WE NEED GRAPHIC LAYOUT CONCEPTS

[Jason Manley]

Do you have some ideas on what a cool news page could look like on this site? We hope so. We need your help to get the site updated and are hoping to get some good ideas on layout and design. (we are keeping the current colors and logos for the time being).


Here are some ideas for the newspage design. We have some people to help with the programming...but we need someone to help with a layout.

any help would be greatly appreciated by everyone on the site.

.................................................. ..........................

we want these sections on the news page (in order of importance)

1 daily news
2andrew jones self portrait of the day
3latest thread topics..
4 employment opportunities
4.5 Featured Artists
5 contests and thunderdome
6 tutorials
7 the images of conceptart.org (will have a gallery page of forum images that this area will link to)
8 the best of the forums
9 favorite links section
10 links to the forums, the main page (probably on the top of the page somewhere)
11 affilliates and sponsors
12 whos online

take a look at www.cgchannel.com and www.gfxartist.com to see how they do their news page. we want a layout that looks good but is also easy and clean. that is why i like how gfxartist looks..its very easy to find stuff.

we want thumbnail images next to each section above...that way the coders/programmers can know where to put the links and will know how many we need. this site is about the art and we want to show it off...not just the text.


if the amount of info starts to look busy we could do something more like this (BUT WITH THUMBNAILS TO ILLUSTRATE THE NEWS TOPICs) http://www.bioware.com/

perhaps you have some ideas on how it can look...Im really hoping this is the case.

please feel free to ask me any questions you like.


j

we just need a quick layout...it doesnt have to be perfect...it just needs to be rough so the programmers can get started.

[amphex]

Id love to help out, but I dont have access to Photoshop anymore =\
Maybe if I can find a way Ill try to give a rough design =).

[Coma]

Ooo

I may give this a shot.

So what if I made some html templates
then your programmers could turn them to php-perl or whatever you plan on running?

[Jason Manley]

that is exactly what i am thinking of...

we need a concept to approve and then we can build a final html layout template


amphex..surely one of your pals has photoshop.


come on peeps...help us all out and contribute to something we can all be proud of.

the programmers are going to make it all work...and its going to be great!

jason

[Jens]

I got a lot of experience with building site layouts (especially ergonomic (??) ones, you know, great usuability pleasant on the eye but don't overdo the eye candy). Especially html, css, ssi stuff.

But unfortunatly I'm busy with a big project (www.schoolrock.be), doing site, affiche, flyers etc.

Still I would love to help out with giving pointers and such to people who are making a design. And who knows if I find the time I might try something.

So, here is my email.
jens_claessens@hotmail.com

[Travis_Bourbeau]

working on geting you some help here in a day or two from the guys that did cg channel and cg talks !


id like to see something simple like this with grey while boring it doesnt take away from pics



http://forum.bhodinut.com/

[Jason Manley]

lets use the same color scheme as the rest of conceptart.org for now...or at least tie it in....we may do a full redesign at some point...but for now this is working and will suffice.

j

[Travis_Bourbeau]

OOps sorry i thought you meant a whole new design i like the current one the way it is i thought youwere going to change it sorry about that ;)

[Jason Manley]

Id like to do a total redesign on the site...but i think its proving to be something that will take a considerable amount of effort.

Im thinking that we could just get all the features added and then throw a new skin on it...so to speak.


what do you think?

THANKS FOR THE INPUT AND HELP GUYS!!!


j

[Coma]

Fitting all that in to the current design is really hard.
I've been messing with it, but it looks horrid so far.

Don't let my posts discourage others from making templates, I really don't think much of my self when It comes to clean html.

I think it may be easier for us to come up with a whole new layout (not colors, logo or anything.)
If this is to be done we will need at least the names of the fonts that where used to make the banners and images.

[Jason Manley]

THINK SIMPLE....it is not something that has to be pretty.

I will find out what the fonts are...my machine died and I have to go find them again...yikes.

use the exhisting colors...copy paste a screencapture of the logo and pics on the front page....the forums doesnt have the thumbnails as part of the logo..but it should.

I will put some stuff together and paste it up here for everyone to toy with.

thanks for helping...I will try to get you everything you need.

dont sweat it...k? simple simple...


jason

[Jens]

Mmmh let's see, the list you posted above

do you mean something like this

eg.

Tutorials
-link
-link
-link

Adrew SPOTD
-link
-link
-link

??

[Jason Manley]

perhaps this would be less busy on the front page if we have more than two or three tutorials

TUTORIALS
1 link
2 link
3 (more)...goes to list of links


or just

TUTORIALS
1 Latest tutorial link
2(more)

Im not sure how else to do it other than just have a cool looking tutorials button with a description of what tutorials are (need help with your art..check out these amazing tutorials!)...that kind of thing.



the latter might be the best...if we do a new tutorial we can have it as part of the daily news section


jason

[Jens]

..

[Jens]

And this is one of the possibilities

http://pluto.imagemagician.com/images/jens/conceptart2.jpg


Am I heading in the right direction?

[Coma]

I think you are... Is that in html? We should try and keep images down to a minimum.

[I.was.ink]

That would look great jens. I especially like the pics!!!:)

[gekitsu]

concerning sections like tutorials etc... i thought about a section that is like:

TUTORIALS
(thumbnail) latest tut with link
-second recent (only text links)
-third recent
-fourth recent
-link to tutorial archive place with all tuts.

same with andrew's spods and the like. obviously, "most recent forum threads" can be text only.


another question: what miimum resolution can we shoot for?
sure, not everyone uses 1600x1200 (what did make things a lot easier ;)) but we have a target group of peopl einterested in art, gfx and that... so probably invested a bit time or money in their display setup. i think 1024x768 at least should be taken as minimal resolution

[Jason Manley]

that is EXACLTY the kind of thing I was thinking...holy crap that looks great!


:)

cant wait to see the next version.


jason


PS...the images that run across the top...it would be cool if we had a scroll bar that let you scroll across to lots of different images....just something to think about....since we will have a lot of artists on the main page.

j

[Jens]

Ok here is the the newest version, a little try about how the links could be implemented. I'm thinking about adding a new column on the left in the darkest color to add some more stuff.

At this time I chose a mix of Jason's idea and gekitsu's. Working with a thumbnail directly followed by the "more" button. Of course this can always change, I'm just trying to suggest some things.

http://pluto.imagemagician.com/images/jens/conceptart.jpg

(press refresh if you still see the version i edited out, i gave it the same file name so it could be in your temp files)

[Pontemonti]

Looking good so far, Jens! Keep it up :)

I just wanted to comment on the resolution thingy...I think we should aim for 800x600 minimum...some people like everything really big, and some are just stupid ;)
Oh, and sometimes you may want to access the site from a crappy laptop (maybe it's monitor doesn't support more than 800x600) or some kind of public computer...
With the right technique it's easy to do something which works pretty well on 800x600...and then just make it auto-adjust so that it uses as much as possible of the window...

[davi]

NEEDS MORE BANNERS!
BANNERS!! BANNERS!!!!

and by banners... i mean bruce.

[Cannibal80]

Ah! Smooth design there! I like it!

What Pontemonti is saying is true... so should the focus be the look/feel of the site or the usability? (I HATE that word!!!) They are two very different goals. Usually you get the look/feel right first, and then you focus on layout, subjects (we call it 'chapters', and by 'we' I mean the company I work for), and image-heaviness. You kinda just filter the look/feel through the usablity critique, and viola! A site is born.

...


I'm still gonna make a design myself damnit! Just need to find the time... :(

[Oblio]

i feel so retarded that i cant help and so gratefull that Jens is along.
So.. just wanted to say thank you Jens. I'm in no condition to think now - i'm completly overwhemed by other work i hardly reach my home - did i mention i don't sleep?
Everyone - ohh, aaahhh.

brain.burned.oblio

[Pontemonti]

Originally posted by Oblio
i'm completly overwhemed by other work i hardly reach my home - did i mention i don't sleep?

So what the hell are you doing here then? :p :rolleyes: :D
hahahahaha

[franz]

Aaaah, so this is where you've been hiding.. I should check the lounge more often and not hang out in the back the whole time. :( If you don't mind I'll contribute something too.. More ideas won't hurt I guess

[davi]

I need/request that the top of conceptart.org has something simliar to the planet___.com game pages.
IE: http://www.planetmedalofhonor.com/

When you resize the page horizontally the large banner at the top moves seemlessly with the page.
We using precents in the tables the page layout could be set for 800x600 but could be resized for all users.

[Jens]

Yea, that was my idea also, and it's usually my approach for making those user friendly sites.

You put those little corners in separate collumns of you table and use percentages instead of fixed pixel sizes.

Btw what did you mean by

Originally posted by davi
NEEDS MORE BANNERS!
BANNERS!! BANNERS!!!!

and by banners... i mean bruce.

[Cannibal80]

:hh:

HULK SMASH!

:bash:

[Jens]

ooow http://209.126.148.88/forums/images/smilies/boxing_smiley.gif punch me :p

[gekitsu]

jens, awesome work so far (to bring the topic back to webdesign issues).
the only thing i doubt is that all the thingies jason mentioned uin the first post will fit in this layout.

i love your approach because it's simple & intuitive. easy to use like gfxartist.
everything i sketched so far that had a place for everything that is planned to be on the page ended up cluttered. you either had to scroll miles to reach what you want or had to click a lot of times to get to the same point.

the latter being absolutely inacceptable, imho. cgchannel suffers from that a lot, although offering great content.

things that pop up in my mind when i see your layout is: lots of space for the logo - maybe too much? i don't think we are in the position yet to waste space. maybe we chould incororate some useful things in the area close to the logo. like login/logout and the who's on-list.
also, i am a bit sceptical about the rounded edges.
don't they eat up a lot space that can't be used for text (=info - what the site concept is about)?

[franz]

Ok, I gave it a shot, one big image:

http://www.fahrschule-thues.de/static/cptart_target8x6_v11.html

Beware, it's rather big (in filesize, PNG24). And keep in mind that this is what the page would look like when viewed by a visitor who has his screen set to 800x600 (you can somewhat emulate this if you scale your browser window accordingly.. to a width of ~800px). At higher resolutions the page would be wider.

