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Concept Reviews
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Hi Serina :)
Nice to see another of your concepts and I'm happy to say I like it :)
As usual few things as requested:
I don't understand it - First which grabs my attention is native's face. Second is info about preserving languages online :) Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of the featured article which gives theme to the page but first things first - please read the next point:
It should scream instead: online magazine for scholars developing digital projects so everyone can put it into context before going deeper.
Titles of sections Articles, Tutorials, Reviews, Community above pictures of featured context should be BIG as these are main areas of your blogzine.
It would not be a bad idea to have the full title of your blogzine on the homepage instead of HF only.
I would reorganise top menu to match sections below: Articles, Tutorials, Reviews, Community, About. Contact can be in the footer.
So as you can see site requires some serious rearrangements :)
Keep up the good work Serina!
Cheers!
Michael (user experience designer & strategist)
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Michael + Webcardinals commented:Serina, I'm glad you still like my input :)
The tagline explaining the site has to be somewhere high so people have the chance to read if first before reading anything else.
They of course will look at the face first but the only way to change it is by removing it. There is no other way. Our brains are hard-wired to notice faces and their emotions first.
Cheers, Mike
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I do think the site looks good, but I worry that your fears are correct regarding the museum/magazine. I just took a look at 3 of the biggest magazines out there (Time, Newsweek, People) and they all have fairly news-y looking sites. However, I think you can use the design you have with a few modifications to really get a magazine feel without changing too much. Adding a "headline" article would add a great deal to achieving that.
Second... what is the most important item on the site? To me, for a magazine site I would think the articles are the most important. In this case you have your links (articles, tut, comm, reviews) above your articles and it seems to be taking away from your main content.
Design-wise, it needs a little balance. For example, the main dark gray bar near the top appears to be a banner from the left, but it doesn't balance with anything. The subheads on the right appear to have a deeper wrap (the triangles are taller), and the wrap is only on one side.
Also, your column structure is a bit odd. Are you using a 12-col grid? If I had to guess I'd say your giving the links at the top 3 cols each and then the main content is getting 8 cols (2/3) and the right side is getting 4 (1/3)? That probably is ok, although I think it seems a little off, but the footer doesn't really fit any of it well. The footer is the weakest part of the design, take some time to reconsider that.
As far as the background, i'd probably ditch the gray and use some kind of brown/sepia texture that matches the antiquity of the image at the top.
Lastly, the name of the site doesn't really appear prominently. The only instance appears to be in the gray bar, which is quite a way down the page and does not stand out or relate to other elements that do. Maybe try putting the title of the site under the logo, or making it more prominent in a different area.
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Patrick Niebrzydowski commented:well now that I read the comments, I see that there actually IS a featured article, but I didn't even know that's what it was. That kind of invalidates my comment about the background, but instead it brings up another concern based on the fact that I thought it WAS the background. I think you need to make it more clear that it is a featured article.
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Serina Patterson commented:
Thanks for your feedback, Patrick. I've made a number of changes based on your suggestions and will be uploading a revision soon.
Cheers, Serina
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I like the fact that it is clean, it has enough white space so that it doesn't feel heavy.
On the home page I didn't get that the big picture is actually a featured articles slide, there is where you should play with some magazine design elements, take them from the print industry, for examples look at magazines covers but keep the clean look.
Notes Added to Images View
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would make the text where the indian is bigger other than that is pretty nice
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Serina,
You did a good job on this site. Its very clear to me what it is, and how to navigate it.
The one thing that i think could be edited is the sidebar headers. just add a little more padding on the top, bottom, and left.
I think you might want to make the navigation links a bit smaller. and add a little bit more padding between them, It might just be personal preference (almost all of my navigations are spaced out a lot) but i feel Its easier.
To me it seems like your audience is going to be people using modern browsers (since it apears to be a designy thing) So i would play with fonts and rounded corners.
I think for the header titles you could do something nice. Great commercially licenced fonts are available @ http://www.fontsquirrel.com
Also on the secondary pages, I would give the "Home >> Linguistics and Language" some padding on the top, or even better, Its own light grey bar.
I think this will be an interesting site and i would love to see it Live.
Btw, Looks like its going to be a wordpress site, do you know any good tutorials/websites where i can learn WP?
Thanks, AND, your welcome!
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Nick Benson commented:Hi Luke. For WP Tuts you can always try the first-stops;
http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons http://net.tutsplus.com/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/
Hope this helps.
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Serina Patterson commented:
Hi Luke,
Thanks for your feedback. I'm a little afraid to add another font into the mix - currently have Arial, Arial Caps, Georgia, Rockwell, Eurofurence Light, and Bebas (the last two will be added via @font-face), and already breaking the cardinal rule of "no more than three fonts" ;)
Maybe I can swap Arial Caps for Rockwell or Bebas in the sidebars - I'll definately play around with them anyway.
The site will indeed be coded in Wordpress. It was going to be built in Drupal initially (I'm more familiar with Drupal), but Wordpress seems like a better route for a multi-authored blogazine. Nick listed some great places to start. Here's two more:
- http://themeshaper.com/wordpress-themes-templates-tutorial/
- http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/02/19/so-you-want-to-create-wordpress-themes-huh/
Thanks again :)
Cheers, Serina
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Luke Marohn commented:Thanks to you both! I already knew about nettuts and smashingmag, but i didnt know WP had a section for it...
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Hi
Nice design. I like it.
Just a few points;
- Could just be me, but the header is a little large. Would love to see other images and how they blend in with the background.
- The pages looks a little long. Maybe add a "scroll -up' button at the bottom. Or some other nav./ call-to-action buttons.
Otherwise, looks clean. And works well if you fall under the "important-information-above-the-fold" camp.
Good luck.
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Serina Patterson commented:
Hi Nick,
Thanks for your suggestions! A "scroll up" link is a great idea and making the "featured" image smaller would bring the black banner above the fold too.
Cheers, Serina
As usual, great feedback Michael :)
I see what you mean about context, which is why I wrote out a description on the black banner. I'm thinking of making the 'featured" image a bit smaller, so the banner is included above the fold. It's still subtle, but is certainly more visible.
Thanks again!
Cheers, Serina