Topic: Bonfire Coalition

I suppose it's time for this project of mine to be critiqued. You'll notice that it isn't yet complete. Lots of content to add yet.

Gimme what you got.

Edit: And I'll give YOU the url - www.bonfirecoalition.com


It's pronounced "Spikes!"

[This message has been edited by SPyX (edited 10-27-2003).]

I like the look, but a few things here and there bother me...

The content area seems a bit plain, especially because there's nothing that visually sets the columns apart from one another, aside from the borders. I think it'd look better if you used a different background/foreground color combo for the left and right columns, to make the layout look more defined. I think you need a bit more padding on all the columns. As it is, the text seems cramped, right up against the borders, almost.

For some reason, the subheads really bother me. I don't know if it's the cartoon-ish script font you're using, the little hyphens, or the fact that they're yellow and red They just don't look right to me.

The little square mugshots remind me a lot of the ones on the Webmonkey homepage, although I'm sure that wasn't intentional

Also, your links go from dark red, to yellow on :hover, which I think is sort of odd. I've always believed that links should become more distinct when you roll over them, and yellow on white is pretty hard to read.

Overall, though, good job! It looks clean, and well organized

Maybe it's because I don't follow the current affairs in the US, but I spent a good 5+ minuites searching your site yesterday for some kind of information that would tell me what and who the hell this bonfire chick was and why the hell there was a site about her / it, whatever.

You might want to try and rectify that issue, even if most native americans would know, your site should always have a clear definition as to what the hell it's about. In any event, I got fed up with trying to figure it out and in turn, didn' really feel like reviewing it. Sorry. But ozphactor seems to have done a good job of that anyhow.

Did you bother to read the front page? I would assume not since you refer to Bonfire as a "chick." But, it pretty much spells it out at the very beginning with the "Who are we" and "Message from our chair" sections. (After reading your comments again, I realize that you are wondering what Bonfire itself was and is. First, that information will be added soon en masse. Second, the site isn't primarily about Bonfire, but rather about the group that is trying to bring it back. Third, about 95% of visitors to the site will already know about Bonfire to some extent. Until everything is up feel free to read the linked news item.)

[Digression]You know Drac, I really look up to you. . . or at least your work. Everything I have ever seen you produce has inspired me in some way. Your project site. . . I forget the name of it but it is down now. . . it was my main motivation and learning tool when I did my first site ever. But recently most of your comments seem to be incresingly snide and snobbish, as if people are insulting you by making mistakes or doing work that isn't up to your standards. You're free to speak/feel that way. I realize that. You have absolutely no duty to me or anyone else on this forum. I appreciate help and will take it any way I can get it, but just know that to someone who respects you, it's more than a little disapointing.[/Disgression]

Oz: I disagree with you fundamentally on the links. The hover effect is simply to let the user know that he is on top of a link. One would assume that the user already knows what the link is for if he is about to click on it. If you believe that the link should be more distinct when moused-over then you imply that the link was LESS distinct normally which would be a very bad thing. Now, as for the hover being yellow, it is just the same as the yellow everywhere else on the page but I agree that it may not work on the white background so it is something I'll look into changing. That's what's wonderful about CSS eh?

I could add more padding to the collumns but I think that would make it hard to read at 800x600. I'll look into that as well.

Thanks!
Keep em coming.

Actually, I did read the front page. The part about "Our organization is dedicated to bringing back Aggie Bonfire" sounds like you'er trying to bring back some person to me, and Aggie sounds like a female name.

As for me being snide and or snobbish, I don't mean to come across that way. If I do than I apologise and I'll try and keep a close eye on how I transfer my thoughts to my keyboard in the future. When I said, "I got fed up with trying to figure it out and in turn, didn' really feel like reviewing it." I was simply being honest.

That and I do tend to get a little anal during the last few weeks of the university semester. Coming here helps me get away from the real world for a bit but I'm likely not in the most happy happy joy joy mood if you know what I mean. Although I do believe that everyone should live up to the highest standards possible at all times, if you don?t then you run the risk of getting contempt with being mediocre ? which is one of my biggest fears.

Anyways, having finished my blastared phyc paper, I'm in a much better mood tonight...

So, the site huh. Well, yellow and red is usually a colour scheme I'd avoid like the plague as it's so darn difficult to get working well, but things aren't looking too bad at the moment.