I kept the current logo (but not the blue color, sorry :) ) as well as the general color scheme of the site, like you asked.. I'm not terribly fond of the logo though, I can't stand Impact. :(

Time for bed, more tomorrow.. :dead:

[brokencow]

the new website looks good but that logo has to go.
It's so ugly.

i drew out two in photoshop real quick, i can sketch more out if you want?
http://www.brokencow.net/logo1.gif
http://www.brokencow.net/logo2.gif

just some ruff ideas, i don't know what your looking for or if you even want a new logo. But in my opinion, that logo is trash. One design rule is never use more then 2 fonts on a design, you got 3 there. You can use to, but only if they are simualr or match well.

Lemme know.

[Jens]

Put my new version up the way franz did.

http://www.schoolrock.be/temp/concept/

Ok let's make a rundown of that list iwasink commented about.



1.daily news
2.andrew jones spotd
3. thread topics --will come below spotd--
4. employment stuff -- not yet --
4.5 featured artists
5. contests

-- mayby bigger (graphical) button for thunderdome contest, as it is pretty important to draw attention--

6. tutorials

--same comment as above--

7. ??

I'm a bit confused, are these the ones that are now on the main page? And are the 5 featured artists chosen ever ..say month from everyone of the forum??

8. best of the forums --not yet--

9. favorite links --just called it "links"--

10. links to the forums

11. affiliates --not yet--

--sponsers?? So that would mean banner probably, i gess above the news items would be a spot for them--

12. who's online --not yet--



Pretty incomplete I know. But look at the dark vertical bar to the right of the page. I think Some stuff could be added there.

Ow and iwasink I would worry too much about rounded corners. Those corners are 6x6 pixels big, so take up no space at all (implemented the right way) and are about 80 bytes big. PLus you only have to load 4 corners of 1 type so I don't even think you would have 1 kbyte with all corners together.


Franz, good job on the design. I'm not a big fan of gradients though.

[franz]

Originally posted by Jens
Pretty incomplete I know. But look at the dark vertical bar to the right of the page. I think Some stuff could be added there.


But including that space we'd be at 906px already.. We should aim for a width of 780px, that's approximately the effective space available in the browser window at a resolution of 800x600, remember that the vertical scrollbar eats up space as well.

Franz, good job on the design. I'm not a big fan of gradients though.

Well.. The way I see it is with things like these it's not a question of fandom but of whether it works within a specific context.. Form follows function, and every element should have a purpose. Take for example rounded corners, although they went somewhat out of fashion over the last years there's no reason to right out abandon them if you feel they're necessary to transport the message.. actually they can still be cool when applied subtly.

By the way, I think it's great to see that so many people are helping out.. The new site is going to be great! :chug:

[franz]

Originally posted by brokencow
the new website looks good but that logo has to go. It's so ugly.

I agree, in its current form it's not exactly pleasant to look at.. with the 3 typefaces, the photoshop bevel and all..

i drew out two in photoshop real quick

Hmmm, something bothers me about these, I dunno.. but it's probably that - to me - they look too busy. Imagine one of those on the main page, it would take the focus away from the content.. And I'm not so sure if they fit the theme - to me,
conceptart.org puts more emphasis on the 'traditional' values of art than most other communities do - well, that's my impression anyway - and this hitech look doesn't represent that.

Then again I might be totally wrong and just blabbing. :) We need the founding fathers on this thread.. Where's Jason when you need him?

[Jason Manley]

First off...thanks for the logo design randall. Im in agreement with you. Id like to see some others so we can choose which looks best. some color versions would be nice as well. Your logo is much better than the current one. Its very tech looking...which i like.

what might be some things we could do with a logo that not only looks cool but also says what this site is about? (ideas..drawing..painting...worlds...ya know)


as far as the design...here is another from elemental. http://67.17.166.57/att/632/69025200332446PM/ConceptartNews.jpg

I think that the image above and the image of franz looks very very user friendly. I like that. I do think that they are closer to cgchannel and gfx than Id like to shoot for. Im liking the rounded qualities in JENZ right now....out of fashion or not...it looks different from the others and has the mainpage images as the primary focus. I really like the latter part. This site is about the art after all.

** the main page artists along the top...we can make a scroll bar that scrolls across the different thumbs that can lead to the current gallery sections or even new updated gallery sections.


the main page artists will be called FEATURED ARTISTS....the other artists we bring on will be called GUEST ARTISTS...we can show new artists every month from the forums. That would be great.

if you have any quesitons...lets hear them.

Im going to post an announcement to see if we can get a bunch of logo ideas together. Randall, yours is very close...at the moment it looks like a great logo for Feng's or Spinefingers section of the site. It is very machine like. I think that the site has just as much machine as it does organic. I wonder how that can be communicated.

Either way I cant thank you all enough...THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!....for helping out on this. We all appreciate it. You are inspiring me. well done.



jason

[I.was.ink]

i also like the roundness of jens', but like the user friendlyness about franz'

Awww:mad: so many different possiblities. I like em all!

[brokencow]

yup, i'll sketch out a few more. that's just one idea i had to get out real fast and post as an example. I'll come up with at least 6 different logos. Nit pick them apart.

can't wait to see this place made anew!

[gekitsu]

as for elemental's design, it showcases exactly the problems i have with it:
"place everything on it and it will look too crowded".

i like more the more structured attempts of jens (having imho the nicer eyecandy) and franz (good grasp of simplicity - but a bit too close to gfxartist for my eyes).

damn... there are painters here who know more about composition than any average webdesigner... we should be able to pull off _the_ killer newspage.

as for featured artists:
what would you think about having a horizontal bar somewhere, maybe 50 or 45 px high, showing a small thumbnail and the artist's name under it.
the bar will show as much artists as fit on it and carry a link to a featured artists page that would look more like the conceptart.org start page we have now.
which artists are shown should be randomly generated by some php. if there is a new artist featured, it'll be a large news post anyway.

[Jason Manley]

any updates?

[brokencow]

I gotta a test i have to study for, i got that the day after i said i would draw up some logos. Then i got another test in another class. Then more assignments. Bullshit i swear. So after wednesday i can draw those sketches up.

How aboot that?!
Ringling's CORE program, also known as "foundations"(A better name then CORE) is bullshit now. I have the most stupidest fucking teachers. Never have i written so many papers before and done the most time consuming peices in my life. Not to mention they have nothing to do with the class.

Sorry...this is driving me nuts.
11 classes a week is tuff.
I just want to do some REAL work and not this stupid busy work.

-Randall

[ioptics]

Hello everyone,

Concept1 (http://ioptics.f2o.org/conart_con1.jpg)

I found a bit of time today and over the last weekend to come up with a layout. It's gone though a few changes and then I smacked some example content over the top of it. Due to the sheer amount of content on the front page the layout is split into a pretty complex grid, to support this (and save further trouble) I've restricted it to a 780 pixel width. The large space to the left of Andrew's SPOTD is left for the site logo (I have an idea for this, its just finding time to develop it). The idea needs some more development, its missing a few sections and a title or too.. the top bar above the menu is a space set for user settings, private messages etc.

All and any crits are welcome, Pictures borrowed from around the Concept Art forums and cgchannel news posts.

[I.was.ink]

ohhhh!:cool: Very nice there. The only bad things is that I don't know which one is better? not in yours but of all the desings that have been contributed.

[fletchgirl]

i'm having trouble seeing some of the pics! i haven't been able to see Jens... i could see the example logos though... my main problem w/ the current logo is it's all fuzzy! :) :rolleyes:

[oDD]

Hi, this is my first post here.

i did this thing in photoshop today:

http://www.sport.wroclaw.pl/~sport005/odd/conceptart_small.jpg

link to a bigger version of above pic:

http://www.sport.wroclaw.pl/~sport005/odd/conceptart_big.jpg

Now this is a pretty rough design, the fonts and some proportions probably should be changed. THe site doesnt resize and it fits to width of 800pixels. I think the Forum button althou it glows orange is still too small (i think it will be better to change the text from "Forum" to "Conceptart.org .Forum" and leave the orange glow. I don't have the source file of the logo so i didn't add any effects or anything to make the top part of the page look any "cooler". I'm new to this forum but i can see that the DSG is something thats pretty important so If i can suggest something, there could be another box - like Andrew Jones SPOTD - called Daily sketch group, it could be placed under the SPOTD Box.

Anyway i would like to get any comments. Should i change something or there is already someone else doing the site and my help isnt needed ?

bye :)

i forgot to add that i'm aware that there should be some link to past news, probably at the bottom of the "daily news" box, probably some other stuff is missing but there should be no prob with finding a place for it on site

[Severith]

I'm sure I could help you guys out alot, I'm a webdesigner and have been it since a few years so it won't be a problem for me...


If I got it right you guys want the same colors and the same logo?

I could do something really good, but more in the way like GFXArtist, something with more GUI and interface...

A good apeal of course, so gimme a shout if ya think I could do something, I'm not sure if you guys took already the idea of oDD (which is pretty good).

Drop me a line...

[Jason Manley]

thanks for all the help with coming up with this stuff.

we all appreciate it...the site is going to be so much better when it is worked out.


Im thinking that we should avoid looking like cg channel. I was thinking perhaps we could go a slightly different design direction...maybe circular instead of square...ya know...

what do you all think?

Im just throwing out ideas...curious as to what you all think.



jason

[Severith]

Yo, I try to get something done right now I'll show you asap, hopefully it'll be a perfect fit for what you seek...

[Severith]

well it seems like I got alot of stuff to do first busy life, sorry guys, hope somebody makes the tight ass layi :p

[Erik]

Well after ripping something up and reading the thread i realise that it's beside the mark. Probably have to redo it...

I'll post the image anyway. It's not very original and i hope that i wont get flamed because i used images from artists on the site in it... no offense meant but i needed something to show how stuff would look. And anyway, it's very cool to do something with images of such quality and abundance so i couldn't help myself. Relief from having to work with stupid stock material... :)

Just to find some different layout concept playing around with the page.

However: the thread start question does ask for a LOT of information on one page... It will probably start scrolling pretty fast if you do it that way.

Here the img
http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/wip/ca.org-sketch.jpg

E.

[stephen]

dude that rocks, pick eriks!!

[Ark]

what kinda codin' will be used? PHP? ASP? XML?

just curious. Personally I think PHP/MYSQL is the way to go these days.

