The Offical KeenSpace Front Redesign Contest!

Fi13r · Post by **Fi13r** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 7:40 pm

Kisai wrote:Um... Anyone ELSE going to give the www page a shot

Yes.

If you do pick up RPin's right off, though, it still needs a few little tweaks. But not much.

TATMAN · Post by **TATMAN** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 1:02 pm

I will email you my entry for this competition right now. Hope you like it.

Post by **Kisai** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 11:23 pm

*hasnt' recieved any emails*

RPin · Post by **RPin** » Tue Feb 24, 2004 3:32 am

Maybe he e-mailed Kelly...?

Post by **Kisai** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:02 pm

Well, we have exactly one site that anyone has said anything good about, and nobody else submitted anything else.

Going once...

Going twice...

Last chance.

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 10:32 pm

For love?

Fi13r · Post by **Fi13r** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 10:19 pm

Well, it looks like RPin was right. It's tougher to adapt the design from the 'spot front page into something that works for Keenspace than it looks. I probably would've realized this sooner if I'd looked at all the other pages on Keenspot before I'd gone ahead trying to put this together... Even though the front page looks very professional and sharp, all the others, with the exception of the "Services" page (which also looks quite finished and nice), er... don't, really. This might have clued me in if I'd checked them out sooner.

Anyway, here is a .GIF of how far I got before I figured out that I was coming up on a brick wall. I haven't bothered to HTML-ize it, not for lack of ability (as I hope is evidenced by my comic's site), but because, honestly, I don't see the point. In this stage already, it has too many problems. For example, I overestimated the number of different sorting methods available on Guide, so the mini-guide thing I was talking about doesn't fill up near as much space as it needs to and looks sloppy (of course, that could be solved by using large-style titles followed by smaller subentries more similar to what they have on the 'spot front page, except that would require an additional level of heading-styles for each of the sections on the page that I can't produce at this time because I don't have that font they used), there isn't enough space for news and the newsbox to be arranged in relation to each other like they should while at the same time not looking cramped, the logo superimposition didn't work out in Photoshop as well as it seemed to on paper, I need some other logo and some other, more extended text for linking to the Guide, etc. ... The issues are far too many and quite clear.

Plus, now that I've got it all down in a form that I feel is fairly indicative of what it would look like finished, I just don't like it. I liked the new 'spot front page because it reminded me of a spread from a magazine, or something, in a way. I think that's its biggest design strength. This simply doesn't have that quality like I thought it would.

Finally, RPin has a more creative and better start to begin with, which probably comes as no surprise to anyone, and while his still has a few kinks (I still don't think you've adequately integrated that green area with the rest of the design...), there are less than I was quickly starting to run into. I think I already pointed this out, but I prefer RPin's second mock-up to his first, by the way... it just seems to suit the point of the site as a database better.

The only reason I posted this is because I didn't want it to look like I was giving up out of laziness or that I didn't even try. It just took finding the time to actually finish a mock-up (which is tough when one is juggling 2 comic strips and in the middle of college mid-terms) before I could see if it would work or not. It doesn't, so that's pretty much it and I may as well drop out, though I hope you guys won't mind and will continue to consider input from me if I have anything new to say about whichever design you do end up choosing (RPin, since you're pretty much a shoe-in, you wouldn't be annoyed if I discussed it with you via private chat or on the Keenspace IRC channel, would you?).

Kisai, I apologize if you feel like I've wasted a lot of your time by creating unnecessary delays. I'd offer to draw some artwork for you like your sig says as penance, except given the dependability I've demonstrated, that probably wouldn't seem like much of an offer coming from me.

Post by **Kisai** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 1:44 am

Don't feel like you've wasted your time. It's a fair bit more complex, and RPin was the only one to submit a functional design. It'll probably not resemble exactly what RPin designed, as I've recieved a few complaints about the design (looks too 70's was one of them) before I even attempted to adapt it, but that's only a few.

I'm not particularly fond of the KeenSPOT design either, but the problem is that I can only use a design that I can integrate correctly, and the KeenSPOT design is a fixed system, where as KeenSPACE requires a dynamic design. I may or may not attempt to php'ize it depending on how much system resources go into generating it.

