Dungeon Master Forum

Very nice logo.
It made me think of the new Microsoft logo, have you seen it?

Ditto. Nice logo.
(The new MS logo will appear on my desktop soon enough!)

Presumably you mean the colours are similar?

Ahh, that is a cool logo...I saw the "Code" part of the name and thought it was a take on "Arcadia", though what that place has to do with computer coding I'm not really sure .

Gambit37 wrote:Presumably you mean the colours are similar?

Gambit vs. Microsoft. Oh, dear. Are you sure you can handle this, old boy?

On a more serious note, I don't know which one of the MS logos is the "new" one and what is the similarity. Please, educate me, anyone.

@Jan: Here is the new MS logo: http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_bl ... -look.aspx

@Gambit: Yes, I guess the colors and layout made me think of the MS logo: bright colors pattern on the left with text on the right using a similar color. I'm not implying that you were inspired by it (or MS by yours? ) or anything, I was just reporting my first thought upon seeing yours.

As I need to focus on building products I can sell, I can't invest too much time in the new Arcodea website. So I'm just going to have a 'landing page' for now that has a bit of background blurb on it and allows people to sign up to find out when the first product is released. Here's an unfinished page showing the art direction I was going in:

http://f.matthill.co/arco/?p=home03.jpg

However, after letting that settle for a few days, I realised that it looked too much like other sites selling similar products, and it lacked personality. So I've now come up with a new art direction, and it's helped me focus a bit more on how the brand might evolve:

http://f.matthill.co/arco/?p=home04.jpg
http://f.matthill.co/arco/?p=home04b.jpg

What do you think?

Cool - I like the way the arrow thingys flow down the page. I like the second design better, where the edges of the arrows curve rather than just being all blocky - it makes it look smoother and flow better .

Superb! You're so skilled that it almost scares me.

Only the Arcodea logo seems to me to be too small when compared with the rest of the page, but you're probably going to change it later / it doesn't matter actually.

As Ameena, I also prefer the second design for the same reasons.

Love the arrow concept. I *HAD* to follow it all down to the bottom. It really is original (to little old me). I don't say that a lot with regards to the web.

<joke>Won't fill your stomach though, get your business off the ground and worry less about the art deco!</joke>

Cheers guys, thanks for the feedback. @Ian, I think I may have been influenced by something I've seen before, but can't find it again, so I'm claiming it's original and unique I do need to set the brand tone and style now though, as it needs to be consistent on the full website when I launch that, and I don't want people getting confused if I end up changing my mind later and the website doesn't match this landing page!

I think the ghosted out arrows as you move down the page is actually a bit distracting, so I've done a simpler version. This version also includes a different style of imagery -- low quality screen grabs for now, but should give you the idea. Better / worse?
http://f.matthill.co/arco/?p=home05.jpg

IMHO the previous version was better because now the space with "missing arrows / strips" looks a bit empty. But, alright, let's face it, both versions are brilliant.

I have to agree with Ian here - don't waste too much time / energy / creativity here.

True, but is the emptier version more focused? Does it guide the eye down the page better than the first one? Also, are the shiny realistic style images better or worse than the Fisher price line art?

Hmm, I think the other version was better - it doesn't seem to flow down the page quite as well with just the floating arrows by themselves. Also, in the image that includes the faded arrows, it makes more "sense" because it looks like they're goign all th way down the page from the top to the bottom. In the last image, it looks a bit weird having these three stripes just sem to randomly show up at the bottom.
As for the images...I think I also preferred the previous image in terms of these as well. I know the pics in the last image are only low-quality, but the ones in the preceding image look much better to me 'cause they're so crisp and also the colours match to the "primary colours" theme of the logo and stuff, so it fits better.
So basically, I'm still in favour of "Home04b" as the preferred image .

Hmmm, you may be right.

I did another version with good quality images and a different arrangement:
http://f.matthill.co/arco/?p=home06.jpg)

I think this is cleaner, but having all the arrows on the left sort of spoils the three arrows used in the original 04b.

I'm still not sure about the layout or icons used in 04b, but I'll sleep on it and see which I prefer in a couple of days

Yeah, I agree on the most recent pic "messing up" the three-arrow thing .

