Hey Guys,

 

I've been working on a website over the past couple of months in my spare time that is aimed at designers and is meant to provide a laugh or two.

 

I'm getting close to the completion of the project and plan to release it toward the end of this week/or early next.

 

My question is which design appeals the most to you? and are there any major visual changes you would recommend based off what you see.

 

http://whatmusicalkey.com/simplistic.jpg (I blurred out some writing if you're wondering)

 

http://whatmusicalkey.com/light.jpg

 

 

http://whatmusicalkey.com/mixed.jpg

 

I appreciate your thoughts and your time

 

Thanks,

 

Joel.

Edited February 23, 201313 yr by joel1st

Good idea

I personally like best this one http://whatmusicalkey.com/simplistic.jpg

Same here, the first one. Not sure if it's because I looked at that one first or what..

 

How far are you on with the development, looks a fun idea.

To be honest I didn't like the header pattern in the other two designs, seems too distracting.

Thanks for the comments guys! Yeah it's nearly finished in terms of the development side- just a few little features being tweaked. I've got about 60-70 posts at the moment as well (30ish of them self created). It's been a fun project to work on, so hopefully a few people enjoy it.

 

And teodora, I had the same thing go on last night, I was thinking hmm does this distract too much from the content, so I messed around with it a bit. (the light.jpg) is the original one that I designed. Is there anything that you would suggest changing in the dark design from what you can see?

 

Thanks for your input guys, much appreciated.

Based off the unanimous votes for design 1, I have created two more designs very similar that I think have a bit more visual appeal to them.

 

What are your thoughts on

 

http://whatmusicalkey.com/revision2.jpg

 

and

 

http://whatmusicalkey.com/revision1.jpg (my favourite)

 

do you prefer them over design 1?

 

Thanks again

 

 

edit: sorry for people who have a resolution less than 1080p

Edited February 24, 201313 yr by joel1st

I prefer the second one personally... I find the first one too dark. If you go for a dark design then you need colour to help contrast and there wasn't much of it.

 

Also, it looks like a blog which means it required a high level of readability and again, a lighter background (but not too light) will help juxtapose the content.

Yes, is there going to be a lot of text? If so, the best contrast will be dark text on light background. In this case, maybe design 2 without the header pattern, in my opinion.

However, if there are going to be images only (as at the moment), design 1 works well.

Edited February 24, 201313 yr by teodora

Based off the unanimous votes for design 1, I have created two more designs very similar that I think have a bit more visual appeal to them.

 

What are your thoughts on

 

http://whatmusicalkey.com/revision2.jpg

 

and

 

http://whatmusicalkey.com/revision1.jpg (my favourite)

 

do you prefer them over design 1?

 

Thanks again

 

 

edit: sorry for people who have a resolution less than 1080p

 

 

Out of those 2 I also think the 2nd is better

Out of the two revisions I prefer the second one

Thanks for all the comments guys, Much appreciated. Alluzion & Teodora, that's a good point which the more I think about it, convinces me to stick with the light coloured theme. This is because it has the option to post comments, as well as purely text based posts (although most of the content will be images).

 

Based off this I have redesigned the light coloured page. It's not perfect yet, but do you think I'm heading in the right direction?

 

http://whatmusicalkey.com/update.jpg

 

Thanks again for your time and opinion

I like it!

I would some sort of border to, and maybe a little more spacing between the narrow list of images on the right side; also a border on the main images as well (maybe a thick white border would look good or the same colour that you used to form the background of the section where you can "like" or "dislike" the image - #f0e5d1).

 

I've also noticed that you have a slightly transparent layer underneath the titles... I would have it so it fades out on the right side otherwise you can see the line where it ends.

 

Oh, and I'd also tweak the social media icons a little in the top-right.