[nick reynolds]

Oh man that last one by Erik is awesome!

[Jason Manley]

eriks is looking good....we need to add all the features to it and I want to use a different image than fengs for the top...the colors are great...but it looks like we should go with that one at this point dont you think.

i added some of the other features to one of the earlier concepts just to see how it would all fit. we still have some other features to add even still.

I want to get this new layout up asap.

[Jason Manley]

this is just TEMP...placeholder stuff only...what is your input?

I want to get this image finalized so that we can get it up on the web for everyone.

lets hear it....


jason

should we roll with this? keep in mind that the fonts and images and such are temp placeholder only. it needs to be cleaned up and pulled together.


:)

[Smeagol71]

Everyone's work on this look has just been phenomenal. It's been great to watch it happen. Good work guys!

Looks great, I'm excited about it and I think it's pleasing to the eye and looks as if it will be easy to navigate. One personal suggestion though...I like the idea of a black background showing through, framing a lot of the elements as it seems to do somewhat in the previous image to this most recent one. Did I make myself clear? Hope so.

Again, fantastic work everyone! Looks great!

[Erik]

Hi,

I updated the rough with the remarks of Jason. Let me know what you think. I think there are a few good areas but also that the page is getting crowded...

What resolution do we go for? I took 800x600 here. Maybe we should poll? ;-)

I also changed the small font to plain verdana. easier to read and more people have it. The large font is Vixar Ascii. I dont know if that's a freebie though... have to check my records where i got that.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.2.jpg

BTW. i checked cgchannel.com and it has some nifty stuff. I like the 'send us your news' button (handy if you rely on news as they do). The distinction between forum pages and content is made clear by a separate 'discuss' and 'more' button. The grid of the layout is clear yet flexible and leaves room to shift stuff around. Won't get boring soon that way..

Well there's room for improvement in the sketch above so i'll be at the drawing board...

alternative (very rough) based on grid -- too similar but leaves more room and is less cluttered
http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.3.jpg


[edit] moved the header to the left to make room for a seacrh box in the top right. forgot to draw it though...

[franz]

Erik, I like where you were going with your first sketch.. The latest version (with the CA-green) looks way too busy though, too many fonts/colors/items floating around.

I think it's cool that you ignored Jason's "we are keeping the current colors", I was too afraid to do that.. :) the dark red is a nice touch :)

[franz]

Oh, another thing: If there's *any* way we can avoid Javascript dropdown menus.. It's a matter of personal preference I guess, but I hate them :mumble:

[Erik]

Franz,

I agree that the dropdowns should be removed if possible - not only can they be annoying but also they can become a hassle to maintain especially through browser versions. But they are one way to enable display of large numbers of items and they reduce number of mouseclicks in navigation in many cases.

I also agree that the second version got crowded. Need whitespace!

About the color scheme: i think this scheme (maybe with a few adjustments) can coexist with the current scheme. Maybe later it can be transformed (?) to the rest of the site? I guess the 'purple-gray' needs to go, replace by ca green...

I went for straight edges since they can be achieved easily and are compatible with the existing look. If needed in the existing look the colors can be made to match up by replacing some color codes.

But it's definitely not a finished layout :-( many problems still exist.

[Jason Manley]

if you look at the one that i did you will notice that the value contrast is strongest around the top of the page...where the majority of the info is and where the main artists galleries are.

after that it blends more...and there are little pieces of contrast value and colorwise that give you different things to look at...THIS ALLOWS THE ART TO STAND OUT. :)...not the contrasty borders of the headers and background.


the one you just did looks busy because in terms of value hierarchy for focus it is....its sort of like rendering all parts of a painting to the same level. good design has a visual hierarchy of importance. the page i did is setup that way and that is why it doesnt look too busy to me.

i do like some of the changes you did though....if you can do it and think of what i said above than you will not have a busy image.

the hierarchy will unify it.


unless someone wants to go in and change all the colors of the forums and make all new buttons and such than we are keeping the colors we have. pontemonti did it for us the first time and he is too busy to do it again...its working...we might as well use it. its not that I am not open to change..i just want to get the new site up and running without having to reinvent the wheel. if i had some help with that then id be all for it.


j

[Jason Manley]

i dont want to go the direction of the alternative version you did...it looks cgchannels old site...which is not a bad thing in a design way...at all...its just that they will see that....i think that if we can balance the image you worked on with my suggestions and the one that i did then we will be fine.


i will do another concept if i need to....i like a lot of the stuff you did....just keep in mind that we need to have the contrast around the top of the page and the images...its about the art...i want as many pics on the front as possible...the one that i did shows the range of images i wanna use on the front.

we want to show off all the great stuff that is going on here...that big image will be a chosen image of the day/week from the forums....that big front page goody will be for whoever is doing the best work....a headliner for the site...

[Erik]

I agree totally with you about the visual hierarchy. The adaptation i did was to see if the style could be unified to the bottom of the page. The version you did is better in the respect that the site looks more open towards the bottom, but i would like a more uniform style of edges and stuff towards the bottom. I guess the right thing to do is to split the page in half like you did, and use less color and contrast towards the bottom, but try and keep the underlying grid.

Because there is so much going on on the page right now i would like to know from you how you would present the 5 featured artists -- how prominent should they be placed? Also i would like to know how important the scrolling section of images in the top part is - this does take a lot of space (the right column could use some space and shift upwards...

Maybe the featured artists can move to the top, that would be logical. The member login will have to move down then, maybe not wanted? But since this won't be the main page that problem can be fixed elsewhere on the site.

I guess the 'forum' block can go and the member login area can maybe separated from it. It is a too large section.

Which parts do you like about the image?

-------------------------------------------------------
Here a new version. Toned down the lower part, moved some stuff around and generally took the colors more to the current color scheme. Kept some reds but only in the top of the page.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.4.jpg

----------------------------------------------------------
some smaller views with different main image to see what happens. extracted some random pics from the forum, one by sparth (b&w test) and one by sedone, green to see what happens there. Im almost happy with the top part, but then again maybe you guys don't agree ;-)

http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.51.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.52.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.53.jpg

Maybe the news area (btm left) could be split in 2 columns and an image added?

The top right needs some jimmying as i tried to do with one of the smaller pics... Needs something more contrast. Also put a rollover effect in there,

[Jason Manley]

those are looking cool...can you link the larger versions up so i can play with them some too? we will get this. i cant believe how fast you are...if i owned a web design firm you would be hired immediately. i hope you have a good job...cuz yer rockin.


anyhow...the scrolling thumbnails on the top are for the main page members...the spotd and sparth and bengals and my new section are simply daily images done by all of us that will go up in their own gallery area.


the guest artist tab on the top bar is for the other concept artists like john dickenson who should have their works shown on the site as they set such a good example but are not active on the boards.


I will get you the images for that once we get the prototype layout agreed upon.

Im totally excited here...thanks a lot guys! everyone has contributed and we are gonna have a great little spot!


j

[Jason Manley]

on the toolbar GUEST ARTISTS is one section.

:)

[Erik]

Hi

thanx for the compliments! But one of the reasons i speed right now is that i don't really have a job, just a few little gigs... But the other reason is I really enjoy working on this since it's such a cool site and i like having sensible comments instead of clients saying 'eh, well, maybe you need some clip-art over here...' lol. I hope to make a good contribution, would be really cool!

here are the larger versions i'll PM you the PSD location.

Now i'll have to sign off for today since i'm going to have dinner and tend to my girlfriend before she throws my computer out the window ...

[edit couldn't help myself... 0.52 is updated]



http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.51 large.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.52 large.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.53 large.jpg

[disclaimer : I changed the images in the top bar a bit to fit the artists mentioned - raided the site a bit hopefully nobody gets pissed off i don't mean no harm... ]

[stephen]

damn, looks great, lets get this up already :P

[franz]

I think we have a winner.. Great job, Erik!

I did a quick mockup to see how the layout would/could look at higher resolutions and how we could go about the positioning:

http://www.poncholounge.com/port/ca/index1.html
http://www.poncholounge.com/port/ca/index2.html

[Erik]

Status O_o ??

Franz : that's what i had imagined, cool thnx!

-- a question: which one of he different three layouts (see small imgs) is favourite? Mine is the one with 2 col news.

I'll hear when i need to do stuff again!

l8r

E.

[wassermelone]

I like the one with Bengal's image in the middle the best.
The only critique I have is that the top is a little busy and that the current ConceptArt.org colors are very similar to Deviantart.com's colors.

[franz]

Originally posted by Erik
-- a question: which one of he different three layouts (see small imgs) is favourite? Mine is the one with 2 col news.

I think I prefer that one as well.. But as far as I can remember Jason and the guys definitely want the little thumbnails for the news items. Uhm.. I'm wondering how this layout would look if we added a thumbnail for every news & tutorial item.. Probably too busy, but still worth a try. :)

If you don't mind other people messing with your design you could put up a link to the latest PSD.. That way you wouldnt have to do all the little changes yourself

[Jason Manley]

Im going to work on the stuff this weekend. I want to combine elements from the version i slopped together with the most recent versions of eriks.

as soon as I get it done either sat or sun we can make the final layout and get it up on the web for franz and ponte to have their way with!!

we are getting close...soon soon soon.


j

[Drakmarr]

hmmmm, so many wonderful layouts guys I am in extreme anticipation for the addons. I love this forum and visit it daily, adding new things like those proposed will make it even more enjoyable.

[Erik]

OK! Looking forward to what you did!