Uniform:
You have a definable colours scheme and an identifiable image to tie up the visual imagery of your site (fire), but I think more can be done to help establish unity and a sense of order within these elements. For example, the header image uses different fonts to the little icon under the "message from out chair" logo/icon; it also uses different colours and a different fire image. Try and unify these as much as possible. Find a really yummy fire image, or create/draw out a nice vector shape that you can use to tie everything back to being "bonfire".

Logo:
I like the font choices for the most part, but I'm not sure about the inverse italics you've got going in the main header image. I think such bold words would fell better if they were standing strong and straight. The big bold font works well, epically seeing as you have "Coalition" in your name, and I think the cursive font (for students) helps to represent activity and ties back into the "fire" concept well. However, I do not like the colours used in the header image. The grey text with a white stroke and the white text with a black stroke is my first problem. Three shades for two elements, with no apparent order, makes things look messy to me. How about butting the main title type in white and the "for students" in yellow like the sub headings you have in the columns. This would also help create a little more unity. However, if you?re going to have overlapping type in different fonts, maybe something extra like a slight drop shadow would help to separate the two.


Colour:
I like the colours; I also like the white background as I think anything other then white would cause major headaches trying to make the red/yellow work well. Although, I think the red could be a little more saturated (just a little).

Lines & borders:
I think this is the part that really pulls things down for me. The lines in this design don't seem to make much sense and really seem to make it look overly messy and dated IMHO. For starters, I don't see where the "scan lines" fit into any of this (in the little profile pics and the main header). I'm getting images of fire, seeing a graphical treatment coined in tech related interfaces seems out of place. It's a cheap effect, yet it works very well in certain situations but I honestly think it'd be better left out of the design all together here. This goes for the big vertical white lines on either side of the header image, too much and too out of place IMHO.

Anyways, onto the borders. You have many different colour borders/strokes. Line is a very powerful tool and as such can be overused very easily. I suggest you remove every single line and border and start over, approaching things with a "only seperate where absolutely needed" frame of mind. On thing that often kills sites with white background is that people hack them up too much. Simple 1px light grey lines are all you need to represent a division. You?re presenting a page of information, not boxing it up to be sent through the mail. There are also places where you probably don't need any lines as a simple bold heading and a paragraph break is enough to represent division in content. Additionally, with a white background you don't need the text to be full black to be readable, often greys work better for this, epically in screen based media.

One final thing regarding colour and hierarchy, if you have a light coloured background, dark colours will appear as if they are in the foreground and the opposite will happen with a dark coloured background. Something you might want to keep in mind when tweaking your colours if you?re using that dark read header and a white background for the site.

Awesome, OK I've made some changes based on y'alls' feedback. The scanlines on the pictures are gone. I knew they were cheap and should never have gone that route. I think I'm going to keep the lines in the header however as they don't really read technoish. More like penstripes as was the intent. I took away the vertical lines in the header, they would only work properly in IE anyway. I made the lines in the body thinner and removed one.

Need to clarify something before we continue. The color is maroon not red. It is between red and violet, biased towards red. Maroon is my school's color so that was pretty much decided before I ever began. The yellow color was the closest I could come to a compimentary color as I wasn't about to use puke yellow/green.

I didn't make the logo so I can't really change it. I tried to find a font that was close.

Edit: I also changed the black text to dark grey and added a little padding to the center content area.
www.bonfirecoalition.com

[This message has been edited by SPyX (edited 10-30-2003).]

OK, I just have a quick question: why do you say "Aggie Bonfire" and not "the Aggie Bonfire"? I kind of figured that you were talking about a real bonfire (especially since I vaguely remember hearing something about that, but I can't remember exactly what), but it kind of dug into my side like a rusty razor blade while I was reading. And if you've ever had anyone sawing away at your side with a rusty razor blade, you know how distracting that can be.



Anyway, I was just curious why the "the" was left out. I imagine there's a reason...


___________________________
Suho: www.liminality.org

The answer to that Suho is pretty simple. It is a proper noun. To say "the aggie bonfire" would assume that there are other bonfires comparible to it. It would be like saying the Texas A&M University or the god. You just don't say things like that.

Edit: And Drac, an "Aggie" is basically a farmer. An aggricultural worker. My university began as an aggricultural and mechanical college. (A&M)

[This message has been edited by SPyX (edited 11-03-2003).]