 

Other than that, I prefer it to the other designs

Edited February 24, 201313 yr by Alluziion

Thanks for the quick reply! Yeah I just added the borders & spacing, looks alot better (I'll upload the changes tomorrow)

 

I agree with fading it out, I'll give that a go tomorrow (if I have enough energy) (it's 2:30am here and I've got work at 7:00 tomorrow )

 

Are you referring to their position? or creating different images?

 

Thanks for your thoughts, very helpful .

Edited February 24, 201313 yr by joel1st

No problem.

02:30?

Creating different images... the triangles don't look too good and I'd also stick to one colour... probably the darker one and you could always add an hover effect when you're in the development phase

I like the update and the new header.

I didn't want to go into much details, and it is maybe just me, but I don't like centered content for some reasons. It would be great if you could make all the images (in the main content and the sidebar) full width, providing you can get large images. If you can't maybe it would be good to think of some sort of background (please see attached), plus increase the top and bottom margins a bit more.

Now, don't forget this is just my opinion and even the design would work well even without a background or full width images, it is just me being picky.

Sometimes I think if I was a client, I would have been on "Clients from hell" lol

Edited February 24, 201313 yr by teodora

I think you should have the second one, but change the header pattern on it. I really like the background color and theme of the second one but not the pattern.

Hope it helps

Alluziion, Yeah- burning both sides of the candle at the moment haha. Okay sounds good thanks, I'll see what I can do.

 

Teodora- haha no, that's what I like to hear- considering this website is targeted at designers I'll need people to be as picky as they can. I won't be able to have full width content for all the pictures. This is because some images are very portrait orientated. I can however make the side bar images full width, so I'll look into doing that. In terms of aligning the main content to the left, I'll show you a screenshot later today (or tomorrow)- I personally am not a fan of it, but a pair of fresh eyes might think differently. In terms of having a background, that's somthing I'll look into! thanks again for all your thoughts, it's definitely helping out.

 

Billy123, welcome to WDF, thanks for your thoughts, I've done just that- http://whatmusicalkey.com/update.jpg

Awesome, post your update when you're done

Also, I like what Teodora did there.

I prefer the second image you posted in your opening post (http://whatmusicalkey.com/light.jpg) as I feel like this version gives the site more structure. The dark version I feel doesn't give the site definition; i.e. there's no differentiation between the key elements such as the header and main content area. To me, it is quite confusing.

 

I definitely think you are going the right way with your latest update. The pattern is a lot better in my opinion.

 

Best of luck,

Lyndsey.

Alluziion, Thanks I was just working on the developement side today- All done! Tomorrow I'm gonna finish the design side, and hopefully have it up online by wednesday (depending on people's suggestions.

 

Thanks Lyndsey- yeah you've confirmed what I was thinking (but I didn't know whether I had just spent too much time looking at it), much appreciated!

 

Also, does anyone know any good hosts for this kind of stuff? I was thinking I'd go for a low-end vps with someone like hostgator, and if traffic increased, I'd upgrade or something. I have already bought a domain through godaddy, with very cheap hosting (I'm not going to use their hosting as I've had a few issues with another website of mine hosted on their servers). Anyway, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the subject.

 

Thanks everyone,

 

Joel.

Edited February 25, 201313 yr by joel1st

Great, looking forward to see the finished site!

A hosting, good question, I use Bluehost, I have used several hosting providers before that and so far Bluehost have been very good. I do host a few small sites with them, but the traffic is not very high, so I wouldn't know if they could be good for you.

Hi, joel1st. In terms of hosting, I'd recommend Tsohost. There are numerous members on here that have recommended them and I decided to take the plunge earlier this month. No regrets. I found them just as affordable as their competitors and their customer service is excellent too. Worth looking into, methinks.

Hi, joel1st. In terms of hosting, I'd recommend Tsohost. There are numerous members on here that have recommended them and I decided to take the plunge earlier this month. No regrets. I found them just as affordable as their competitors and their customer service is excellent too. Worth looking into, methinks.