Franz, i'll PM you the location of the PSD

[Jason Manley]

ive been messing around with this stuff....trying to fit all the features in etc...

a few things are on my mind at this point.

first...am i crazy or are the red colors too reminiscent of the cgtalk site? Perhaps moving them to the blue we use now will help this...i dont know..if im just being crazy then tell me...but i think that we need to have the site stick with its own identity as much as possible.

second....the site layout we are playing with now has just about all the features etc...do you think it is too busy? Perhaps someone could find a better way of fitting the stuff in there so it looks clean and simple. any ideas?

also attatched is an earlier version that has a simpler feel to it which i very much like. what are your thoughts.

we have been using one of fengs images for the site header...i would like to swap that with one of the images or a collage of images from andrews metroid prime concepts.

here are some of his concepts...http://members.lycos.co.uk/metali/


we could also use one of the images from my section as well...

i very much like how fengs image is transparent and hinted at...and that it goes well on top there....i need to find a solution to using androids images instead. can anyone help with a cool header for the top? we need a header badly.


i think we could play with the button design on the site...etc...that is in this current layout.


i dont know...what do you all think?


jason

PS..here are the images to play with....or look at





http://www.conceptart.org/newsite/busyREDS.jpg






http://www.conceptart.org/newsite/busyBLUE.jpg


this one...while just slapped together has a much simpler feel and is not all jammed together in layout...it seems easier to read because of all the buttons up top instead of big on the page.


http://www.conceptart.org/newsite/I%20STILL%20LIKE%20THIS%20ONE.jpg

[Drakmarr]

Jason I think that the color is fine and nobody should really associate the red. Is the header going to look like that because it has a tile effect that could be remedied slightly. The name "Conceptart.org" is that your official logo or are you looking to actually build a logo for the site? I do however like the layout; I think it is functional except I am wondering just under the header is that a going to be horizontally scrollable? If so what code are you going to use to make that function java, flash?

[Erik]

Hi Jason!

I like the blue one as well, maybe a bit more aqua like blue could be used? Or is that not neutral enough. The blue is cooler the red is warmer, it's your choice.

About the layout, i guess you didn't like the way i put all the links to artists to the top in my last versions... Oh wel... To me it seemed a bit more balanced that way but i did lose the become a member area because of that.

About the search box: i think it won't be possible to make it as 'thin' as you did in the top right. A better option would be imo to place the logo/site name left, and make a slightly bigger search box where the logo is right now. Would not have to be a box, more transparent like.

I like the top graphic that you used. Because the art on the site is so diverse it might be fun to make a couple of top bars reflecting the diversity of styles. The image i used earlier was chosen not specifically for the image but to hint at concept art ('marker sketches') without presenting a recognisable image. Of course everybody did recognise it but that's credit to mr. Feng ;-)

So i would guess that a brief for the top bar would be:

* It mus look like concept art
* It mustn't attract attention to it (no 'what is it?' thoughts)
* It mustn't be too recognisable as an image on it's own.
* It must have low contrast and minimal values

But of course you can go a totally different way with it.

Well, anyway, if you need my help on finalizing the page design or making it production ready please let me know.

[Jason Manley]

ERIKs ideas on what we need for the top image are SPOT ON PERFECT. that is exactly what we need. if someone can help us out with making a couple of these i would appreciate it.

drakmaar....honestly i dont know what is going to be used to make that bar scroll...im a web ignormaus. :) ...a virtual maroon. hehehe

Franz, Erik or ponte will have ideas on that...franz is helping with all the back end stuff. Basically...Im going to need help with this.

1 we will stay with the red...at this point we need to go final on the image for the top...i like the idea of having maybe two or three that could rotate when people come to the site...is this possible? if it is possible then we can use fengs image for one of them...a final version of the one i did for another..but i would like to have one or two that are SUPER COOL!

2 we need a final version for the layout...using erics fonts and with the proper artist images on the bottom and the top. I will drop in the remaining few artists/images we are adding on the bottom of the layout rough. i will need someone to help me make the final using the rough that erik(mostly) and I made. please.....double please.

3 once we get the final layout made..cut up..and put on the temp site, the programming crew is going to have their way with it. they are building galleries and such and the auto thumbnail and gallery generator scripts.

4 I dont know how we are going to make that scroll...so like i said...we will need help with this.


am i missing anything???


oh yeah...erik...your layouts were great...its just that we need to have all the features on the page...i dont want to lose any of them. in the case of this new site function and such is key at this point. we can always go tweak the design later....as far as the search bar...you are the master...do with it what you need...Im open to your suggestions fully....any help you can give is beyond appreciated.


j

[wassermelone]

I was bored and Im not good for much so I might as well dick around with headers!
All are from that site that has all of Android's Metroid concepts.

http://images.deviantart.com/large/designs/dmisc/conceptartheaderconcepts.jpg

[neeno]

is there a reason that you guys are sticking to the same BG color?

[Jason Manley]

yes...we want it to work with the forums for now....it will change eventually...

j

[blackhand]

If the new conceptart.org site is going to be database driven, it would not be difficult to have a script that chooses a random image as the banner image each time it is viewed.

What this idea affords is that a greater range of artists and images can be displayed, avoiding the implication that one artist is favored over another amongst this talented pool. So each time a page is viewed, a different facet or aspect of conceptart.org is displayed. In addition, this prevents banner images from becoming 'stale' and allows for a constant influx of new content.

Just set up a directory where the people who maintain the site can dump banner images that are formatted to the same size, that way a script can pull random images and post them in the banner area.

This can be made even simpler by separating the logo from the image, so all that needs to be done to the banner image is cropping and sizing.

Here's an image illustrating what I mean--I didn't have font for the conceptart.org logo. The positioning of the logo is arbitrary--it can go either on the left or right depending on preference.

http://www.blackhand.com/comic/topmock.jpg

[killing.people]

i really, really like your solutions and designs you have chosen.

i really like jason's edit to eriks. for some sad .. sad reason i got all excited to see the jpg load up, i was like, "that would look soo sweet!"

http://www.conceptart.org/newsite/busyREDS.jpg

i really liked how the contest windows in this one:
http://www.sport.wroclaw.pl/~sport005/odd/conceptart_big.jpg

but by far my favorite is the one by jason.

[Erik]

Coolcoolcool

Hey killing.people i agree with you the first link you place is my favourite too! Th elittle images at the bottom could be changing, then everybody will have all the more reason to scroll down and look at the bottom of the page too.

Toaster i like the banners you made! Maybe they need to be a little more desaturated though (?)

I have done a similar scrollbar script somewhere before. Maybe i can dig it up then i'll send it over to you Jason.

Groeten,
Erik

[blackhand]

I hope you guys don't mind me butting in with some suggestions. I did a mock up based on the revisions Jason and Erik have done since that seems to be the preferred direction.

I don't have the specific font Erik and Jason used, so I made do. The fonts are by no means what I prefer--I just tried to remain as consistent as I could to Jason and Erik's designs.

I'll post the image first and explain the annotations.

http://www.blackhand.com/comic/ca.jpg

1. This is the idea I had suggested before for separating the conceptart.org logo from the banner image so it'd be easier to implement a random banner image script. This is explained in detail in my post above.

2. Instead of having the main artist bar scroll, have buttons letting the user switch between sets of artists.

Scrolling scripts, I believe are problematic in that they do not work the same or at all in different browsers. Also, having to load all the images to scroll might take a long time on slower connections. The plus side of scrolling is that content is constantly changing, but I believe the movement in itself is a distraction on a visually busy page as it is.

I favor having buttons because it's easier to expand and add more artists or even change the order of artists.

I kept the arrows on the side of the artist bar from Erik's design, because those can be used to skip back and forth between artist sets--I believe having redundant navigation is a good thing.

3. In Erik's previous concepts, he had a bar on the bottom of scrolling images. I consolidated that bar with the 'best of conceptart.org' section. Again, I eliminated the scrolling in favor of a thumbnail system that can be switched out by buttons.

I like listing the thumbnail indexes by the numbered boxes because it allows the user to instantly access all the thumbnail indexes.

4. I consolidated the news, announcements, and recent posts into one scrolling news section. I illustrated a pull down menu that allows a user to filter the news feed, so a user can view just updates, announcements, recent posts, or some other search variable.

Look at http://www.k10k.net for a sample of the newsfeed model I was going after.

I felt too much space was being taken up by the different areas for news, announcements, and recent posts.

5. I just made the featured artists section scrollable, allowing for more artists to be added. This is little different from Erik's original design.

6. I moved the banners and created a space for them below the featured artists.

7. I put an overview for the forum and a login section at the bottom of the page.

My reasoning for this is that there is a distinct hierarchy from top to bottom. The focus of conceptart.org is art, so I kept the artists and the art at the top [as Jason and Erik specified while moving more art to the top] and the information towards the bottom.

The concept is like a vertical, digital mullet--party on top, business on the bottom.

Most casual browsers will want to see the art and have easy access to it, while frequent users will know to find the news and forum information towards the bottom. This saves the casual user from having to scroll down and dig for the art they so crave.

[Jason Manley]

erik...franz...ponte...davi...android....what are your thoughts on this latest image from blackhand?

i have a few...but will wait for your replies

[davi]

There's alot to reply on...

Firstly i really don't like that purple/grey to be honset.

I know Jason was really set on the scrolling featured artists but i think having a "group #" could work also. but i think it could be graphicly put in better, like making one of those "tab" things coming out of the red area with the names and going up into the brown-red with the numbers.

I think the random image could be just the background, and the conceptart.org (artists with ideas) could be a transparent gif, but i do like having them seperated better. I think we could play with having it in the corner like that,but nier on the eyes.

I do like the mult-button art thing but it looks alittle odd having that many grouped up at once. Maybe taking off the last row of images and bringing down the brown-red border down the side, so that it's only three rows down.

I really pref the idea of having the announcements. in the same place as the news, they looked out of place to me before.

I honestly don't mind the scrolling bar on the featured daily artists to be honest, yet the people show up off the original screen and have to be scrolled to might be upset.

banner placement = A+

nice stuff at the bottom too, though i feel the login could be better used at the top of the page, maybe squeezed into where the top tabs are.

[blackhand]

My primary reasoning for having a wider range of banner images is that I feel it gives people a greater sense of 'ownership' in the site. If a member sees their artwork in the banner, the artist would truly feel like he's vested in conceptart, and then the site becomes more than just a site where the artist post images and looks at cool stuff.

I feel it's particularly important in establishing a greater sense of community and just making people feel like they're a part of something different and better than 'other' forums.

The main thing I wanted to accomplish with this concept was to simplify everything yet have all the information that Jason and Erik wanted.

Davi, I think you're right about the images in the 'best of conceptart' section--there's too many thumbnails. It'd probably be better to have less thumbnails and make them BIGGER for the sake of the artwork.

I think the news section should be reserved for important announcements and updates, but not recent board posts. With posts on the forum being made as often as they are, I'm afraid important update items would get pushed off the page. Besides, not everyone might be interested in a new post, while an update or announcement would be pertinent to everyone. This also leaves control of the news section content in the hands of the admins.

