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druber · Jun 27, 2001, 04:47 PM

Layout images of the site can be seen right here

This is my personal site: my spot to post poems and notes and this and that. I lived in Colorado for a couple of months after I graduated from college and have never gotten over the mountains. So I'm keying into that a bit.

I'm not sure whether to use the 2 designs as themes of the same site, take your pick, or have separate content for each one and draw allusions to night/day summer/winter. What do you all think?

Free Mac hosting. It's a wonderful thing.

sek929 · Jun 27, 2001, 05:47 PM

Rock ass designs man, I love that font as well.

Just be sure to let us know when the real deal comes out....I'm sure it'll rule with an iron fist.

parallax · Jun 27, 2001, 05:53 PM

That design rocks. I can't wait to see the final product either.

Moving over to Web Developer.

SillyMonk · Jun 28, 2001, 01:20 AM

Looks faboo!

I'm in the process of moving to the mountains of Colorado, and I love it there! It makes living in the boondocks with a 56K modem worth it.

Give us a clue what the URL will be so we can bookmark it.

-John

[ 06-28-2001: Message edited by: SillyMonk ]

druber · Jun 28, 2001, 10:04 AM

Ah Monk, you lucky bugger. If it weren't a two-day drive just to get out there, I'd be there a couple times a year. Heck, I'd probably be there now! Where in CO are you moving to? Those mountain roads have some amazing views.

Back on topic, thanks for all the encouragement. In y'all's opinion, what's the best way to put text into that middle block on the main pages? Use frames? Could I use Flash to create a scrollable text block? I'd kinda prefer Flash, just so I could keep a consistent font. I don't want to do any swirly crap with the text. Just want to keep the pages clean.
Also, I have Photoshop 5.02, so no Imageready. Is there any particular way I should slice up the images for faster loading? Any comments on how to place them? I could use cool tables (I use GoLive), but I'd be happy to learn of a more elegant way.

The font used for Pennock Pass is called Astronaut. Found it at Fontalicious.com, along with loads of others. Great resource. I know you can upload your own pages to homepages.mac.com and not use Apple's templates. Is there any user agreement that sets out guidelines for use? Hosting the pages there would make me very happy, though I'll use a domain pointer (mydomain.com) so that pennockpass.com is the url for the splash page. The spring/fall page will open in a new window, mostly just to lock the window size. Again, open to suggestion.

Thanks, gang!!

Raman · Jun 28, 2001, 02:03 PM

From a technical standpoint:
O.k. so if everyone doesn't have the font then they won't see it as you intended. I suggest you place a link on the page so they can download it if needed.

Looks graphics intensive, I suggest you optimise your images well.

Test with other platforms and browers of your target audience. Use different stylesheets for various browsers when necessary to keep the user experience similar on all intended browsers.

From a functional standpoint:
Navigation looks very easy and clear to use.

From an asthetic standpoint:
It looks nice and clean and open. Very nice.

druber · Jun 28, 2001, 04:19 PM

And that's about the point that I get out of my depth.

I understand the concept behind CSS, but I've never used them. Can you use CSS to do a browser check and then send an appropriate font size? If I can track down Flash 4 for cheap, I may go that route. I'll definitely do my best to optimize the graphics as much as possible, test it out with every browser I can track down. I'll try to keep the code clean, too, though I've never seen iCab smile.

awaspaas · Jun 29, 2001, 12:35 AM

I'll try to keep the code clean, too, though I've never seen iCab smile.

I think iCab quits smiling when your page has *images* on it.

druber · Aug 2, 2001, 04:03 PM

a bump and some questions. the way the design is set up, there isn't really much room for text. not that big a deal when it's prose, but for posting poems that need secure formatting, it poses problems. would using small pop-up windows work without making people crazy?

other option i see is, for text-heavy pages, to somehow move the left sidebar to the open space at the top. i don't really want to, but i'd like to keep the solution as elegant as possible.

also, anyone want to help me with the html? i'm stupid busy right now and should probably just leave it alone, but i'd be happy to help with a design or some writing in return..

alphamatrix · Aug 2, 2001, 04:16 PM

Nice site.

druber · Aug 2, 2001, 04:20 PM

thanks. btw, you can get there by hitting http://pennockpass.com. takes you to the same place, but certainly easier to type in.

funkboy · Aug 3, 2001, 12:32 AM

Excellent site, very fresh and clean layout, looks superb - the splitting into two different seasons is quite an interesting thought, too. I'll be interested to see how tricky it is to code

As far as Flash vs. HTML, I'd actually just go all-out and do this completely in Flash, but fill up the main window itself if possible - this is a work of art that should be able to fill up the screen if a user would like to!

However, if you're planning to sell any services here (if you want this to be any sort of design portfolio) , you may want to consider at least making a little alternate site that you can also access via non-Flash equipped browsers, as you probably wouldn't want to lose clients just because they don't have Flash installed.

druber · Aug 3, 2001, 01:02 PM

Not sure what you mean by "fill up the screen." You mean build it for different screen rez's? The splash screens are just that, intro pages. The season will be a pop-up window above that. I'll do it in Flash if I can get ahold of a copy (come on ebay, don't let me down).

