Would somebody with artistic skill look at my site design?

CodeGuy · Post by **CodeGuy** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 7:50 pm

As opposed to my level of artistic skill, I mean.

http://questofthesilly.keenspace.com/

I redesigned it a bit today. I'm not sure about the colors of the backgrounds and about how things work together in general. I'd appreciate some comments.

Thanks!

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 8:32 pm

I would say that it works well.

The only problem I see is that you need a between the links button and "Like my site?"

One question you should ask yourself: Does the left side menu justify having that much empty space on the left side of the comic? A person at 640x480 would have to scroll right every time to see your page, but that's nitpicking. You have a good 800x600 design.

CodeGuy · Post by **CodeGuy** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 8:59 pm

I've pulled my hair out over the sidebar because of space reasons.

I'm really only worried about 800x600. The screeen res stats for my site so far are:

1024x768 186 45.36%
1280x1024 86 20.97%
800x600 78 19.02%
Other 28 6.82%
1152x864 17 4.14%
1600x1200 15 3.65%

Maybe the "other" category is 640x480, but I doubt it. You'd think they could track that before 1152x864. So I don't think 640x480 really matters anymore. I think all new computers sold in the last several years defaulted to 800x600. My home computer with Win XP won't even go down to 640x480 in settings!

The nice thing about the sidebar is that it means less *vertical* scrolling. With the title to the left instead of above, people at 1280x1024 don't have to vertically scroll just to see the comic. It's not a huge thing, but it's kinda nice.

I'll put in that extra you suggested. I think I'll also move everything on the right away from the sidebar a little. They look like they're crowding it. I think I can spare at least 10 pixels in the 800x600 res.

CodeGuy · Post by **CodeGuy** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 2:54 am

OK, thanks for the help. I've made a few changes. For one, I've cut up the first comic in my archive into 9 seperate panels. It now fits into 800x600. Woo!

I've also added just a little space here and there and a couple more gold bars here and there. Overall, I think it looks a fair bit nicer and more consistent than the wooden sidebar that I had before.

Again, Thanks for the comments. If anyone has any more advice, I'm all ears.

DarkArtist · Post by **DarkArtist** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 5:34 am

Okay, one 100% artist only opinion coming up. Ignore at will.

That faux wood strip that runs not quite down the center of the page is the first, second and forth thing to catch my eye. I can't stop looking at it. I feel it is distracting and it makes the title and navigation bar side (The dark brick area) just a bit to wide. If that last little strip was not there I think the page devision would be pretty close to perfect.

I just can't get myself excited about the fake bricks either. They look just to fake, even more so when you mix them with the real stone texture that is on your title and link buttonns.

If you are wedded to the idea of using brick, I would try a realistic pattern such as this one....
http://www.grsites.net/modperl/tile.cgi ... 04&ext=jpg
and leave the back ground behind your comic either solid white or a pale gray.

If it was my comic however I would go with more of a steel look. They are in the future on space ships after all (Or an I way off?) I think this background
http://www.grsites.net/modperl/tile.cgi ... 03&ext=gif
would look wonderful under your title and navigation buttons. Again a solid texture free white or pale gray under the comic side.

My last thought is that i would like to see the "next comic, last comic, ect" buttons and your calender set up to be centered under the comic instead of off to hug the side of the dark brick area. I think it would be more eye pleaseing.

That is just my visual impressions and suggestions.

Taiwanimation · Post by **Taiwanimation** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 8:38 am

The bricks look really strange- isn't this comic set in space? Other than that, looks good.

CodeGuy · Post by **CodeGuy** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 10:23 am

DarkArtist wrote:That faux wood strip that runs not quite down the center of the page

Eh? I thought I removed most of the wood. Are you talking about the newsbox? Or did you write this before I removed All the extra wood?

DarkArtist wrote:I just can't get myself excited about the fake bricks either. They look just to fake, even more so when you mix them with the real stone texture that is on your title and link buttonns.

How about if I tried adding a bit of a stone texture to the bricks? If I do that, I'm gonna make them have way less contrast than the buttons. They shouldn't fight the foreground, of course.

As for the whole "Bricks in Space" thing, well, um, yeah. My main character isn't from space. So The site fits him better than it fits the setting or the rest of the crew. I'm still a little iffy on how well that works.

Maybe I need to dump that idea. Maybe I need to sell it more by hanging some swords and shields on the walls. Or maybe a sword hanging next to something very futuristic would get across the confusion of the maincharacter and make people wonder what's going on. I'll give it a little more time before making any major changes.

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 11:05 am

Oh, I see what's going on. The page works in IE because IE is handling the HTML in HTML 3 mode instead of XHTML mode. Mozilla is thinging "oh, XHTML." The page comes out a lot better looking on IE than Mozilla.