I put in the scroll bar for the daily featured artists because I was unsure of how many there would be. Erik and Jason had the right idea in leaving it unscrolling so that everyone is represented equally.

If a poll or something needs to be added, the news section and banner section can be stretched down with the poll going underneath or above the banners.

As someone mentioned in an earlier post, I'd suggest not having drop down menus for the main navigation. I know the navigation items aren't finalized, but from the early ones suggested, I don't think any of them necessitate the use of drop down menus--opening a new page seems most economical.

I hope I'm not rubbing you guys the wrong way or stepping on any toes by acting like an over zealous newbie. I just think that the new site has the potential to be something great and when it's finished, should be seen with the same sort of awe as the art in the site. I know I've talked exhaustively, but I feel strongly about the ideas I presented and wanted to contribute my two cents.

[Erik]

Hey!

A number of good and bad reactions come up as i look at Blackhand's design. Number of very valid observations.

1. Most of the things you did are very ok, since they will make life easier for the coders and keep the site more flexible in the future.

2. The scrollbar frames in the page. I really don't like that in most sites (personal opinion ;-) ) since you would end up with a number of scrolling regions on the site. This confuses most viewers. There is no need too: the featured artists are now only 5 (right?) and are set up vertically in an expandable way. The news can be paged easily which is a concept that is widely known and in use on the current site as well as being easy to implement. A scrolling version would probably need paging anyway.

3. I like what you did to the bottom with the membership but there should be something in the top to direct people there. This will probably go unnoticed for too many potential members.

4. The changing banner is cool but your ownership argument will only apply for the happy few i think.

5. The thumbs on top of the site were interpreted by me as having a 'fill' from the left, i.e. the more to the right, the older. My scrolling version was more of a 'clickthrough' ide, maybe augmented by an animated slide when clicking through. This could be done with the whole set at once, which goes faster and is therefore better. The scroll animation should then definitely be there to help viewers remind of the sequentiality and that they are not watching some random set. They would otherwise think they missed something.

6. I like the small thumbs to the right of the 'best off' image. An observation though: what is the difference between the top images and the best-off image set? There should be a clear distinction in how the sets are composed : is the top set a 'hall of fame' thing and the 'best of' a gallery showcase? Make this distinction very clear or it will be weird having multiple separate orderings to browse through.

7. I like the 'more' links you made

8. I like hoe thw featured artists section, contest and forums buttons are grouped, it makes sense.

9. In the end i think that we would have to do something about the best of browse section (don't know if it was meant that way), bring up the featured artists and the contest/forum buttons and slide the browse section for the best of in a more textual form underneath the best of image in a bar.

10. The news and announcements together is good. Maybe do something with an icon or color to make the announcements stand out?

Well that's what i can come up with now. To make a better effort we have to discuss where the news, best of, gallery and thumbs come from and how it is updated. That way it is better to take into account the content management on the site and the way it changes through time.

Also, i though of a way to have a middle section that can be hidden and only comes active in very special occasions (i.e. winner of thunderdome, some extra-special news event like CA.org voted best CA forum in the world, etc). This would liven up the site a bit.

I'll make an effort to do some designs today/tomorrow based on blackhands'

If everybody helps out like this the site will be grand!

Reg. Erik

[blackhand]

I did another comp based on the suggestions and comments made by Erik.

At first I thought the main artist bar would be constantly scrolling. But if the bar only scrolls when one of the side bars or numbered buttons is clicked, that looks like it'll be used to good effect. I was just unsure of the nature of scrolling. If we use the scrolling along with the visual cue provided by the highlighting of the numbered boxes, I think that would eliminate any confusion

The 'best of conceptart.org' section, by my understanding was sort of a weekly showcase of the best art from the forums. The main artist bar would just feature the artwork of each individual artist while the 'best of' section is sort of community wide--that's something I clarified with a little bit of text next to 'best of...'. I think it'd be a good idea to take each 'best of' piece and make it into a banner--so it does give a greater range of people the opportunity to be featured in some way. YES, I am very much for having lots of banner images and lots of people represented--power to the people.

I took the scrollbar off the featured artists and also moved them up the page to make them more prominent.

I added a page forward and backward feature to the news section to swap through older and recent news items. The scrollbar can either stay or go for that feature, but I feel that having the scrollbar there would be beneficial. There might be a really long announcement that doesn't fit in the news area or doesn't allow room for more areas, so I just like having the scrollbar as insurance.

I also did some quick icons, though they're hard to see in the image, to distinguish announcements and news items. This idea can be pushed further by using different colors, etc. I'm open to anything--just so long as there is a discernible differentiation as Erik suggested.

Switching things around, I found I had a lot of space where the banners were in my first concept. So i made the banner for the forums bigger and added some descrptive text, explaining what the forums were and why people should join.

Then I just threw in the poll below that.

I also made colors of headers and footers more consistent. Header bars are in red, while the menu bars for those sections [where the numbered boxes are] are in grey.

Organization wise, I prefer my first concept as I feel it maximizes space. But I do understand the need to make the 'featured artists' more prominent and the need to make signing up for the forums more visible as well.

As for content organization and update. I believe news and announcements should be handled by the admins which they can update through a panel or something. The 'best of' gallery, I think you can start a sticky thread for that and have people post what they feel are the best images for the week. Judging can either be poll based or based on admin decision.

Images can then be handed over to the webmasters and formatted to the specified sizes and dropped into a directory...database generated pages should take care of the rest.

http://www.blackhand.com/comic/ca2.jpg

[neeno]

I just wanted to give it a shot. As you can see I worked on the top part, changed the color, nice lil collage. I'm going to redo the bottom part as well a bit...I'm definetely not going for that font under "featured artists" Just wanted to add a previous submittion bottom so you could get the feel. Tell me what you think, and if they are good comments, I'll continue :)
OH, by the way, the look at sparth's spot to see an example of what it could look like when you hover the image.
http://host.deluxnetwork.com/~shlique/test.jpg

`neeno.

Oh and blackhand, I like that last layout. Looks nice.

[Android]

wow these all look so great, :D
this is waht i was thinking about,
i wanted to have a spot twoards the bottom, to highlite members of the comunity, or introduce a new one for the first time.this would change week to week month to month. it could lead to a small gallery with a bries bio descritption and homepage email info.

please disregard any font info I add,

http://www.conceptart.org/artist/andrew-jones/images/ca2aj%5b1%5d.jpg

[stephen]

the only thing that bugs me alittle with these new versions, the purple greyish colored bars. they break up the feel of the page alittle too much, eriks versions seemed very whole, these seem to be falling apart alittle with the grey bars...

[blackhand]

Yeah, not many people are digging that purple/grey. I sampled the color off of one of Erik's concepts, but I think it was used for a background color in one tiny area. The secondary bars Erik had were this darker green. I don't know why I didn't use that color instead. The funny thing is, that purple/grey has grown on me.

I can't objectively speak about the purple/grey anymore...I'm too biased for it.

Android, I like the suggestion of the 'member spotlight'. I was going crazy trying to fill that space in my second concept with something. Taking the grey bar out between the 'featured artists' and the banners was a good move--it unifies that area as a single column.

Neeno, personally, I'm not sure about the monochromatic look--things tend to get muddled without color to separate them.

I like the idea of having rollover changes for the artists, but that might be a lot of work to do rollover images for each artist. That's my only reservation with that, but I think it is a good idea to have some change when you have a mouseover on an artist image. This can be as simple as just having the artist name change color, though.

Believe it or not, I'm out of ideas and suggestions now. I hope I haven't caused too much hassle with my outlandish ideas.

[edit]

Regarding Erik's comments below, some of the items DEFINITELY need to be resized to constrain back into the grid. Items like the banners and featured artists had to be 'frankensteined' into the newer concepts, so they're all mangled and misshapen.

[Erik]

I still think the scrollbars should go ;-) the content could also 'expand'. IMO there is going to be good use for an extra horizontal section anyway since everybody is still pushing stuff to make it fit...

I think the last edits of blackhand make very good sense but the grid can be brought back in a little regarding the dimensions of the various items, giving a better rhythm to the page. The arguments on placement make very good sense to me.

Android i think we can come up with more space for these spotlight items, that would be cool! Do you have any other ideas on such extra's?

Neeno - i like it but i'm not allowed to say that since the color should remain as it is now. ;-)

[Oblio]

Super stuff around.
I have to notice that logo on neeno's page - very interesting.

Oblio

[Erik]

Hi guys,

I took some stuff from the other edits and integrated that and also i did some cleaning up to have it less busy.

I tried out the 'special edition' section, as can be seen in the images below.

I did not integrate some of the stuff blackhand did but i think it should be, most notably the section in the footer and some of the select stuff. Also i did not change the header image although there is lots of good stuff flying around in that area.

The entire right column can be reordered vertically now as the connection to the left column has been broken. The left column will also scale out vertically to accomodate text.

I put in a piece of a 'real world' announcement to show that these text can be quite long and they may not be suitable to post there entirely. I also played with the idea of having other messages show up as blurbs.

The other cool stuff not yet integrated is the search box and the select thread.

Let me know! SOrry the images are starting to be quite big but i didn't want to scale them down.

The font has been changed so everything but the 'logo' (which will change i think) is now plain old Verdana. This increases readability and everybody has it!

http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.63.jpg

http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.64.jpg

i add this oldie (cant remember if i posted it?) image (http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.3.jpg) to further clutter the issue. ;-)

[Jason Manley]

the first image posted in the above reply by erik is very close to what i was thinking last night. I like the special sections...androids idea etc.

there are two remaining issues right now....one is that I want the row of artists on the bottom as i previously put them....we also need to add the members signup/logon button to it...that is a must...i want to make it very easy to signup

the search button needs to be added as well


and finally...the scrolling is a bad idea on my part...as far as the top bar of artists. we need to add another row below that one. all main page artists must be represented on the front page and on the top of the page. without the guys like foster and sparth this site would not be nearly as interesting...having a spot for the active pros is a necessity to the success of the site in the future. its about the art....the row on the bottom is for the pros that are not active...so they belong toward the bottom...still holding their space but also not moving up until they contribute on the site....the top section of main page artists is a reward so to speak...for the active members who excel. we are adding dodowa to the top bar and nivbed to the bottom bar for example (dammit niv..leave the bowing worshippers and come post over here).

other than that it looks like we are good to go.

