From: Rochester, New York, USA Insane since: May 2000
posted 05-11-2006 15:25
This is an attempt to stick with a theme.
Would this be a step forward or a step back. I am not to sure I like the font, but I think to make this all pull together I do need a blocky font as the icons are blocky.
The plan would be to have the main background gray image change with the selection of the topic as would the content icon. I will also be creating over and on states for the different icons if I go with this idea so that it will have a litte feel of motion.
The over/on states will be important, as it is lacking in color.
I would recommend making the background image color as well, just faded.
The font is not particularly exciting, but it doesn't need to be. It would be worthwhile to play around with other fonts - mock it up with 5-10 different ones, and see how they look. You don't want anything extravagant, but you may find something that works better.
Alos keep in mind - staying coherent doesn't mean everything is the same, and keeping 'in theme' is something to be taken loosely.
Yes - this is a step forward. The major issue as far as the imagery is whether or not you feel it works to help represent you and your content. If so, then go with it!
It's nice and clean, but maybe a little to bland...
There seems to be a lack of colour, and it almost looks half-finished, I like the idea of pixel art, but some of the perspectives you've used are a little contradictory, for example the Technology link.
The thinig about pixel art is that it's reminiscent of times gone by, older computer games and childhood. these were times when colours were vibrant and usually a little in your face (in a good way). I would try and experiment with more colour, go big and bold with your title not plain black.
Maybe a thicker border would work better on your content area as well.
I like it the little dudes are great; hoping you animate 'em a little.
Maybe give em all different t-shirts, dunno just to add colour. Another thing I'd do, and that is match anti-aliased with aa and non with non, ye know. But thats me and I like pixel fonts etc..
Another that I notice is the links, the text for them seems a bit big, they'd stand out as much a few notches smaller and the page title should be bigger than the links imho.
The DC stamp is cool, but what happens when you learn something new? hehe
From: Rochester, New York, USA Insane since: May 2000
posted 05-11-2006 23:15
I have ditched the logo as I did not feel that it fit the design. I also added some colors, I wasn't sure how I would feel about the color at first but after I dove into it I found that I liked the result. I also changed the fonts a bit. The site is now using 3 different fonts, I think they play well together, but there might be some revisions on that as I spend more time looking at the site.
The pixel people got a little bit of an overhaul as their clothing changed. The consistant clothing had a good feel when drawing them but when they are all showing up it was a bit off.
For the mouse overs I was thinking of doing a two or three frame animated gif for them, but I am not sure if I will end up going through with that. I will have to see what works there.
Hugh, as for using a pixel font, I am a little unsure about that. When I think pixel font I think something 6 to 10 pixels high. Is that what you are talking about? When I tried this is just looked way too small.
The point about something new is a nice point, I didn't even think of that. There are things that I know that didn't make it onto the stamp. I still think that a logo of some kind would be cool to have up there but I don't think that is the one I should be using.
Thanks for the C&C you have given me thus far. I really appreciate it I feel as if I am learning a lot form what you have been telling me.
A sense of style and design is something that I have been told that you either have or you don't. I know that I don't have it, but I really hope if I keep studying what other people are doing and listening to the advice I am given that I could try to fake it to some extent.
From: Rochester, New York, USA Insane since: May 2000
posted 05-11-2006 23:18
I am looking at the two versions side by side and there is a noticable improvement in the second one. The first on seems very flat now while the second one seems more alive.
Next step would be: work on whitespace. You've got a lot of it, but your content text is cramped. Add larger padding to the inside of that box, or larger margins to <p>'s within it. Play with your border a bit - thicker would definitely work well here (vary the thickness too...)
I would also still recommend adding a background inside the content, making it appear as though it is translucent over the page background (it needs to be *very* faint, but would be a nice touch IMO).
Also, important to note: since reading Blaise's response, the different perspectives suggested by the 'technology' and 'experience' icons is really perturbing me...
And getting picky about placement - I would really like to see the main header (DanCurran) over to the left about another 50-100 pixels. Would help with the overall flow I think.