Besides a condensed class in Photoshop/Illustrator, I don't have any real training. Just a lot of inspiration from design sites (designiskinky.net, k10k.com [currently down], threeoh.com) and a long history of toodling around with graphics. This is just my own spot for posting stuff, nothing for sale. Much more fun that way.

druber · Aug 3, 2001, 05:54 PM

I know I'm responding to myself, but I did a wide-format page (fallwide.jpg and fallwide2.jpg) that I could use to put prose/poems onto. What can I do to balance out the page and still leave as much room for text as possible?

micmacmedia2001 · Aug 3, 2001, 05:55 PM

I like the look of the home page, nice and clean! Go with the grayscale version, it really makes your photo POP off the page. Same thing with the 2nd level pages, the dark gray seems to work much better against the text and images. I would try to simlify the menus on the 2nd level. Contrast them to the Home page (very clean and simple), they seem to be a little busy by comparison. Go ahead and make the text on the home page a graphic. The entire page should be under 30K so I don't think that's much of a hit to do it that way if you really want the home page to look nice. I would make the secondary page text HTML if you can (or don't feel comfortable with CSS). I guess with poetry formatting could be a problem. Widen the 2nd level pages also to go with the nice airry feeling of the home page.

It's a great start, keep us posted.
Chas

BTW: check out my redesigned site if you have time.

funkboy · Aug 5, 2001, 12:32 PM

Originally posted by druber:
Not sure what you mean by "fill up the screen."

Hmm, that probably wasn't the best term there - make it so the tables and/or Flash fill up the entire window (width="100%") , no matter what the size - like most web pages, so the entire layout fills up the entire window, not just an 800x600 web page design that fills up part of the window and leaves the rest empty... boy, I don't know if that cleared things up or muddied the waters more

Besides a condensed class in Photoshop/Illustrator, I don't have any real training. Just a lot of inspiration from design sites (designiskinky.net, k10k.com [currently down], threeoh.com) and a long history of toodling around with graphics.

Outstanding, makes it all the more impressive.

 This is just my own spot for posting stuff, nothing for sale. Much more fun that way.

I agree

druber · Aug 6, 2001, 11:16 AM

micmac, you've definitely got a sweet site going there. You have so little text, though, that I'd say go ahead and make jpgs of the text so that it's anti-aliased and looks as sharp as the rest of the page.
The grayscale version is what you'll see when you first open the page. You get the color bars and corresponding text by mousing over them. I'll try to widen things out; I agree it's tight. I'll make the menu names right-justified on both sides to keep them less intrusive.
Could I reduce the width of the right-side title bar much without making it too thin?

funkboy, the splash page will be centered, but the spring/fall pages will come as 800x600 pop-up windows. It'll take extra work on the navigation end, but I'd rather do that than make everything stretchy.

Millennium · Aug 7, 2001, 08:20 AM

Nice mockups. I'm going to go with micmac and suggest you use the greyscale version.

I'd advise against using JPEG's for the text, though. You'll get Nasty Compression Artifacts (tm) if you do. Go for GIF or PNG instead (they use lossless compression, so artifacts won't be an issue). PNG is supported by most browsers and may look a little better at smaller file sizes. Transparency with PNG is a little spotty when it comes to support, but if you make your PNG's background the same color as the page background this won't be an issue anyway. SWF (Flash) may also be an option; its file size will be much smaller, but remember that not quite everyone can use it yet.

Or just leave it as plain text; the only browser I've seen that doesn't do antialiasing anymore is Mozilla, and that's more likely to change than not. Your users will thank you for shorter download times

Navigation looks pretty good aesthetically. However, I don't know what "neutral", "branch", and "dial" mean in the context of your menu. You might want to explain these on the front page, or pick other words.

Can you use CSS to do a browser check and then send an appropriate font size?

Unfortunately, not unless you're willing to do some really twisted-looking CSS hacks (not in the sense that the user will see anything different, but rather in the sense that your stylesheets will be a nightmare to maintain). There are a whole bunch of browser sniffers out there in JavaScript, however; these can be used to link in whatever stylesheet is appropriate. This has the added benefit of making the CSS much easier to write, since you don't have to worry about browser hacks (they'll be shorter too, which will reduce download times).

would using small pop-up windows work without making people crazy?

Probably not, unfortunately. Besides which, many people now disable popup windows in their browsers, because of all the ads. A shame, I know. I wish a browser would come out that let you allow and/or deny sites privileges for popups, like they now do with cookies and images.

the way the design is set up, there isn't really much room for text. not that big a deal when it's prose, but for posting poems that need secure formatting, it poses problems.

True, that can be problematic (though the tag can at least keep your lines the way you wanted). You can use the CSS min-width property to help with this so that the box never gets too narrow, but some browsers don't support that one (they'll just ignore it).