilla, not all of the breaks show up between the links, try using this character "|", don't know what it's called, but it is next to the right shift key and it could be a solution both browsers. also, swap the link typeface to sans serif one, will look better with the rest of the page. there is still the off yellow in necrotania and online story writing community imo that is not a good color, looks bad. maybe black for both but keep the outer glow (try different colors for the glow) on the logo and drop it on the other, should give it a sharper feel like the rest of the site. otherwise it is looking good.

[YvetteKuhns]

If you don't want to show a character between the links, use the code   instead.