From: Rochester, New York, USA Insane since: May 2000
posted 05-12-2006 00:27
Could you elaborate on the problem with the perspective? What would the fix be for this. With the image of the white board I think I could make that flush agains the background and not angled. But I am not sure how I would give the idea of a computer without having the computer displayed at an angle.
I have been told that the _rainbow_ colors in the links don't feel right. The sugestion was to use only a single color instead of the mix. Any opinions on that?
As for the translucence in the text area, I am a little concerned about the implimentation of that. It is easy to do in PS when I am working with something static, but having it work well on the web might be interesting. I will give it a try. I think I am going to do one more mock up of this and then start slicing this up and turning it into a template.
Let me go back and take a look at the white space issue.
This type of pixel artwork is generally based on strictly set angles which set the illusion of perspective without using perspective... These oddly conflicting angles shatter the illusion created by the strict angle concept.
Many people use a grid when creating such artwork to ensure that angles and sizes are kept in line.
I think the multicolored links are something that is needed to keep this layout feeling alive. You may want to play with using different colors, see what kind of variations you can get out of it. It is important to keep the colors working together, but there are a lot of ways to go with it.
As for the background - as long as you maintain the same top and left values for the box, you will have no problems at all. The box can grow or shrink (in regard to both width and height), and the illusion stays the same.
From: Madison, Indiana, USA Insane since: Aug 2000
posted 05-12-2006 18:26
I have three suggestions:
1) Make the page background a different color from the text area background. For example, since the text area is #FFFFFF white, make the page background #EEEEEE to off set the text area.
2) In regards to the icon perspective. You could make each of the icons with a slightly different perspective so that the first one is facing directly out of the screen, the second one turns a little to the left (its right), the next one turns a little more to the left, etc. So that the one at the bottom has the largest rotation. It would be difficult to do, and probably wouldn't scale well, but it would make the page more interesting than if they all had exactly the same perspective.
3) Reduce the size of the header text. With your name in color, it over powers the rest of the page.
By the way, I think this page is a vast improvement over where you started.
quote: hyperbole said:
2) In regards to the icon perspective. You could make each of the icons with a slightly different perspective so that the first one is facing directly out of the screen, the second one turns a little to the left (its right), the next one turns a little more to the left, etc. So that the one at the bottom has the largest rotation. It would be difficult to do, and probably wouldn't scale well, but it would make the page more interesting than if they all had exactly the same perspective.
For the reasons stated in my previous post, I have to strongly disagree with this approach!
From: Rochester, New York, USA Insane since: May 2000
posted 05-12-2006 20:57
I was not too sure about #2 either. I did not like how it was flat in the previous example. I have shrunk the title and have added some texture to the background.
Pull the content box and put the title and the menu into containers that surround the content.
The links might be served better being treated as buttons, right now they are just hanging off to the side.
No!
(IMHO, of course )
The last thing you want to do is start boxing everything up. That will destroy the flow and feeling you have going here.
The texture works for the background, but I would lighten it up a bit. You don't need much difference between the content and background for it to be effective.
The 45 degree angle works fine. The standard used for this type of things is around 27, I think. But as long as it is constant, it's fine.
I think it might be time to get this into code, and see where it goes from there.
I think the background is niffty. I think the concept is cool but a bit childish for a portfolio site in my unprofessional opinion. Overall I think it looks great.
There is certaintly enough colour in it now. Am unsure of how good it would look with more pages, will that be scrolly div? And the grey background looks really good, making the content pane look a little transparent.
There is still something odd I can't put my finger on, I guess the flow of it all is a bit like centered text, and the menu looks a little egg shaped.
Have you tried it with all the content on the left and the title and menu on the right? Just an idea.
Pull the content box and put the title and the menu into containers that surround the content.
I'm not sure what you mean by the above statement but have you considered using a smaller font for your title (slightly larger than your links) and placing it directly above your links, than increasing your content are to cover almost all of the pixel guy? Honestly, I don't like the design that much but this will give you more room to work with and since the contrast between your text and the background is pretty good, you won't sacrifice readability.
have you considered using a smaller font for your title (slightly larger than your links) and placing it directly above your links, than increasing your content are to cover almost all of the pixel guy?
