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  #1  
Old Oct 4, 2007, 09:02 AM
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Default Site Design Overhaul

We've begun implementing some design changes to the site, starting with the logo and the front page. Ultimately we hope to make the site simple to navigate, easy on the eyes and content focused -- not to mention standards compliant! Do sound off in the forum if you have any suggestions to make.
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  #2  
Old Oct 4, 2007, 07:20 PM
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It's pretty nice to see those shades of blue disappear after staring at them for 7 years. I wouldn't normally have thought that I'd like a chocolate color scheme, but it's working pretty well here. I can't wait to see the album page.
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Old Oct 4, 2007, 07:51 PM
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There'll be dark and light colour schemes, eventually, and it'll be all stylesheet controlled so we can have a unified template.
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  #4  
Old Oct 6, 2007, 03:33 PM
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I like the new logo a lot and am looking forward to seeing the new schemes. I keep thinking I'm on GFF when I open VGMdb's in a tab and wander off for a while. =p

What colours will you be working with?
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Old Oct 7, 2007, 10:12 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sword Serenity View Post
I like the new logo a lot and am looking forward to seeing the new schemes. I keep thinking I'm on GFF when I open VGMdb's in a tab and wander off for a while. =p

What colours will you be working with?
You should take a look at the front page. :Q
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  #6  
Old Oct 7, 2007, 10:28 AM
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I haven't actually decided on the light scheme yet. Maybe I'll inverse a screenshot in Photoshop and tweak with the colours.
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Old Oct 8, 2007, 12:09 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel View Post
You should take a look at the front page. :Q
I did before I posted and noticed it was still mostly blue apart from some light brown text. Q:
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  #8  
Old Oct 8, 2007, 03:27 AM
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It's much more desaturated compared to GFF's main scheme.
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  #9  
Old Oct 8, 2007, 01:37 PM
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I want to prop niki's drawing on the news and comments section.
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  #10  
Old Oct 10, 2007, 09:23 PM
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I think it looks great Blah... very web 2.0
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  #11  
Old Oct 14, 2007, 08:20 PM
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Who did the site logo and the "mascot" at the bottom of the home page. Simple but pretty nifty.
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  #12  
Old Oct 14, 2007, 09:30 PM
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I drew up the logo concept during my vacation in China. The mascot was done by niki as another possible banner, it was too good not to use.
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  #13  
Old Oct 17, 2007, 03:25 PM
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The new layout of the main page is great. The navigation bar at the very top makes site use a lot better. The color scheme I don't care much for; blue, gray, and brown/tan don't seem to mesh well together. The shape and content of the new logo looks good, but the style could use a tiny bit of gloss, even if going for the "flat" look. It currently looks just a step up from being done in MSPaint. I don't see much improvement on the album page currently. The info underneath the album cover could totally go in the right sidebar, and the tracklist could then be expanded to fill the unused area under the cover. If that was done, then the new design (with its collapsible right sidebar) would definitely work well.

Last edited by Kaleb.G; Oct 17, 2007 at 03:27 PM.
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  #14  
Old Oct 21, 2007, 05:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaleb.G View Post
The info underneath the album cover could totally go in the right sidebar, and the tracklist could then be expanded to fill the unused area under the cover. If that was done, then the new design (with its collapsible right sidebar) would definitely work well.
I'd have to disagree with Kaleb on this. I think Blah's original concept, with the unconventionally centered tracklist and with the album stats to the left of it was very neat looking - even if it resulted in a some two-row tracktitles here and there.

On another note: Why were the additional album titles changed from size1 bold to size2? I think this change makes them look too intrusive.
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  #15  
Old Oct 21, 2007, 06:21 PM
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I like the larger secondary titles, because they are easier to read with my old-man eyes.
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  #16  
Old Oct 21, 2007, 06:23 PM
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Intially I though I had cramped the tracklist too much since I was designing on a widescreen monitor, but it turns out that tracknames on average are short and should fit decently even with columns on both sides. I think the main issue was that the left column was left largely empty since the stats don't take up a lot of vertical space. That could be rectified once we normalize the game/platform information (data displayed in rows rather than separated with commas) and place links to external resources and sites below that area.

I tweaked the size of the additional titles for better readability. To compensate I've lowered the color contrast, tell me if it makes any improvement.
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  #17  
Old Oct 21, 2007, 10:07 PM
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Oh, I just noticed you changed it in a way like I previously mentioned. I have to say I like this current look better. Thank you.

But as was just said by you, the left column may be a good idea to return if we later find too much data popping up in the right column.
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  #18  
Old Nov 9, 2007, 03:03 PM
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I just wanted to say I love all of the new changes. The logo and icons look really nice. The new layout of the main navigation section up top is perfect. Title display settings appear to be handled flawlessly. You're putting great effort into this and it has paid off.

Things that could be improved:
- When the user loads the page for the first time, input focus should be set inside the search box (like at Google where you load the page and can start typing your search right away).

That's honestly all I can mention right now without nitpicking. The new artist system looks awesome too, but that's a subject for a different thread.
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  #19  
Old Nov 10, 2007, 11:03 PM
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Seconds to the logo (though it looks like the background in the forums needs to be changed to the new shade for it). I liked the original change to the VGMdb logo, but this one definitely looks a lot less flat.

Kudos on the design of the other small graphics around the place too. The entire site's getting more and more visually pleasing.
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