WOO HOO!


jason

[Erik]

Hey Jason and everyone,

Cool to hear you like it!

Ok, seems i misinterpreted what the top bar is about, i though it would be updated regularly and just slide to the right. If it's the access to the site's 'Grand Masters' the scrolling definitely has to go.

Exactly how many would you want in the top bar? We might have to make the images a bit smaller and could then accomodate 9 or 10 i think. The problem is that this would not be extensible easily, so be careful how many you want ;D

The bottom bar w. thumbs would be easy to put in.

I hope it is clear what i meant with the 'special items' thing: such sections could be switched on and off if needed. We could make a special section to use for thunderdome winners e.g. that would get switched when the winner is announced.

The main problem remains with the membership/login section. If it is redesigned (keep color, lose arrow) this can be inserted in the right bar where needed.

The order of the right bar could be hussled around every once in a while (?)

Here an update with the features you specified included
http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/ca.org/ca.org sketch_0.7.jpg

[neeno]

yeah. blah. last thing just thought to upload.
http://host.deluxnetwork.com/~shlique/wht.jpg

[Pontemonti]

Sorry I'm late to the party :D
Jason told me to say what I think, so here I go...

NOTE: I haven't read all posts here, so I will probably say pretty much what you have said already.

First off, the colors. They aren't bad, but it's something about that "bright" "red" that annoys me...maybe it's just too attention grabbing compared to the rest. Not sure. Have you tried to use a color more similar to the background? (the background for the "search the forums" cell for example)
The white borders around the input boxes are a bit too bright IMHO. I would prefer another background color for the input box (darker or brighter than the current one) and something darker for the border...same thing with the white horizontal lines...oh, and same thing for the poll radio buttons...hehe.
I would also prefer if the buttons (login, search, vote) looked more like buttons - it makes things less confusing for new visitors.

Next, fonts. The headers look weird...like...the letters are too thin or something. I want bold letters! Hehe :D Of course, it's easy to change this, but anyway...

It's good that you removed the dropdown menus...thanks!

About featured artists...multiple rows with featured artists right below the logo might be annoying...first of all they will take up lots of space...space where you will want the latest news headlines to be (if you check the site for news many times per day it is annoying to have to scroll down to see if something has happened)...but the worst thing is that all of these images will eat space of all kinds...it'll take time to load the site on a 56k modem...
I don't really have a solution for this...maybe make really small images, but that will make the "featured artist" spot less interesting of course. All these decisions...
So...add lots of cool images that will probably be cool, but at the same time confusing, to first time visitiors, and annoying to those who visit the site a lot. Or...do something else. I can't come up with a good solution right now, though. Does anyone have any ideas?

Well, those are my $0.00002. I hope that I made some sense. :D

Edit: I thought I should add that other than that, it looks awesome. :)
Edit2: neeno's latest logo thingy is sweet!

[Erik]

Hi,

just a quick reply:

I like the logo too! But maybe make the difference between the bolder and thinner part more extreme : usually it's good to keep one 'value' open so have black next to light and leave regular open or extra black next to regular and leave black open. Just a thought.

ABout the red: mostly just for rollovers. The member part i made brighter to have people register. I agree on the white lines i was just too lazy to change this time ;-)

About the images on top: they would cache and since they wont change so often that would save a lot of waiting time and bandwidth ;-) provided that you set your browser setting right of course...

The font: i personally don't like bold fonts but that's of course a personal opinion ;-)

[blackhand]

This relates to the t-shirt design as well, but I think conceptart needs to decide upon a logo and finalize that.

Erik, in your latest round of concepts, I like a lot of the things you've done with the section interfaces, and I've incorporated some of those ideas. But the thing I miss in your new concepts is adherence to the grid--mainly just where the 'featured artists' are.

I concede losing the scrollbars. You've made a convincing argument to drop them. I surrender. Also, it was a wise idea to move everything over to a standard web font, from titles to buttons. That idea will save a lot of graphic legwork. I'll miss my square number buttons, but it's all good.

Per Jason's input, I've done a concept with a reworked main artist bar amongst other things. I ditched the purple/grey and went with the favored dark green for the bars. I also tried to maintain consistency by keeping title bars in maroon and having the sub-section interfaces at the bottom and in dark green. The title bars for each section were also made larger than the green, interface bars.

http://www.blackhand.com/comic/ca3.jpg

1. I'm perfectly fine with whatever goes in the banner area. I think all the concepts presented are compelling and can work well.

2. I added another, smaller row of 'main artists' based on Jason's suggestion. It's a little bit heavy, but this is the meat of the page, as I understand it. More rows can be added as needed. I am against sticking the small rows at the bottom of the page as I consider that to be the gutter, where less appealing things go, like the forum stuff.

The idea is that as you rollover one of the smaller images, the artists name will appear to the left where it says 'Artist 4'. This saves space in not having to have a title bar listing the artist name for each image. Besides, visually, it sets apart the main, contributing artists from the 'inactive pros'.

My final argument is that art and artists need to be at the top, text-y stuff on the bottom.

3. In the 'banner' area, make the forum advertisement first and foremost, since having people easily find and sign up for the forums is a primary concern.

I'm not opposed to showing 'updated threads', but it needs to be decided which threads are represented. My suggestion are threads like DSG, THUNDERDOME, etc.

Other than that, I think the banner area can be used for everything under the kitchen sink. I didn't include all of Erik's banners for space reasons, but I think they all belong there.

4. News section with no scrollbars. Any concept suggested so far works. Jason's concept for a double column news area is compelling, but I can go either way--single or double column.

Also, Erik's 'special items' go here, either above or below the news.

5. It's unmarked, but I'm referring to the forum area at the bottom. In addition to just serving as a login point, it provides quick access for new members to sign up. I haven't quite mocked that out, but I think that's what should go there.

I made this thumbnail with the section breakdowns of the site.

http://www.blackhand.com/comic/cathumb.jpg

1. This is the banner and main artist bar area.

2. This row is 'best of' and featured artists.

3. This area is for news and for special content banners, like the 'Matrix Interview' Erik spec'd out.

4. This is the banner area.

5. This is forum stuff.

Sections 3 and 4 are SCALABLE and will resize. Sections 1, 2, and 5 are intended to be locked, grounding the site design. This is what I propose for the site structure.

Proportions and stuff can be altered, but I feel this scheme is very workable and has a lot of merit.

[Erik]

Hey blackhand! Good stuff!

I agree with you on the grid part: the mid and top-sections should be 'frozen' like you say, with the 'fold' of the page just below featured artists and best-of. Where you have marked out 3 and 4 should be scalable and the bar right used as you say but with all the stuff in it. Positioning in the bannerbox can be variable, putting things more to the top that need more attention and ocasionaly swapping stuff in/out like contests and other stuff.

As for the search box you put there: i doubt if it will fit ... maybe put that in the banner as well? Would be better if it fit in somewhere to the top though.

The thums below the top images, yeah, well i guess there's something to say for both the solutions. Putting 'em to the top makes access easy but will have people not look to the botto. Putting something in the bottom that is more interesting gets people to scroll there. But i like what you did too so i guess it's up to Jason and Android ;-)

I have doubts about the uniformity of the headers (in my own sketch too) but a production version will probably make it better because the grid (which is now shifting around) would be measured out more solid. I like the even three columns we have now. I would like to see all banners of equal height in the bannerbox or multiples of that height.

I agree on the 'most recent posts' part. It's out of place in the bannerbox and if it should go anywhere then in a section below the news in the left two bars. Would save up some space too!

The 'spotlight artist' could be a custom banner that has a bit more spunk. Maybe somebody can make one or two samples? Anything would go, but with fixed text placement, font (?) and box dimensions.

Good to see it is converging to an end solution

[Jason Manley]

we are going to have to have two rows of featured artists like sparth and android and the guys up top....not all will currently fit in one row...the scrolling idea i had was not a good idea...we will have to have two rows to fit all the artists.

i believe the list of top row artists...featured artists are this.

android
myself
feng
sparth
jaymz
puddnhead
carl dobsky
dodowa
jon foster
coro kaufman
Noxismad
i know im forgetting...dammit...i need to sleep..hahah so basically all will not fit in one row...i want the images for the rows at least as big as they are now. i am less concerned about 56k downloads at this point as far as keeping the design min spec than i am with having the site smell like the best entertainment art site on the net.

i want the bottom of the page to have the row of guest artists like martiniere and donato who dont visit the site. getting moved to the top is an incentive to be active on the site...it also distinguishes those who are active as professionals.


j

[tarwater]

neeno - I really like your grayscaled version a lot.
Bad ass designs by all.

That ca logo is farkin' awesome.

this is the one

http://host.deluxnetwork.com/~shlique/test.jpg

[Erik]

Ok, so two rows it is.

Would be nice if there were 12 not 11 -- then we could have two rows of 6.

Is it a problem to have the images square instead of rectangular like they are now? That would save some vertical space.

I'm thinking maybe the top bar could be a bit thinner - the one with the logo i mean. Maybe the nav menu needs to be fitted in that bar. Concerned with the fact that with two rows of artists at least something must be seen below them in the 'letterbox' to have people scroll down...

Personally i would rather have the top bar images a bit smaller and in one row (all 12) than in two rows since they won't change much and - though these artists are the flavour of the site - they are not the meat of this page. I guess what people come to the front page for is the best-of (since it will be a lookey) and the news. These are the things that change. The featured artists are very important and they should definitely have an important spot in the top of the page but i think that there should be more visible directly than those artists - the artists are what inspires most people to check this site and get active, the best of position is where some member can get their 15 minutes of fame which is cool to see and the news/forums is why we come here.

In short if the top of the page does not change people will bookmark the forum main page (i have, shame on me) to get there faster and they won't look at this fantastic page that the front should be. And that would be a shame ...

Ok, sorry, long post. Maybe you all disagree, this being just my two cents. But it's said from a webdesign perspective.

[neeno]

yay! a compliment. bout damn time :)

[blackhand]

Okay, I guess my understanding of the artist bar was incorrect. I did a quick comp based on Jason's feedback. It's at 50%, but you can still get the idea.

