[IMC-US] Re: design issues

[Garth Liebhaber]

hi gang,

I think I'm already on the tech list just for following along.  I don't think i have the tech skills to be of use this weekend, 
though.
 
I am an art person though and most of my design thoughts were in that direction.  I just checked the mockup (http://
us.michiganimc.org/) and see that the color on the left bar has changed from that sandy color to blue.  I have to say that the 
site as it is right now is not bad.  

1.) the color hierarchy is working, though the hotlinks aren't turning color once used
2.) "Local Interest" and "Elsewhere" are working with their black text.  if the font was a size bigger it might work even better
3.) I like the craftyness of the banner graphic, but don't like that we're even mentioning CNN.  Let's not be against them as 
     much as we are for ourselves.
4.) I think we could use some more pizazz in the overall design-
          a.) can someone post ana's collaged graphic to the mockup site?
          b.) color:  right now we have a good solid use of black as well as white background.  the little bits of red, which is a 
                very hot color and should be used sparingly is good. I am thinking that perhaps the energy of our other two colors, 
                a coldish light blue and a warmer more purplish blue could  be upped a little.  perhaps a little more saturated?   
                I think this will also help the blue text of the same color, as it washes out a bit against the white background.  I 
                think this would then allow space for a more energetically colored banner, perhaps the collaged one would be 
                perfect, particularly if it has some good 'fire colors' like orange, yellow and red.  oh, Italy (italy.indymedia.org) has          
                a good solid blue that would work for our darker blue.
          c.) I do like our use of the original style logo.  I think if we differed, it would be nice to use something that gave respect 
               to the native people (no, not a mascot!).  

5.) Feature Graphics.  Chicago uses Dada and we've also been pretty graphic intensive on our features column.  
     Compared to the former software, Dada more easily allows quick and easy features based upon single articles.  To do 
      the more 'full-on' features with hotlinks and images one has to use html, which our features people said was a little 
      trickier to implement with Dada.  I think it would be good if the editorial peops can be trained in the useful html in putting 
     up a feature, perhaps a flexible template of sorts would be a good working too.  A cut and paste sort of thing.  I'm quite 
     not the html person, maybe someone will completely correct me on this!

anyway, hope those thoughts are helpful, and i'm glad this is coming together,
ciao,
garth

hope my input can be of use, think the design is pretty close



I can't find the url for our mock-up. Can someone post it here?
One of the concerns i have about a lot of our new local sites (ours in WMass 
included) is the lack of visuals in the features columns.

d.o.


>From: Ryan Kaldari <kaldari at monsterlabs.com>
>To: imc-us at lists.cu.groogroo.com
>Subject: Re: [IMC-US] Re: design issues
>Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:26:11 -0600
>
>Some potential design issues which have already been brought up:
>
>Redesigning the way the front page features are displayed so that the 
>newest article is highlighted (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/ or 
>http://www.cnn.com/).
>
>Redesigning the media gallery so that it is more useful (media organized by 
>issue/event rather than general topic), plus maybe an image of the day to 
>keep things interesting!
>
>Those are more layout issues really, but ideally all the layout should be 
>mocked-up by a good designer and then implemented by the programmers. But 
>maybe that's just my opinion :)
>
>-ryan
>
>On Jan 23, 2004, at 7:28 AM, max wrote:
>
>>what sort of design issues are there actually?
>>there were a number of mock-ups created as well as banners, and the 
>>current
>>design is based on those.
>>changing colors/fonts/borders and that kind of stuff is really really easy
>>with dada.
>>if people have other things in mind let us know what you're thinking...
>>
>>max
>>
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