Preferred http://f.matthill.co/arco/?p=home04b.jpg
Agree with Ameena et al.

http://f.matthill.co/arco/?p=home06.jpg is the simplest, visually speaking. Maybe better for the general public, rather than us hippy geeks on this forum.

Yeah, I prefer the ones where the arrows remain in the same positions throughout the page, rather than when they are all on the left.

Final choices! I went back to 04b and cleaned it up a bit, I think this is better:
http://f.matthill.co/arco/?p=home04b.jpg

Also did a white version:
http://f.matthill.co/arco/?p=home04c.jpg

I prefer the beige version as it adds warmth and is a bit different from other sites. However, the white one will be easier to read and easier to present a portfolio of themes on....

I still think I like B best, lol. I mean, out of those last two. the beige does fel "warmer". I also prefer the simple "What? Why? When?" to the more wordy one shown in the last pic. Maybe in the tabs at the top you could leave it as the simple version, then in the actual sections further down the page, use the wordier one. Then you'e giving a simple, easy-on-the-eye version at the top, where people will be looking first, then a more explanatory version at the start of each actual section. Or something.

Really the main change is removing the numbers / text from the faded out arrows as you look down the page. They were interfering too much and aren't really necessary.

I'm afraid the differences are now beginning to be too subtle for me.

The latest ("C") version is probably the best IMHO, especially because it explains the "When? Why? What? Huh? WTF?" words. But I guess it doesn't really matter.

Looks professional, as always. I too feel the changes are subtle in nature though.. though probably not so for another of the design profession. I notice the same thing where I feel something I've done is incomplete or rough, and others feel it's finished... and yet others in my profession will agree with my assessment of it being unfinished because their eye is trained to notice the subtleties and more importantly what is missing.

Have you tried sharing these with other designers? they may be able to offer more specific advice?

I should add.. it's not that I don't enjoy seeing your work.. I think we all do.. but sometimes it's good to get a professional opinion too. I feel bad when I can't really offer an opinion other than "Hey... they both look good" when you really would rather like a "I like choice B because.... "

I get a black screen on the last three versions seems like they have been removed. Then again I could probanly only tell you what I would like.. Gambit have you got other examples of webpages you would like to "copy from"? why did you do the things you did on these examples( chose to have no scroll bar or whatever) why these decisions? you always exchange one feature with another at least most of the time..this would be a ground base for discussion.
What is important? I feel the ask me if you want a website built should be on the first page, and I think you want a more advertising/ poster look and feel of your sites. dont rage quit

zoom wrote:I get a black screen on the last three versions seems like they have been removed.

No. But it takes some time for the images to load. Wait a few seconds or try to scroll down and up or press something / click somewhere and the images should appear.

Thanks guys. It's just a landing page experimenting with look and feel, tone and colour scheme -- as a way of establishing my brand colours. The main thing I was looking for was whether the all-white background works better than the beige background:

Beige: http://f.matthill.co/arco/?p=home04c.jpg
White: http://f.matthill.co/arco/?p=home04d.jpg

I like the beige as it's warmer and is a bit different from most other sites of this nature, which generally have a white background. However, white is easier to work with in terms of other design elements, and white also works better when you want to place colourful portfolio items over the top.

But it could all be moot, since apparently a lot of cheaper screens don't show much difference between these two background colours. As a designer with an expensive IPS screen, I see colours in a much more pure way than "average" users with cheap TN screens.

@Cows: Ask other designers for their views? Are you mad!?

I prefer the beige one - especially because I use a very similar colour as a background for my PowerPoint presentations.

@jan
no still black screen.. could be related to iphone// flash
in windows on.my desktop I see it perfectly (though takes 4 seconds to load)

Gambit, why do you use majori pluralis (we instead of I? )
did you consider making the sign up page/part the first page visitors get to see?
I mean the sign up for launch news page with name and email

@Zoom: The design of the page encourages you to scroll down (arrows pointing down). Or you can click the star at the top of the page which would also take you to the form.
Of course, that doesn't actually work yet because this is just a static graphic with no programming behind it. (by the way, these are large JPG files and take a while to download on slow connections which is why they may look black - press F5 to relaod the page in your browser if you don't see anything.)

Anyway, thank you everyone for your comments, but please do not worry about it anymore, I already got the feedback I was looking for, thanks