[Grok-dev] Alternative look for grok.zope.org

[Sebastian Ware]

Okidoki. Does this mean I should suspend my work with the design I  
proposed? I mean it might come down to us actually having different  
preferences of style. :)

Regards Sebastian

29 maj 2007 kl. 06.26 skrev Kevin Teague:

>
> On May 28, 2007, at 4:22 AM, Sebastian Ware wrote:
>
>> Would people rather want me to develop this look:
>>
>>   http://www.urbantalk.se/DEVELOPER/grok/grok_r3
>>
>> Compared to the previously suggested one:
>>
>>   http://www.urbantalk.se/DEVELOPER/grok
>>
>> Maybe the first suggestion was too stylish?
>
> My opinions on style of a Grok site:
>
> Colors
> ---------
>
> I used the original Grok illustrations as a basis, choosing orange  
> as the primary colour, tempered with shades of grey that suggest  
> stone. I think it might be worthwhile to lay out a few colour  
> palettes for comparison, and then try and have the design work  
> within that palette.
>
> I do like the colours used on the existing design - although I did  
> select them - in particular the orange used in the existing Grok  
> logo area, which was just sampled from the orange in the original  
> Grok illustrations. As for the other flavours of orange in the body  
> text, sometimes I think this looks quite fun, and other times this  
> feels like a bit much.
>
> Orange can be a difficult colour to design with. I noticed that the  
> Joyent site uses a significant amount of orange (and lots other  
> colours) and still does an excellent job of walking the line  
> between professional and fun (they also do a bang-up job with their  
> illustrations):
>
> http://joyent.com/
>
> I would be quite happy if we had a design that was heavily  
> "informed" by the Joyent style. Although we will have a lot of text  
> on the Grok site, and for extended reading of body text it wears on  
> the eyes for anything that's not set against a white background.
>
> Logo
> -------
>
> The Grok logo is a separate discussion. Perhaps we should be  
> working towards an official logo before moving onto the the next  
> design iteration?
>
> In particular, adding additional aesthetic elements that are not  
> part of the core logo to the design can be distracting. Often you  
> have something that looks very nice in the context of a particular  
> header, but doesn't look so good if set against a plain background  
> color. Hopefully we can also have a logo that retains a distinctive  
> character even when reduced to a small size.
>
> I had some ideas about using the typeface on the existing site, and  
> applying the leopard patterened swatches from Grok's tunic to the  
> inside of the typeface. I am doubtful if this could be successfully  
> pulled off though.
>
> Something that conveyed the lettering "Grok" carved from stone  
> could look very good. It would take considerable skill to be able  
> to pull this off successfully in a logo though.
>
> Illustration
> --------------
>
> The caveman illustration rocks. Grok, the caveman, is colourful and  
> playful. It makes we want to use Grok a lot :)
>
> The existing illustration is tricky to integrate with the rest of  
> design because of the loose, hand-drawn nature of the illustration  
> style. You can't set it against any background colour other than  
> white. I think it might be possible to do a convincing clean-up job  
> on it in Photoshop, but you would still be loosing some of the  
> character of the work. I think it would be better to set the Grok  
> illustration against a large white background area, and then layer  
> any elements of the site design so that they overlap portions of  
> the illustration.
>
> If we can think of Grok pose that works will the end design and  
> then have a new Grok illustration produced that would also awesome.  
> I did some sketches of Grok, but they are not as good as the  
> originals by Felicia.
>
> Primary Navigation
> --------------------------
>
> I agree that the existing icons need more contrast. I would  
> disagree that we want to have icons as part of the navigation. The  
> words we have (evaluate, learn, develop, share, download) say all  
> we need to, and it can be very difficult to produce attractive  
> looking icons - and even if we did have such an asset for the site,  
> I still think icons detract too much from the primary content areas.
>