I opted to put the 11/12 artists in a single row--the size of the scaled down images is still significant and bigger than the other thumbnails.

I slid the 'guest artist' bar as it's now called to below the news and banner area and above the forum area.

http://www.blackhand.com/comic/ca450.jpg

I'll do another comp with two rows of 6 and post that in a bit.

http://www.blackhand.com/comic/ca5top.jpg

My suggestion for having two rows is to go with more of a 'landscape' format for the images to maximize space. The space taken up by two rows of 'landscape' images is about the same as one row of the original 'portrait' images.

[Erik]

Hey that looks good to me (the top one) the bottom one i don't really like... (...)

[blackhand]

Yeah, Erik, I don't dig the two row main artist bar, either. Admittedly, I just did that for the sake of thoroughness because I have issues with the two row concept. It might work if we rework the name bars or something, but as it is, there's just too many rectangles, and it just makes that section a jumble.

My 'vote' is for the single row of main artists. If having two rows can be pulled off effectively, I'd lobby for it. My opinion is that stacking images on top of each other, you lose the impact of the image as it's competing with the eye with an image right below it AND next to it.

[Pontemonti]

Originally posted by Erik
Personally i would rather have the top bar images a bit smaller and in one row (all 12) than in two rows since they won't change much and - though these artists are the flavour of the site - they are not the meat of this page. I guess what people come to the front page for is the best-of (since it will be a lookey) and the news. These are the things that change. The featured artists are very important and they should definitely have an important spot in the top of the page but i think that there should be more visible directly than those artists - the artists are what inspires most people to check this site and get active, the best of position is where some member can get their 15 minutes of fame which is cool to see and the news/forums is why we come here.
I totally agree. Images are neat, but they take up too much space if you want to see what's "new"...

About one vs. two rows...if it should be done with two rows, I think that the "landscape" format of the images is pretty good. The 12th image could be "empty" in some kind of way...with a "this spot could be yours" message. If implemented properly, the landscape format could also save some vertical space while the images still can be somewhat big. I guess two rows can be pretty good if we want somewhat big images.

I would like to see an image with all 11 images on one row (same aspect ratio as they were before when there were less of them) and an image with 12 images on two rows, in some kind of "clever" landscape format. If we can see them side by side I guess it will be easier to actually compare them (height difference in total, image size difference, etc.)

[Jason Manley]

im not giving up....all twelve featured artists get thumnails...as big as possible on the top of the page...or near the top...

right now we are swing back toward GFXARTIST.COM in terms of the look and layout....i like those guys over there...i dont want to lift their site unintentionally...if ya know what i mean...is there anything we can do to keep it from looking too much like the old cgchannel or gfxartist.com?

j

[Pontemonti]

Originally posted by Jason Manley
is there anything we can do to keep it from looking too much like the old cgchannel or gfxartist.com?
Gfxartist.com is cool. I like the look of it, really, but I don't like the navigation stuff. We can do that better, and I believe it will be done better in the new design. The designs have so far been different compared to what gfxartist looks like, so we won't have to worry about that.
If you're talking features, though, maybe there are things we could do make the site stand out even more...the key is to come up with an idea that nobody has done before...Tutorials, reviews, links, and lots of art are must-haves, but what else? The Thunderdome is an important feature, as is the daily galleries and sketch groups...everything in the "Activities and Daily's" category...
So, what else? Some kind of scheduled chats (over IRC, I guess) would probably be nice if it could be done..."Talk to the pros"...maybe one of the pros can have a weblog...like a diary..."The life of [insert name here]". If it's somewhat well-written it could be an interesting read.
Last idea for now...some kind of "King of the hill" painting competition. One is the king of the hill and then there is one (or two? or more?) challenger. Everyone has to draw something (don't ask me what :P) and submit it before a given time (not more than a day, this should be fast stuff IMHO). Then the visitors get to vote for the best image for maybe a day, and the one who gets the most votes is the new king of the hill and a new "battle" starts immediately.

I don't know...I'm just brainstorming. This doesn't really have anything to do with the new design, though :D

[Jason Manley]

ponte your king of the hill idea is a GREAT IDEA

AHAHAHAHAHHA!


how fun!


j

the king stays up til he or she is defeated. do the best image ever...stay at the top...AWESOME...

[davi]

offtopic again, but brasshorse killer brought up an idea to me earlier,

basicly someone draws a figure on a hill in a custom, representing themselfs as a super hero, then someone draws someone next to him, until we fill up the piece with as many users want to do it, can you imagine 400 super heros looking all fancy?

[Jason Manley]

hahahahha....that sounds fun too

can i be Poorlydrawnman...champion of nolifedrawingland??

[blackhand]

Originally posted by davi
basicly someone draws a figure on a hill in a custom, representing themselfs as a super hero, then someone draws someone next to him, until we fill up the piece with as many users want to do it, can you imagine 400 super heros looking all fancy? [/B]

That piece could get HUGE, dimension wise and file size wise.. Unless of course, we split the image up, so certain people are assigned to a certain section and then we frankenstein the final image together. This sounds like huge fun, though.

One innovative 'feature' I suggest is a sort of online or IRC classroom. If a pro can donate his time, maybe he can teach a quick class over IRC and post images to the board/IRC channel/or web as he teaches the class. The benefit of doing this over IRC is that people can ask questions as the 'class' goes along. This goes one step beyond a non-interactive tutorial. And after class is over, students can post their work to the conceptart forum.

Think about having daily/weekly assignments as well that are 'graded' by the pro's. This really depends on the generosity of the pro's, but I think it'd be something people get excited about.

Conceptart needs to do things no one else has done before, but also capitalize on the professionals that contribute to this site--that's conceptart's most valuable asset, the artists.

This is my personal opinion, but I think the concepts that have been collaborated on here beat the pants off the gfxartist.site.

[Drakmarr]

Here is a quick toss around that I worked on this afternoon. It needs some tweaking but I wanted to hear some feedback before I spend any more time on its structure.
http://www.mythic-studio.com/example-layout.jpg

[wassermelone]

Drakmarr: Sorry, but Ill be blunt... I really dislike that layout...
I dont know what it is about it that I dislike though =(

[skrubbles]

really? I think Drakmarr is heading in the right direction with the layout... I also like the colors that were used... I wasn't a big fan of the ugly red/purple/tan theme.

[Android]

Drakmar, i think you are heading in the right direction, I like all of the previous designs but out of respect for other forums like cgchat who has a similar look at feel, we need something that sets us apart from thier direction, we are getting closer every day guys, thank you so much for all of your help,

[Pontemonti]

Yeah, I like it Drakmarr. Some things could need some improvement IMHO...That "Artist" thingy at the top...the title image or whatever I should call it...I don't think it looks _that_ good...I'm not sure what I want it to look like, though.

Next, some cells could use some bordering...at least I would like to see what it would look like...too many borders everywhere can make it look ugly, though. Thin borders (1 pixel) in a color very similar to the cells' backgrounds could work.

Last thing, I'm not sure if this list of online members is good to have here...too much text and stuff...it makes things look confusing in some kind of way. I would rather have a nice list of online users like the one at gfxartist.com...but I don't really see the purpose of it. It would be better to be able to click some kind of link and get a popup window (or just another page of some sort) with online users. Maybe something like this would work:
"Current active users: 80
Click here to see who is online"

That's all I had for now. Keep up the good work guys! :)

[Erik]

Hey!

A different design! Cool! -- every new idea should be mixed in the end result and it will be fantastic!

Some of that looks very refreshing. The horizontal splitting of the page looks ok to me, the top artists too even if they look like it is now (but they are really big! maybe some changing content should be placed just above them so they are still completely visible on 800x600 but there is also something that changes?) and i think guest artist and spotlight artists are cool. These designs i could also incorporate to see how they look in the sketch blackhand and i worked on.

Maybe grayscale is better but the colors are fixed i think.

I don't really like what happens with the header blocks to the left though, they are a bit space-eaters.

The overall placement of stuff is i think confusing since i don't really know what to think of the texts - the overall view is one that's not really broken into different areas where types of content and interest are grouped togehter. THat way you need heavy borders to break up the page. And if you use those borders everywhere they take up a lot of brain-estate that could be used to appreciate the illustrations.

To make your idea a little clearer maybe replace the text about the online users everywhere but the place it's going to be with either 'real content' or with a few random text paragraphs (can be found at Lorem Ipsum (http://www.lipsum.com) )

Why is everything italics and smoothed? That won't look as nice when it's in a real browser i think...

Keep it up!

----------------------------

NOTE:

I think a decision should be made if the front page is to be a 'splash' page or a 'news and overview' kind of page. The two are getting mixed up and don't easily co-exist IMO

[Erik]

Hey Android,

What exactly do you mean with a similar look and feel?

I looked up cgchat and it links directly into the forum section (white background)

CGTalk and CGChallenge are much more 'glossy' magazine like. CGChallenge and gfxartist are basically the same layout and have the same L&F...

Could you post a shortlist of the forums you respect, love and would be on par with, but not want to rip-off?

Because i don't see the way the designs so far are similar except in the features that is on the forum, i.e. they have similar content-types (images, artists, news...)

To counter it i think Davi's idea of having a really special unique feature works best. Better than any visual gimmick that might take away from usability anyway.

I liked the king of the hill idea since it changes rapidly and has people participate.

Maybe a story/graphic novel that has a sort of fixed storyline / setting in which people could participate by drawing a page of the story?

Or a world / setting where members could participate in creating concepts of places and characters for? I don't know that would go too much towards a project type thing i guess.

[God-Of-Zilla]

Of course I had to try out something cause I think the new design will rock. :)
This one was a speed-painting I made in the Sijun Thread, I added more color and saturation on this one. what do you think?

http://www.lensflares.net/Speedpaintings/busyREDS2.jpg

Matthew

[Phait]

You know.. I saw some layout ideas in this subject, and I have to say I guess I had no idea what I was offering getting into..

lotta work.. kinda intimidating and confidence-testing..

Sorry for getting any hopes up w/ my help, I can't :|

[Android]

Erik - I refrenced the wrong link , the one i was thinking about was the www.gfxartist.com , my apologies.

s-matthew, thanks for the banner,

Phait, - I saw some of your websie designs , i think you are being too modest or you not giving yourself enough credit.;)

[endregan]

I can help. ive been designing for a while and know how to make layouts and code etc. u can see my stuff at www.visiblesurface.com. btw i like your ideas so far. !