Before I optimized guide, it took well over an hour. Now it generates like in 2 minutes, but the PL % is not updated untill the site updates or a full run is done, so the accuracy is off. Again because I originally had it regenerate everything for everypage which was just plain silly. I could generate it all once per run, but it's the actual generation of 5000 (was 13000) cache entries.

Applying anything from guide to the front page is going to be a challange.

Fi13r · Post by **Fi13r** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 2:07 am

Taiwanimation wrote:Keenspace ought to have a Google-style design: Just one big ol' SEARCH button.

You know what... looking back through the thread... this is actually a really, really good idea.

I think Taiwanimation might be on to something. If combining Guide and WWW into a single site proves difficult, maybe you guys could do something like this instead?

RPin · Post by **RPin** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 5:34 am

fi13r wrote:(RPin, since you're pretty much a shoe-in, you wouldn't be annoyed if I discussed it with you via private chat or on the Keenspace IRC channel, would you?).

I'm at #keen on Esper.net right now, if you want to talk. I'll be here pretty much all day.

Zhypoh · Post by **Zhypoh** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 3:25 pm

I just found out about this contest last night, and started working on a submission.

But now I'm wondering if I complete the design, is it even going to be considered? RPin seemed to be the only submission, and there was no formal deadline.

The page needs another 6 hours or so of work before it will be in a submittable state; so it would be viewable tonight, or early tomorrow. Is this a short enough time span to still be considered?

Post by **Kisai** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 9:58 pm

Everything is considered... I'm just getting anxious because there has been no good WWW page for a month... and would rather have had something up within three days instead of waiting for designs.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:49 am

Keep in mind that while Kisai's waiting for submisions, safe page is on http://www.kwwnspace.com and it's not very helping for keenspace.

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:49 am

Kisai wrote:Don't feel like you've wasted your time. It's a fair bit more complex, and RPin was the only one to submit a functional design. It'll probably not resemble exactly what RPin designed, as I've recieved a few complaints about the design (looks too 70's was one of them) before I even attempted to adapt it, but that's only a few.

70s?!? You whipper-snappers. Red, black, and white are early 80s colours (before the pastel crazy of the Miami Vice era of the mid 80s). 70s colours would have been more earth tones. Golds, yellows, oranges, browns and blacks.

RPin's design is more DEVO than Frampton.

RPin · Post by **RPin** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:53 am

I was talking about this with filer the other day, and I have NO IDEA why people think my design is derivative from 70's or 80's.

For one, I'm born in 82, and I' brazilian, so I might as well not share the same references you guys do.

If it DOES look 70's, that was most certainly not what I was looking for, as I don't even know what that is.

Zhypoh · Post by **Zhypoh** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 4:27 pm

OK, well here's my submission:

http://www.zhypoh.net/~zhypoh/keenspace/

It's XHTML strict, and the layout if fully CSS. I've checked and verified that works on IE6, Mozilla and Safari. Haven't had a chance to check with Opera yet, but it should work fine.

The page should scale well from 800x600 all the way up to whatever resolution you have your screen set too; though there isn't that much content on the demo page, so if you are running at a high-res it may look kind of

Fi13r · Post by **Fi13r** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 6:53 pm

[quote="zhypoh"]OK, well here's my submission:

http://www.zhypoh.net/~zhypoh/keenspace/

It's XHTML strict, and the layout if fully CSS. I've checked and verified that works on IE6, Mozilla and Safari. Haven't had a chance to check with Opera yet, but it should work fine.

The page should scale well from 800x600 all the way up to whatever resolution you have your screen set too; though there isn't that much content on the demo page, so if you are running at a high-res it may look kind of

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 8:50 pm

zhypoh: I like your Keenspace logo better than the official one. Very nicely done!

It should allow for more usable space below newsbox, though. On a screen larger than 800x600 it's got a lot of blank space.

Phalanx · Post by **Phalanx** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 4:39 am

Whoa! Damn! zypoh's design is really good too! But so is Pin's...

How do we decide?!

Post by **STrRedWolf** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 7:18 am

Damn. Now we have two contenders! RPin and fi13r. CHRIS!!!!

Comic Genesis Forums

The Offical KeenSpace Front Redesign Contest!

KEENSPACE PICTURE

Bleh.

Re: Bleh.

Is the contest offically over?