 

Are they fast? Speed is always a problem for me.

As far as I can say, they're fast. It was mainly that and the fact that their customer service is so high (a real deal breaker for me) what made me change to them. The only issue I had was while doing some testing I found that they do not enable Keep-Alive and my site was getting marked down for that. Those kind of areas are over my head to be honest. Apparently it doesn't matter so much, but I wouldn't really know. Other than that - I'd certainly recommend them.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll look into them. Yeah it's very close to being finished, I'll hopefully have it up tomorrow, but I can't guarantee because I'll be at uni for a good portion of it.

I personally like the mixed one because it just stands out to me you have the multi colored header and then a dark content area which stands out more to me.

 

Overall I think its pretty cool

Somehow managed to miss this thread, but it looks like the wonderful members of WDF (and Alluziion ) have guided you towards the better design! Nice work! Light one was my favourite from your first post, and it's only got better since. It's unique. Too many of these types of sites just use plain black backgrounds.

 

My only recommendation would be to add a little more structure to the main content area (the meme + title). It's split horizontally nicely, but could do with some "vertical structure" too - if that's a thing?! Perhaps a background colour - maybe not solid though?

 

As for hosting - I would second 4li4s's recommendation of TSOHost. They're extremely fast for the UK, and their support has been nothing short of brilliant on the three occasions I've needed them in the past year or two. Relatively cheap too, depending on what you need. You can usually get 10% off if you do some Googling for discount codes.

 

PS. Also enjoyed the homepage meme...

Thanks for the replies guys, I've got it up and going, with a new thread. (link is www.designervent.com)

 

andy9l, Do you think I've achieved vertical structure with the live version, I played around with background colours quite a bit to get it the way it is at the moment, so hopefully you like it.

 

In terms of the hosting, I didn't end up going for TSOhost as I couldn't really justify spending $50+ dollars a month on hosting at the moment (I live in australia). If it gets to the point where I need a stronger host, this is something I'll definitely consider.

 

Thanks.

Looks great! Keep it up!

Thanks for the replies guys, I've got it up and going, with a new thread. (link is www.designervent.com)

 

andy9l, Do you think I've achieved vertical structure with the live version, I played around with background colours quite a bit to get it the way it is at the moment, so hopefully you like it.

 

In terms of the hosting, I didn't end up going for TSOhost as I couldn't really justify spending $50+ dollars a month on hosting at the moment (I live in australia). If it gets to the point where I need a stronger host, this is something I'll definitely consider.

 

Thanks.

 

$50 per month?! What TSOhost were you looking at?!

 

You surely don't need the top package from day one...?

 

Yep site looks nice

I preferred the third link. The first seemed a bit dark and the second seemed to clash.

I like the new monotone colour scheme, it puts more focus on the content where it should be, nice work.

 

I have the Yo Momma up on my workspace at work.

 

Yo Momma is so fat, she even tries to eat browser cookies

$50 per month?! What TSOhost were you looking at?!

 

You surely don't need the top package from day one...?

 

Yep site looks nice

hehe the most basic vps hosting is 39.99 euro's (which is 50 aud here). Thanks

 

Thanks Hostsomething I have the website up and running at http://www.designervent.com if you want to have a look.

 

Thanks pamjam yeah I thought that one was pretty funny too 55his has some pretty cool stuff.

 

Just for anyone looking to comment - I have a more up to date thread going in the one labeled "I've taken your suggestions and here is the outcome.." Both of the threads are 30ish posts long, pretty crazy haha.

Thanks, looks pretty good. I always enjoy funny pictures related to design, bookmarked the site. I'll keep checking for updates.

second one is looking good you can try this.

Edited April 3, 201313 yr by brainpulsetech

http://whatmusicalkey.com/simplistic.jpg

 

Really nice work on that.

it seem like you taking inspiration from blogger. aren't you ? I don't like the design at all. ever blogspot has better designs.