[God-Of-Zilla]

I think all artist feel that their pieces are no good, I know I am anyway, but it should be a good thing...or? ...hmm, yes it should be a good thing.

Android - Thanks for feedback , I love your art. :)

I saw in the earlier discussion that there were some people that didn´t wanna have the red but I like the red in the design, maybe I am too late but I wanted to say it anyway.
I made one more banner which was also made as a speedy and placed on my site for the update I made yesterday.
you could use red, orange and brown in the shading for the site.

http://www.lensflares.net/Speedpaintings/busyREDS3.jpg

Matthew

[Erik]

Hey Android - no need for apologies of course it's just that i didn't (and don't still) see the similarity to those other forums, including gfxartist...

Maybe you disagree with me on that but to me gfxartist doesn't look the same in L&F either, and that's reinforced by the fact that they don't really show art on the page directly. I think the concepts presented so far are extraordinary in the amount of art shown.

Nice banners btw and Phaitt, please try because we're seem to be getting stuck!

[Phait]

Ok offtopic - sorry, but theres not really a 'forum help' section around here..

I go to change my avatar by clicking the 'change avatar' button in the cpanel but it just gives me a notification that i changed my av. but i was given no opportunity to specify an avatar.. also theres no way to edit my status either..

bah!

[Phait]

i even e-mailed about this and it's been weeks and no reply.

</bad customer service>

[Jason Manley]

hahahahah

davi may know...i have no idea what yer answers are as far as the above questino

pontemonti will know but im not sure if his internet is fully up...you could try sending him a pm...he is pretty busy now...but its worth a shot.

j

[davi]

*coughs blood up*

• User CP
• Edit Options
• Scroll down toe avatar
• Change avatar
• Avatar Link: ENTER YOUR AVATAR LINK
• Click use avatar

[Phait]

The problem is this

when I click 'change avatar' - it immedately thanks me for changing the avatar - and there was no field to type in the link to any avatar.

[franz]

Originally posted by Phait
when I click 'change avatar' - it immedately thanks me for changing the avatar - and there was no field to type in the link to any avatar.
Does it really say something about avatars or is it "Thanks for updating your profile"? You should be redirected to the avatar options after that

[Erik]

Erm...

I really think this is not the thread for that discussion guys ... unless it's really as dead as it sometimews seems.

[Jason Manley]

its not DEAD..hahah....sorry...its been a very very busy couple weeks for me.

erik...do you have aim? I forget.

I need help to get this going again...I really want to get the new site up in the next couple weeks...wishful thinking i guess.


j

[Erik]

I figured you were on cruch time ;-) hope it works out ;-)

No problem to get going with it but i have not that much time the coming month myself. Enough to help out though.

I now have IRC -- we could go in IRC and make a channel for the people interested in the thread and discuss there... AIM did weird stuff to my machine so i had to remove it. I do have MSN.

Just let me know.

[blackhand]

Originally posted by Erik
We could go in IRC and make a channel for the people interested in the thread and discuss there... AIM did weird stuff to my machine so i had to remove it. I do have MSN.


I second this...or just revive this thread. I'm available to help out as well, seeing as that I'm out of work right now.

[Erik]

hum... the legion of the Unemployed is growing... hope you find something soon man!

(hope i do too ;-) money starts to run out)

[Jason Manley]

i am free tonight after 8 eastern standard time....

we can go on irc or something...I want to work on this over the weekend.


j

[blackhand]

Hahahaha...Erik, I didn't recently lose my job. I've been out of work going on 6 months now. And yes, money does start to run out.

I don't think I'll be able to meet you guys on IRC tonight--going to watch X-men 2 and kick people in the face from sheer geek excitement.

I'll be around, though.

[Erik]

2000 Eastern -- is that like 0200 CET? Around DSG time (not DSG EU)

Hmmm. It's late but hey, my chica is visiting her parents anyway ;-) and it's a friday so i might be a little alcoholic at that moment ;-) i'll try to keep down on beer and take some cokes in stead. As if i could do that.

I'll check into IRC then and see if i meet you guys there.

[Erik]

Hey sorry bout the IRC guys - i'm falling over. it's 3.17 AM over here. Stupid programming stuff kept me busy with no track of time. But that's were geeks are for. :-/

Well - i'll try to get in touch tomorrow then. If the weather keeps like this i wont be away from this little window on the world this weekend ;-)

zzzzzzz....

[Grifter730]

I read the first few posts, and jumped to this last page. Are you guys still needing layouts? Or do you already have one?

[Manta_Ray]

Sorry to kidnap the thread...but while you guys are going through the process of building a site could we maybe start a thread showing newbs like myself how you would go about it...ie what do you need to know if you want to build a forum website like this? I would love to know whats needed....:rolleyes:

No really...I want to do it....anyone?

[amphex]

I would love to help with this, and am free for the next couple of weeks to devote time to whatever you need, so I think it would be helpful, not only to me but also to many others, to post a description of how much you guys have done so far, and what else you need.

[God-Of-Zilla]

So what is happening with the development? have you guys stopped with working on it?

Matthew

[Grifter730]

<shrug>
None of the big boys seem to reply much anymore :(

[Jason Manley]

been very busy with work....things are lightening up though so I will have some time to get it finished with the other guys involved.

andrew and i discuss the new site direction almost nightly and thus we have it all figured out...we just have to gather a few things together and then finalize it.

watch for it in the next few weeks....Id like to have it up sometime late june early july if possible...we shall see.

[davi]

my head hurts

[God-Of-Zilla]

Davi - because of the development?

Jason - thank you for the answer.

Matthew

[Pontemonti]

Originally posted by davi
my head hurts
LOL!

i'm bored

[fell]

Originally posted by davi
my head hurts

sissy

[cain]

I 'm yer man, Mr Layout i have got some great ideas that could work.?

[God-Of-Zilla]

I am excited every day before I log on to Conceptart whether there is gonna be an update or not, I hope it will be soon. :)

see you
Matthew

[endregan]

If yall need help i dont mind coding, working on it, slicing in, developing,.. whatever it takes its been a while. needs a little something fresh. I understand a lot of you are busy so if you need help Im here... just pm me or something!

[Hexal]

I haven't had a chance to read the whole thread just some bits here and there... but i think the lay look Amazing I love it so far.

Can't wait to see the end result.

-HExAL

[Sammy]

The reason I ever started to post on this site vs the others is because the layout is so clean and simple.. I think what is being done so far is a bit complex / busy

[Will!]

There are some pretty good ideas and designs listed.

Question though...
Those this mean the forums will get redesigned in the future?

Also is too late for me to add more interpretation of a new "ConceptArt" site?


X

[Jason Manley]

add anything you like :)

we are working on stuff right now.


jason

[Jason Manley]

btw...yes we will be doing some additions to the forums...as well.....but only after the new main page is up and finished.

j

[bustabustu]

The new layout looks pretty cool but please don't make it super complex like deviant art. I think it would be a wise idea to make it so the user can change the layout through their CP. I'm not just talking about the forum I'm talking about the whole site.

Thanks, ME

[el_kyrre]

i am with sammy on this one!

in my oppinion the layout is getting too complex!
it looks nice and stuff... but it is nothing really user-friendly so far. it´s toooo busy.

[AmadorL]

Hey Jason I have an Idea I don't know if it will work or how practical it is but it goes something like this:
What if once you have the new site going you divide the talents allowing armatures and pee'ons to view in certain section only. But keep the Current PM system. Maybe have pee'ons, armature, and Pros. Of course you can have sections where everything goes. I don’t know if this would work or not but I thought about it after a pint of J.D. :D

I bet there are many pros and cons but I have not seen this before and it could be a hit.

Maybe someone else can elaborate.

Amador

[Gillespie]

<...>. Dividing it like that will only bring pain and suffering. If the one's labelled 'pros' want to communicate secretly, there is nothing to stop them from creating a page or passage on here that circumvents the community.

A great thing for me about Conceptart is that there are few, if any barriers or hinderances between a person that is new to everything (a bit like myself), and a person that has it as his/her profession, <...>.

With a system like that, people would draw, paint and talk for the wrong reasons I feel. For merit, accolades and recognition that, if left as the primal objective, would be synthetic and dividing, and come instead or ahead of being friends with, learning from and giving eachother respect and consideration, which I find alot more valuable and safe to have as a root when relating with/to someone or something.

Apart from that, I think the labelling of a person on this site has reached as far as it can without being unhealthy, with titles like Legendary Hero and the likes, and only a select few appearing on the front page!



Also, I would like to know if it's possible to create something like 'I saw it and I really dug it' type of markers or things, instead of writing it out. Sort of like not a post, but something that says the users name and thus the original poster will know that someone has viewed it, but there won't be any posts like 'Wow. Sweet work man!' and so on, and if there is more lengthy criticism, it can be written out in a post, keeping everything on point and not digressing too much, so there isn't 5 pages of 'good/bad stuff' comments and one with thoughts about the illustration(s).

Not that I dislike comments, but maybe those who don't usually comment like that, would give some kind of feedback if it were that easy, and it would be easier to navigate too, since the amount of text would decrease.

Like a drop down box that went with the original post somewhere, and we could add our name, a short comment and a number to it (a rating. Maybe not a good idea). That box wouldn't take up too much space, and there wouldn't be so much clutter, and even the ones who don't know what to write would post, just to give recognition (i.e. a rating and a comment aren't necessary. Hell maybe even the name could be left out :)).

[bustabustu]

How are we doing on the new layout?

[LaPalida]

Years ago I offered to do the redesign to the site ... I didn't do it yet please don't beat me. Although I will still try to do something I might not be in time so I have a couple of pointers. I think that the original layout has a flaw. I dunno if anyone else noticed but I thought it was a bit illogical to put the info of the guy posting below his post ... I thought that it should be either on the left side or at the top where his name is. Just logical association, first time users tend to get lost.

I'll try to give more pointers as I notice them.

[Redder]

For us ADHD people, please include some "shinny" buttons to click on. We tend to get distrac...oh...shinny penny on my desk.

[amphex]

Whatever happened to this.....CONCEPTART.ORG V2 = dead?

:(