My inbox has exploded, so I apologize to many contest entries who didn't
get much of a critique. I'm being a little more conservative with my time,
trying to focus more on entries that are much closer to winning than those that..
well, aren't.
The contest is supposed to close next week, so please get those entries
in and wrapped up ASAP. Everyone is welcome to continue to revise and retry
until the end, but starting on monday, myself and Wes Moran (OSTG's CSS/HTML/Design
nut) will be going through a short list of best entries, and really shaking them
for browser compatibility and implementation concerns. What this means is that
if you send us your design on tuesday, it will get less time to be tested, and
compatibility is a big deal.
So here is another block of designs.
Liz Hall's
design is a mockup, and at this stage in the game, thats beginning to cut
it close. But she does different stuff with the header that I think is fun.
Navigationally this design is lacking a lot of stuff, and like a number of
designs, she places the topic icons into squares, which I suspect will look
strange with some of the taller or wider icons in the list.
Rob Goodlatte's design is
one of the most successful designs that changes the least. He fixes problems.
He cleans up some layout issues. And creates a site that looks simply like
a better Slashdot. Well done.
William Swanson's entry
has a number of twists that look quite nice. The problem here is that by putting
the menu on the right, I'm not sure where I could put an ad there, without shoving
the menu down off the right column. I like his layout of the articles, although I
think his headers, using that soft green, look a little less like Slashdot
than I would prefer...
Andy Peatling's design is a
bit softer than I am looking for, but I still love the headers of the menu on the
left. There's definitely a bit of a space problem on the right- by moving
services and vendors over there AND the login box, if I put an ad over there,
it's gonna be shoved way down. But that article header looks great. The
curve on the left echod on the right, the gradiant, the icons for the tagging,
even the indented quotes do it for me. I think I'm sold on that now- so many
entries have done it and made it look good.
Ryan Ramchandar's design definitely
tries mixing up the menu on the right, but I see no slashboxes, nad I'm not sure
how ads would work in this layout. But his clean, minimal header and nice
article layout work really well. Like a few other designs, this one feels a bit
soft to me. The headlines could stand out more. But it's well done.
Derek Chin's entry
is a mockup with a really nice header. The rest of this design needs some work
(I'd prefer white on green headers for articles, the menus look a little dull,
the boxes a little generic) but it could work.
Tom Nichols's design is VERY green.
Probably a bit much for my tastes, and I'm not sure about the red as a matching
color. But I give this mad props for looking really good. I'm not sure if it
is what I want on Slashdot, but it's a very cool page.
Shane Churchman's design I think
I have shared before, but he's continued to improve. His header is solidly layed
out, his menu is efficient and useful. His layouts on articles all look great.
This is a strong entry for the simply refreshing slashdot look class of entries.
The last design for today is from Chris Morrell.
It's a bit louder than a lot of the others. He opts for a 2 column menu on the left.
I think his searchbox and slashbox column work really well. I don't much care
for his article headers. All in all this is a really good entr, and definitely
looks quite different from what we have today. I think the uniqueness of this
design comes down to his choice to split the header, and let the center column
climb right to the top of the page. I think this is a great idea, and could
totally work- getting readers to content faster is always better, and moving the
center column up a hundred pixels can't hurt.
Ok, thats it for today. I'll probably do more this weekend depending on how
the incoming entries look. Remember that next week monday & tuesday we're planning
on judging the compatibility portion of the contest, so I suspect it might be to
late to try to submit a jpg mockup at this point. But you're welcome to keep
entering/revising/retrying untl the end.