So I just spoke with the designer...

[Dave]

So I just spoke with a designer who is going to be giving me a price quote on a redesign on Halforums. The redesign mostly based on Olorin's color palettes. But he asked what type of sites we would like us to look like. Not copy, but look like.

Find a site and paste the link here!

 

[Dave]

No website suggestions, you should do what you feel is best.

Though it would seem obvious you should go with a clean (but not business-y) look. Bright background instead of black, nothing too experimental ("where the hell is my forum link hiding at! Wait.. it's this .. round blue blob on the bottom right? wtf?"), yada yada.

One question..

Flash? Y/N

Probably not.

 

[Alucard]

What's wrong with how it is? I prefer the current design except for all the silly sub categories.

 

[Twitch]

The main page, not the forum.

 

[SpecialKO]

Bright background instead of black

This right here. Bright text on dark backgrounds is fine for carefully designed advertising displays, but it's painful to actually read.

 

[Ross]

Bright background instead of black

This right here. Bright text on dark backgrounds is fine for carefully designed advertising displays, but it's painful to actually read.

This.

 

[Espy]

Clean and simple. Not a billion links. Look at how Apple (yes, yes, one button mouse, etc, etc) has their homepage:http://www.apple.com/
Clean and sleek. That's what we need.

 

[AshburnerX]

NO FLASH. We don't need flash... fuck, 9 out of 10 websites that USE flash don't need flash.

 

[Alucard]

I liked the design with the moon and that blueish background and the easy to get forum section instead of this now. Navigating here is too tedious and well boring.

Plus what happened to my post count?! It was higher before this restructering

 

[Shegokigo]

Post counts are gone, but Dave hasn't figured out how to remove them.

 

[Andromache]

http://www.checklandkindleysides.com/

inspiration only, natch.

 

[Alucard]

Khannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

 

[JCM]

NO FLASH. We don't need flash... fuck, 9 out of 10 websites that USE flash don't need flash.

THIS.

 

[Andromache]

http://www.apple.com/

ok, now I'm just being silly/pro furry

 

[Kitty Sinatra]

Look at how Apple (yes, yes, one button mouse, etc, etc) has their homepage:http://www.apple.com/

What's funny here is that I'm the one always doing the one button mouse gag yet in the previous thread Dave made on this topic, I put in a vote for using Apple's site as inspiration.

Yes, I vote for the one button mouse. Less complicated that way.

 

[JCM]

Look at how Apple (yes, yes, one button mouse, etc, etc) has their homepage:http://www.apple.com/

What's funny here is that I'm the one always doing the one button mouse gag yet in the previous thread Dave made on this topic, I put in a vote for using Apple's site as inspiration.

Yes, I vote for the one button mouse. Less complicated that way.[/QUOTE]Guess thats another vote from me.

For using the site as inspiration, that is, not the %$^# mouse I had to endure during my years as a Mac user.

 

[phil]

Like I said in the last one I think it should be, layout wise, like a webcomic.

Personally I really enjoy the layouts of LICD and Ugly Hill.

Our banner would go over the top, in place their banner ads. Under that we have our big feature, maybe it's today's Theater Hopper, or a new Juski sketch or CG on the ukulele.

Under that are some of the new topics in the forum or maybe even the hot ones.

On the side, I like how LICD has links to social network stuff. I think we should do similar. Links to the twitter, a facebook group or a myspace page. Under that we would have links to the webcomics we've gathered into the hub or some of our own sites like Zen's blog or Gasbandit's site and stuff.

Under all of that we could have just miscilanious links. Maybe the new arcade game, a link to the conquest system, the WoW guild site or even just links to specific forums like strait into the Games forum.

 

[Covar]

Like I said in the last one I think it should be, layout wise, like a webcomic.

Personally I really enjoy the layouts of LICD and Ugly Hill.

Our banner would go over the top, in place their banner ads. Under that we have our big feature, maybe it's today's Theater Hopper, or a new Juski sketch or CG on the ukulele.

Under that are some of the new topics in the forum or maybe even the hot ones.

On the side, I like how LICD has links to social network stuff. I think we should do similar. Links to the twitter, a facebook group or a myspace page. Under that we would have links to the webcomics we've gathered into the hub or some of our own sites like Zen's blog or Gasbandit's site and stuff.

Under all of that we could have just miscilanious links. Maybe the new arcade game, a link to the conquest system, the WoW guild site or even just links to specific forums like strait into the Games forum.

This.

 

[Ross]

Like I said in the last one I think it should be, layout wise, like a webcomic.

Personally I really enjoy the layouts of LICD and Ugly Hill.

Our banner would go over the top, in place their banner ads. Under that we have our big feature, maybe it's today's Theater Hopper, or a new Juski sketch or CG on the ukulele.

Under that are some of the new topics in the forum or maybe even the hot ones.

On the side, I like how LICD has links to social network stuff. I think we should do similar. Links to the twitter, a facebook group or a myspace page. Under that we would have links to the webcomics we've gathered into the hub or some of our own sites like Zen's blog or Gasbandit's site and stuff.

Under all of that we could have just miscilanious links. Maybe the new arcade game, a link to the conquest system, the WoW guild site or even just links to specific forums like strait into the Games forum.

This.[/QUOTE]
Phil gets +1 internet.

 

[North_Ranger]

Like I said in the last one I think it should be, layout wise, like a webcomic.

Personally I really enjoy the layouts of LICD and Ugly Hill.

Our banner would go over the top, in place their banner ads. Under that we have our big feature, maybe it's today's Theater Hopper, or a new Juski sketch or CG on the ukulele.

Under that are some of the new topics in the forum or maybe even the hot ones.

