Another Contender Enters the Ring
Just when I thought the concept work for the website was done and dusted another contender throws their hat in the ring. Normally I would not want the extra distraction in looking at another design but as the initial concept looks so good I have to follow it through.
Have a look for yourself by using this link…
It needs a little work but has real potential. I will keep you posted.
The Eagle has landed!
I’ve taken the template as provided by the winning web design and used it to generate the five main pages of the website. These have been uploaded to the server so now I actually have a website. Try it out…
Half an Eagle has landed
Actually you will have quickly noticed there is no content on the site. But Rome was not built in a day and my website certainly will not be either. The next step over the coming week or so is to actually fill in some of the pages with details.
Another Contender
Just when I thought I was only going to get a single designer submit an idea another has entered the contest with a design. This is quite different but also a good effort and certainly worth considering with some changes.
You can see the design using this list.
I instructed the designer to remove the extra design elements like the stop button on the top of the page. It does look a little like a WinAmp design at the moment but by removing those it does have potential.
Removing the arty bits
Feedback from readers indicating that the first design had a couple of arty farty style elements that could be removed to improve the look. I requested this from the designer along with a need to improve the header area. Here are the two designs that resulted.
Although an improvement I think both designs are not quite right and so I asked for the header to be worked on again in order to make the logo feel more integrated with the header area.
The Finale
The end result of the cycle is the following final design that I want to run with.
I think this creates a professional feel with a little design flair mixed in. Remember that our controls are going to be at the premium end of the market and so a good professional site is essential. But not just a standard plain site because the components biggest selling point is how great they make your applications look. So we need to show some flair and creativity in the website itself.
Next Step
At this point the design is just a high resolution picture. The next step is to turn the picture into an actual HTML template that can be used to generate pages as needed.
If you’re a web programmer and feel up to the task then let me know, I am willing to pay a sensible amount for a professional to do that work.
First Up
After almost a week we only have one design concept submitted so far on the Design Outpost website. But I did have a few others say they were interested in putting together an idea so I hope there will be others to look at soon.
Here is a reduced size version of the design…
Ok, so you cannot see much from there. Use the following link to see the full sized image.
Feedback
Personally I really like the design and with a couple of tweaks think it would be perfectly fine as the actual site template. But do you have other ideas? Does it look too arty and not commercial enough?
