MeyerBros

things we think

styles (again)

7 Responses to “styles (again)”

1. carl Says:
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 10:23 pm

   We might need to stick some JS in there to check for old cookies and delete them. Not everyone knows how to do that themselves in their browser - and as long as those old cookies are there (a year, I think) they’ll override the less-specific meyerbros.org cookie.

   “Simple” is rapidly becoming my favorite style for its, um, simplicity. And less scrolling down the page. Next are bird and bird on a wire. Bird wins because in bird on a wire the content space feels too narrow. Also, I like some color.

   How’s that for some “modern mania for list-making and ranking”? You did ask for it.

   What would I like to see? Just keep going - you’re cranking out good, usable, attractive styles at the rate of about one a week. Too bad we can only make one the default. Maybe I’d like to see a version of “simple” that reflects the fact that we are just a blog at the moment (this is just “things we think”), not quite yet a web development company.

2. eric Says:
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 11:20 pm

   i’m thinking about adding ColorBurn capabilities to other styles - wouldn’t that be interesting? we could colorburn your simple or your bird on a wire if you wanted… etc.

   for some that are similar enough you could almost link the same dynamic file…

3. jonny Says:
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 11:21 pm

   I think that “bird” and “simple” are also my favorites. i think the borders really help my eyes know where to look, and “bird-on-a-wire” and “ColorBurn tree” are missing that. otherwise, those two are my next favorites. the black background on “black and white” makes the site feel small and cramped. the size of text (especially sidebar) and placement of sidebar so close to the borders also makes “blue” feel cramped for me. “picture window” seems bulky and takes a while to load.

   there you have it. i’d rate them “bird” and “simple” (haven’t used “simple” enough to rate it against “bird”) followed by “ColorBurn tree” (i love the look of the font with colors and capital letters, etc) followed by “bird-on-a-wire”. the rest are also great (i’d still be praising them if i didn’t have the aforementioned top 4 to compare them to), but just not quite as easy to navigate.

4. jonny Says:
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 11:22 pm

   oooh, eric, i love that idea. i was going to say that i really like the colors on “ColorBurn tree”, and it’s hard for me to enjoy “simple” as much without the vibrant colors. do it, please. color my life.

   also, one critique of “simple”: it took me a bit to find the navigation links at the top (blog, wiki, design, about us). maybe border them, or bigger, or something? i’d like them more prominent, like they are on “bird”. that’s one of my favorite parts of “bird”.

5. michelle Says:
   

   May 25th, 2006 at 12:18 am

   I like ColorBurn Tree the best, except that sometimes the links are hard to see depending on the colors. Yesterday they were a light yellow that was hard to see against white. Today they are a dark purple that is hard to separate from the black writing around them. I like it best because of the color and the cool tree graphic. I also wonder about the text being against the background color instead of on a white box. Sometimes my browser loads slowly so I see it that way first and I kind of like it (again, depending on the colors du jour).

   I would probably tie Bird and Bird on a Wire for second - I too like the borders on Bird. But I like the BoaW graphic, and the only thing keeping it from being slightly higher than Bird is its lack of color.

   I’m not a big fan of Simple. It’s very clean to look at, but makes me feel like I’m visiting an (in house?) office site, rather than one that has fun and interesting content. I haven’t used it a lot, so maybe it has other nice features, but I’m not drawn to it. (Also, I might feel differently if there were more graphics/visuals in the posts, as Tim suggested.)

   I agree that Black and White seems a little cramped, but I really like the stark differences in the black and white, and I really like the photo. The whole layout is visually arresting, which I like.

   Picture Window feels unfinished to me. Blue feels cramped (like b&w, but even more so - esp. in the sidebar), and a little like Simple (that in-house feel, for lack of a better descriptor).

   That’s my 33 cents or so. But what I really think is great is that we all have the choices available to us, so we can choose based on our own aesthetic preferences and even change them based on our mood. What great customer service! What fun to play with!

6. carl Says:
   

   May 25th, 2006 at 11:36 am

   I agree with a lot of that. I’d like Simple even better if it had a more “fun” and less “institutional” banner. I’d like Colorburn Tree more if I could rely on the link text being readable (Eric, if you want technical help with that aspect, it isn’t too hard in PHP to parse a hexadecimal color and do something with it - i.e. improve it’s contrast vis-a-vis some other color, or whatever algorithm you want). I also agree with Jonny that I think I’d like both CT and BoaW somewhat more if they had a border (even a very subtle one) between the sidebar and the content.

   I like B&W in theory, and in small doses, but I never stay with it for long - too aggressive and cramped. I do like what you did with that header photo. Originally we were talking about adding photos of other MeyerBros into a dynamic rotating header - I still like that idea, maybe it could be used in a new style or in a revamped B&W.

   Blue could become usable with a little work on spacing out the sidebar, though I’ve always had a problem with its text being too small and too low-contrast for easy reading.

   CTifying some of the low-color styles seems like a good idea. Don’t replace the existing style, though, make it a separate option. If you can reuse the same dynamic css file, that’s easy enough - if not, it wouldn’t be hard for the script to spit out a few different dynamic files.

   Looking good…

7. eric Says:
   

   May 25th, 2006 at 10:06 pm

   very helpful. keep talking as i play with new things and make adjustments.

   for colors - i think the only real control i want over colorburn is on the links. the color with the most contrast against both black and white should be the links. from there it can and should be random.

   each design would need it’s own dynamic file. i can start playing with that at some point.