On the side, I like how LICD has links to social network stuff. I think we should do similar. Links to the twitter, a facebook group or a myspace page. Under that we would have links to the webcomics we've gathered into the hub or some of our own sites like Zen's blog or Gasbandit's site and stuff.

Under all of that we could have just miscilanious links. Maybe the new arcade game, a link to the conquest system, the WoW guild site or even just links to specific forums like strait into the Games forum.

This.[/QUOTE]

Seconded. Also, phil gets "One Free Beer in Finland" ticket from me.

 

[Dave]

Here's what I sent to the designer. Some of it will sound very familiar to Phil...

I looked around and found a few sites that were kind of like what I wanted and came up with some "samples".

www.apple.com
- Very simple. Each tab would have something different and we could add/subtract tabs/links as needed.

http://leasticoulddo.com/
- Without the comic, of course. Our banner would go over the top, in place their banner ads. Under that we have our big feature. Under that are some of the new topics in the forum or maybe even the hot ones. On the side, I like how LICD has links to social network stuff. I think we should do similar. Links to the twitter, a facebook group or a myspace page. Under that we would have links to the webcomics we've gathered into the hub or some of our own sites.

http://uglyhill.com/
- Again without the comic.


As you can see, we don't want to have a lot of clutter. Simple navigation to the forum and information about what they expect if they partner with us.

 

[fade]

No website suggestions, you should do what you feel is best.

Though it would seem obvious you should go with a clean (but not business-y) look. Bright background instead of black, nothing too experimental (\"where the hell is my forum link hiding at! Wait.. it's this .. round blue blob on the bottom right? wtf?\"), yada yada.

One question..

Flash? Y/N

NO FLASH. I hate flash sites with a passion. I can safely say that most people would echo that sentiment.

If you guys want/need help, I used to be a webdesigner in college (yeah, that long ago) professionally, and I still do it on the side. I'm proficient in PHP, MySQL, HTML, and CSS. YOu can see sites I've done at http://www.lafayetteswimteam.com (wordpress based, if you're still going that way) http://www.swlgs.org (also wordpress), http://www.fadecomic.com (which has a lot of homebrew php and javascript software on it) http://egg.louisiana.edu (see http://egg.louisiana.edu/wiki for an example of a mediawiki style I rolled).

Also, I agree with AME on the whole dark on light thing. Light on dark smells like 1998.

 

[Dave]

Fade that's GREAT! Why didn't you speak up before? I'd rather pay someone from here than an outside contractor that I think is going to price us through the roof.

 

[Andromache]

Can we have loud flash music that you cant turn off and seizure unducing graphics? Please? The internet needs more of that!

 

[AshburnerX]

 

[phil]

Like I said in the last one I think it should be, layout wise, like a webcomic.

Personally I really enjoy the layouts of LICD and Ugly Hill.

Our banner would go over the top, in place their banner ads. Under that we have our big feature, maybe it's today's Theater Hopper, or a new Juski sketch or CG on the ukulele.

Under that are some of the new topics in the forum or maybe even the hot ones.

On the side, I like how LICD has links to social network stuff. I think we should do similar. Links to the twitter, a facebook group or a myspace page. Under that we would have links to the webcomics we've gathered into the hub or some of our own sites like Zen's blog or Gasbandit's site and stuff.

Under all of that we could have just miscilanious links. Maybe the new arcade game, a link to the conquest system, the WoW guild site or even just links to specific forums like strait into the Games forum.

This.[/quote]

Seconded. Also, phil gets "One Free Beer in Finland" ticket from me.[/QUOTE]


Feel free to mail me a hoegaarden. It's a bitch and a half to find one over here.

also @crone Only if the music is amazingly annoying and starts at such a volume as to scare people using headphones shitless.

 

[AshburnerX]

Why isn't this animated??[/QUOTE]

Heart-attacks. All of them.

 

[fade]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're not actually saying that salty weird European licorice is somehow better than the (extremely disgusting) black licorice we have here are you? If I wanted salty candy, I'd eat ... well nothing.

 

[Vytamindi]

I like that fake liquorice.

You know, Twizzlers?

 

[phil]

what? :lolwut:

 

[fade]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're not actually saying that salty weird European licorice is somehow better than the (extremely disgusting) black licorice we have here are you? If I wanted salty candy, I'd eat ... well nothing.

As I've explained to Aba in IRC, we have tons of it here. Penis shaped, car shaped, cat shaped, salty/sweet, 100's of kinds of black licorice: http://bit.ly/pFfDD

And yes, the penis shaped ones are sold in any candy store and kids love putting them in their mouths. They're actually quite tasty.

Personally I'm not a fan of the salty kind but to say ALL licorice is salty is wrong.[/QUOTE]

I didn't say that. I said it was all gross, but the salty kind was even grosser.

 

[Olorin]

Just throwing this in here

Perhaps a bit too much durr going on, and pretty simplistic, but at least there aren't any gay asians around this time

 

[phil]

Just throwing this in here

Perhaps a bit too much durr going on, and pretty simplistic, but at least there aren't any gay asians around this time

I really like that. The only big thing I would change is to put our logo in place of the empire craft ad. I think we need to advertise ourselves more at this point.

Little things I might change would be instead of being on all the buttons, maybe change it up for them. is a good forum one, but we could use others for the other links, like if one goes strait to the arcade or one goes to your personal user page.

Those news boxes would be great places for our current events stuff. Site news (Dave dies of swine flu! Zenmonkey goes mad with new found power and responsibilities!) and current artist pimping


Last nitpick though, needs more gay Asian men.

 

[Olorin]

I completely agree that mixing up the buttons a bit would be a good idea. Maybe I (or someone else) could come up with some smileys that are similar to but different.
And maybe the banner could be changed to a skyscraper one on the right side instead of at the top.

 

[Vytamindi]