Code: Select all

            </br>

            <a href="http://questofthesilly.keenspace.com/"><img src="/images/comic_name.jpg" alt="Home" border=0></a>

            </br>
            </br>
            <img src="/images/border_line.png" height=5 width=100%>
            </br>
            </br>

            <a href="http://questofthesilly.proboards16.com/"><img src="/images/forums.jpg" alt="Forums" border=0></a>

            </br>
            </br>

            <a href="/links.html"><img src="/images/links.jpg" alt="Links" border=0></a>

            </br>
            </br>
            <img src="/images/border_line.png" height=5 width=100%>

            </br>
            </br>

            Like my comic?  Click here!
            </br>

should look more like this to work in Mozilla:

Code: Select all

<p><a href="http://questofthesilly.keenspace.com/"><img src="/images/comic_name.jpg" alt="Home" border=0></a></p>
<p><img src="/images/border_line.png" style="height:5px; width:100%;" alt="" /></p>
<p><a href="http://questofthesilly.proboards16.com/"><img src="/images/forums.jpg" alt="Forums" border=0></a></p>
<p><a href="/links.html"><img src="/images/links.jpg" alt="Links" border=0></a></p>
<p><img src="/images/border_line.png" style="height:5px; width:100%;" alt="" /></p>
<p>Like my comic?  Click here!<br />

Paragraph tags will do the separation you're getting with the more cleanly and it's more likely to work in all browsers. Of course I'm talking about the newer browsers here. Netscape 4 has no problems displaying your page because it's tables based. (It trashes my CSS based page.)

Also, some picky issues with the tags:
 is not valid. It should be for an empty XHTML tag.

<img src="/images/border_line.png" height=5 width=100%> should look like <img src="/image/border_line.png" height="5" width="100%" /> at the very least. Notice that all attributes must be quoted and that img is an empty tag so it should end in />.

CodeGuy · Post by **CodeGuy** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 11:30 am

On the the issue of putting numbers inside quotes, is this just a style thing, or will it actually break something?

Aren't you a programmer , Faub? That just cries out against all my C++ instincts.

KittyKatBlack · Post by **KittyKatBlack** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 7:05 pm

I think the site is a bit confusing as well, having a stone-brick/swords and shields look while the comic is based in space. I know the main character isn't from space, but when you first arrive at the site, you don't know anything about the story, so all you see is a bunch of ancent decorations and the a comic in the center about space ships. It kinda throws you for a loop. Maybe you can integrate your design, having a bit of both worlds added in for site design. Like maybe on your sidebar, have a metalic wall and buttons, looking spaceship like, but in an empty spot, have a sword hanging from a hook or have a sheild resting against the wall at the bottom. The realm itself is based in the future, so your backgrounds should reflect that in my opinion. Your main character is a forgien element to the space-like atmosphere, so the elements that reflect him should probably be less prominant. It would also give the feeling of being out-of-place, without looking 'wrong', which is what I figure you're trying to achieve with the culture clash in the comic. This is just my opinion though.
You might also make your first_comic, last_comic, etc buttons into swords/daggers pointing in the appropriate directions, just to add in a bit more relationship to the main character. Other than that though I think th elayout- position wise- looks good and flows well enough.

And HTML is hardly anything like C++, so you can't really go off your instincts for that.

CodeGuy · Post by **CodeGuy** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 7:34 pm

I really don't like it when sites get too fancy with the first/last buttons. Those are the most basic navigation, so I'd rather they be as clear as possible.

As for the bricks in space thing, this discussion has given me a few ideas that I want to play around with. It'll take a little while to get them all in, but I want to give them a try.

CodeGuy · Post by **CodeGuy** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 1:48 am

OK, well, you learn by doing. I stayed up late making the changes that I was thinking about, and they look pretty crappy. They look pretty much how I had imagined, it just doesn't look good.

I put in a couple of futuristic looking items. Instead of looking like a mixture, it looks like a confused mess. Oh well. I'm gonna leave it like this for a couple days. Maybe I'll think of something that'll make it work.

KittyKatBlack · Post by **KittyKatBlack** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 10:00 am

It takes time. I revamped my site not too long ago as well. Sometimes it's hard to think about destroying all the work you've done and starting over from scratch, but believe me from experiance (I've done this with quite a few things, not just my keenspace site) that the result is often definately worth it. I even do it in drawing. I've drawn hands or parts of my characters that came out EXACTLY the way I wanted but found out later that they wouldn't mesh with the rest of the character because the position was awkward. It pained me so much to erase all the work I put into getting it just right, but the over-all result is always better than if I would have left that one piece. How much you want to do, and what you want to do is up to you, all I'm saying is don't be scared to just tear it all down and start over if you get stuck with a problem you just can't seem to fix otherwise. I'm not sure what look your going for, so I don't know how close you are to your vision, but sometimes you just have to step back and say, "Is this really going to work like I planned or shoul I re-think this?". IMO it often turns out much better the second (Or even third/fourth in some cases.) around. Ultimately, it's up to you. Just some friendly advice.

Taiwanimation · Post by **Taiwanimation** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 10:28 am

A couple more comments...

The text on the page of the site can be reduced in size, it shouldn't be that much larger than the actual text in the comic.

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:05 pm

CodeGuy wrote:On the the issue of putting numbers inside quotes, is this just a style thing, or will it actually break something?

Aren't you a programmer , Faub? That just cries out against all my C++ instincts.

Think of all attributes as strings. XHTML is mostly style based so you get to add the units to your values. For example, width:100%; is much different than width:100px; or font-size:100pt;

Check out this. It's got a lot of useful information.
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/
especially this section.
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#diffs

CodeGuy · Post by **CodeGuy** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:23 pm

So you're saying it won't actually break anything?