From: Madison, Indiana, USA Insane since: Aug 2000
posted 05-14-2006 22:10
DL-44:
I misunderstood what you were talking about when you we explaining perspective. I thought you were talking about the direction the icon was facing and that is what my comment was addressed to.
Now that I go back and look at the relationship between the figure (of the person) and the other objects in the icon, I see the perspective mis-alignment you are talking about and I totally agree with you with regards to the perspective being consistent within all the icons.
Wow, it's really good to see the development of this site, it's really coming along.
I like the grey background, really helps in my opinion, the Links do help more colour, perhaps the colours are too contrasting however, think about using softer tones, try looking on google for Colour scheme generators.
There are a few sites out there that have their own pixel style, EBOY is perhaps one of the most popular, I'm not a huge fan of his work, but he's done pretty much everything pixal art wise.
You mentioned containing your links in another box/area like your content is. I don' think it would be the end of the world, and depending where your title ends up I think it may complement the content and leave the design feeling less free-form, more complete.
I still think the border on your content area should be thicker, about half as think as the font-weight for the navigation.
Finally with regards perspective and pixel art, read through the wikipedia entry on pixel art, it has some useful links to pixel art sites, and has links to some good tutorials, you'll notice that you'v used a combination of isometric and non-isometric perspectives, this confuses the eye.
This is just a quick idea, its another way to add colour basically without multicolouring the text, and also how to get away with darkening the text colours.
Too drastic? I dunno, but I like the newer lego men,
Also, for experience, I recon you could come up with something better than a guy with a graph, maybe an old man.
Your concept is improving with each revision but I have to be honest in saying that I don't think it looks very good. Hugh's suggestion is the best thus far but I personally wouldn't use it ...
I'm with Jestah there SuperDan, I'm not sure about the pixel stuff. You're a programmer yeah? Are you trying to show that you can produce graphics as well then? I think you'd do better to just concentrate on content, typography and white space, then if you need to demonstrate graphics capability do so with the header/name and accents like list bullets and link hover stuff or somesuch
I just think you may be trying to hard at the visual aspect when the textual content is the entire purpose. The whole theme around distracts from the importantce and relevance of the text in my opinion.
Looks like you're having fun tho, I really like that experience rollover concept! I tried something similar about 3 years ago, ended up scrapping that one but the concept is solid and original
Are you trying to show that you can produce graphics as well then?
Let's be honest here: the graphics involved here are not a showcase for someone looking to land a graphic design job.
They are simple, straightforward, and IMO, not distracting at all. Whether the style fits other people's personal tastes or not is not really relevant. They do the job, which is to help present the content, with a small bit of fun.
Would I use this for my site? No. Why? Because it doesn't represent me in any way. IMO, this design does a fair job of representing Dan - and that's what it's all about.
Let me also add that Hugh's version, IMO, *is* rather distracting, and pulls away from the content far too much.
The object here is to keep it relatively simple while also being sure to offer a representation of the person in question.
quote: JKMabry said:
I think you'd do better to just concentrate on content, typography and white space
From: Rochester, New York, USA Insane since: May 2000
posted 05-21-2006 06:07
In the honor of brevity.
I am not attempting to promote my graphics skills (which I know that I do not have). What I am is a good programmer and administrator. I want to display the skills that I do have along with highlighting the important pieces of experience that I have.
The goal is to be a place that I can direct clients or potensial clients to and give them an overview of my programming skills and experience.
So in the end I just want a site.
I have been having fun with this site, and I am learning a good deal.
Jestah, I agree that this current iteration is most likely not going to work in the end, but it has been a very good learning experience, and the final draft is a far improvement over the original from this concept, and the original in this vein is an improvement over my previous attempts.
I believe I have to spend more time on typography and whitespace. I am interested in examples or resources that might help me to learn what I am attempting to do here.
It has been a topic that is thrown around a good deal, but I am still not entirely sure what I am trying to achomplish.
posted 05-11-2006 15:25
