I'm partial to dark layouts (giantbomb.com, Gamespot) over a glaring white newspaper burning my eyes, but that's just me.
The widescreen thing - This is one of the few sites I visit that actually accomidate widescreen, most sites I visit just have an inch of blank space or background on each side. So I would prefer this as it is, actually making good use of my 1440x900.
Regarding more stuff in blogs, I imagine Yoda is already working on that.Complete customization is bound to come in time.
For discussion of the banner, logo, or slogans: In this thread we're already pretty far into that discussion.
I do think having the front page as several small image files would probably be a good approach... maybe one for each article/section so you click it and it takes you directly to the full article. Less work for Yoda trying to get all the tables and stuff aligned I would imagine. Also if you look at the front page and then the images of The Scotsman and Evening Courier you posted above, you can obviously see that it's a lot more plain. I think it could use more detail and different stories on the front page, even if half of them are joke topics, "Over 9,000 mudkips do barrel rolls in Montana, see A1 for more details." But that means somebody needs to create the images and get them to all display as one front-page newspaper every week.
I wouldn't be opposed if Yoda also wanted to impliment Google Adsense or actual paid advertising within the front-page newspaper itself to offset server costs. (From a business student's perspective, I think the site needs an "advertise here" option if we actually get popular with 50+ members.) It would actually make it look more like a real magazine. It would be a new, seamless approach to advertising having gaming-related advertisements blended into the paper instead of just blatent banner ads running along every page.
Creativity in design will come from flexibility, which itself is a result of content. Right now we are limited and content and therefore in design.
The majority activity here is in forum posting wherein screenspace should be maximized. And the typical default widescreen resolution is 1280x800; I don't run widescreen by I do set my resolution to 1280x1024, so I do see that widescreen resolution and in fact design with it in mind.
---
Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobile
If images can't be used than perhaps have word limits on articles and make one really nice design and re-use the code?
I don't think that you need content to have a creative design. To make something nice looking you just need time and patience and some photoshop skills.
Do you guys not think that having some form of border would allow the site to have a nice designed frame around the edges?
How about this font for the site title:
Newspaper =/= comic book
Yarcofin said:Newspaper =/= comic book
I'm not saying that this place even needs to stick to the newspaper look. Visually I'm just thinking bright and attractive.
I don't have a good program at home so this is basic crap. But for a square icon/logo thing how about this idea:
Beauty is that the font colour and pic underneath can change for the next big popular game. Obviously the circle de blob is preferable to the poorly cropped sackboy head.
Can't we use a penis instead?
SteelAttack said:Can't we use a penis instead?
It a penis round? We would have to use a testicle shape. Do we have a forum genital count?
SteelAttack said:Can't we use a penis instead?
Seconded.
I think this place could be purty like a 10 dollar whore. (Don't mod me Punk!)
So I set up this thread for suggestions and for help. If you have ways that wont be overly difficult for Yo to implement and if you can contribute your photoshop skills and whatnot then we can be good to go.
There are a couple of good free Photoshop type programs you can download for home use. The GIMP is one and I can't remember the name of the other one.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My first suggestion is that since the front page is purpose built, why not just have a static image, a jpg for the weeks mock articles. Sure it would take longer to load but then it could be manipuled in Photoshop to make it prettier and ape newspaper style in a more attractive way. On that subject I think we should get rid of the classical newspaper style and attempt to make it look more tabloid like. Trashy. Massive Impact font for headings etc and perhaps a less grey background and more of a white or tinted aged yellow look.
My second suggestion is getting some borders on the page as it can look too large on widescreen monitors and having a border would allow space for some page decoration.
Page decoration can be artwork, official artwork from popular games, either straight up or manipulated to look good on the page. Perhaps a nice background image that can fit around the edges of the page.
My third suggestion would be user control. On blogs for instance being able to have your own banners etc, being able to choose background colours, fonts that sort of thing.
My fourth suggestion would be to have little GIFs as background images to updates. For instance have the option to upload a small fixed size image to be used as a background image for a game. You can see this in effect at sites like Eurogamer.net. What could happen is that once an image is uploaded for a particular game, you click on an image icon and it brings up a quick list of useable images and you just pick the one you need, RE5 for instance. And then it is layered as a background to your update.
Lastly I wonder if the site banner should be writen in full like: The Videogames Press and then have thevgpress.com written underneath in small writing. And whether the banner should be glammed up and less classy.
Ideas?