Preserved Topic: Local music media site (Page 1 of 1)

This site is one of my main responsibilities and I'd love to hear your feedback on it. Every week, I improve its capabilities, but I am still far from satisfied. Tear it up, inmates: http://www.goelectronica.com

Three things:
1. Not too crazy about the font used in the headers such as "what's hot," "featured artist" and such. Hard to read IMHO. The "electronica" graphic took me a while of cross-eyed reading to figure out. The Fs and Ts look a lot alike. Just don't like it.

2. Can you add a thin strip below the various site link buttons in the top frame? Once I start scrolling the bottom frame I feel there needs to be a buffer, even if it is just a narrow one, between the frames.

3. Tons of text in that bottom frame. Kinda starts "blurring together" so to speak. Can you remove some older items and/or put lines between the columns to separate them? Just too much solid text for my tastes.

And what in the world is "southern fried punk?" How many different categories does the music industry need nowadays anyway? Sheesh ... whatever happened to the good ol days ...


BeeKay
Murphy's 50 Laws of Combat Operations
14. Never share a foxhole with someone braver than you.
31. If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid.

I actually like the colors used on this site. The bright blue on the dark blue looks somewhat electric to me.

I didn't like the amount of text without more definition in the body though. I realized there were 3 colomns there but my initial impression was just one big bucket of text smunched together. Perhaps some pinstriping or definition to the different text sections would help.'

I assume the top bar with the pull down and the advertisement are beyond your control but that looks yucky up there.

I also think I would prefer to see the menu bar and logo be compacted a bit more. Perhaps extending the menu options a bit wider so there are not two rows. I guess it seems to my eye like some space could be conserved there.

I like the crazy fonts, keep those.

I agree with most of what Bug sez there. The bit about the single row of nav would be great, looks like you start to get the horiz scrollbar at 730-750px which leaves room to spare if you line it up straight across in 1 row.

The clip-artish bg is not befitting a hip music scene site I don't reckon, maybe defining the 3 cols with some type of divider will kill both birds with one stone there.

I think the CGI submission page forms could use some work as well, the seafoamish green is not bad in your font titles but in a large field combined with the cyan it's abrasive. Those look a little barren on bigger resolutions too. I don't mind a small focus on a big screen but you've got the form, the banner area, and the top frame and nav and they all spread out, getting dis-jointed in bigger resolutions.

The font on your titles? I chose the very same one a few months ago to start "signing" digital art pieces with. It's a small world huh?

Mmm.. great comments. Thanks. I just recently went to three columns because I was getting so much content in. I think I'll drop non-local music entirely, but that's about all that can go.

I've been looking at it for so long I forgot about the column dividers - definitely a must, and I'll implement them as soon as possible.

The Planet Kosmos font rocks - except for those friggin T's and F's, which I have to pixel push just to make legible.

I have been STRUGGLING to find a way to integrate the GoTriCities (yes, out of my control - though all I am required to use is the logo and the pulldown menu) stuff, the banner, and the nav bar more smoothly. I have stuck the nav on two lines because I may add two or three buttons later...

The clip art in the back is my attempt to be *less* techno/trendy. Realize that many of the visitors that come to the site are big bluegrass fans (and a lot of Christian rock too). It's been a real challenge catering to the entire local music scene, believe me. I'd much rather be doing only Trance or something, but the demography wouldn't support a profitable site like that.

I like the colors, but I've been thinking about redesigning the layout to be similar to SoftImage's old site - soft gray plasticky stuff with nifty inset separators. I have GOT to integrate that header/nav/banner mess and establish continuity with the rest of the site....