the front page design ; some thoughts

[*Jess♥]

just thinking about the design for our title page.

I was looking at it the other day and i thought perhaps it can be changed.

I was specifically looking at the style, the sort of artistic painted messy style, and was thinking that perhaps it's time to change it to a more structured mechanical design.

The theme is good, I'm happy with the inherent references to wheels, lit up eyes, tentacle monsters, guyver control medal, kamen rider belts etc. it does fit quite well and i am in no way unhappy with it.

what I was thinking is that we could have a newer version of that.

think about when the guyver is first activated, it is all messy with tendrils everywhere, etc.

then when it is formed, it is sleek, tidy, armoured, solid.

so I was thinking of taking the current design and re-imagining it into a more symmetrical and more tidy and structured form. it would contain elements that it currently contains, but the configuration would be different.

it would also potentially allow the inclusion of the news panel in a less obtrusive way.

the news panel currently sits on the side, sometimes getting in the way of the main logo when the screen is reduced in size. there could be some way to integrate that better, but i don't currently have any solid ideas.

ideally I am thinking what i might like to move towards if such a change were to go ahead, is something like the following:

take the current 'disc' and straighten it up to have the two 'eyes' aligned vertically. have 2 segments on each side, one below and one above. on the segments, we would have separately the current links and the words 'armoured legends'. the segments would probably be red. we could try and mimic the colour scheme of something like gigantic XD and kamen rider kabuto.

I'll see if i can make a mock-up of my idea.

[*Jess♥]

here is a mock-up of my first rough idea of what a new design could be like.

or maybe something like this

[river_chaos]

I kinda like the second idea because it looks more...I guess more professional? To me it's eye pleasing in a way more than the first idea because it appears more organic.

[Bio-Boosted Dude]

yeah second definitely looks a lot better

the first one looks like old style samurai armour. the more organic you can make it look the better; i feel that is what works so well with the current design. it looks a little "clumpy" compared to the looseness of what we have now but i'm really interested to see how you develop the second one. i'll grow to it i'm sure, especially once you spruce it up a bit.

also not sure about integrating the armoured-legends into the image like that. might work equally well if not better if it's just a title beneath. just my thoughts!

[*Jess♥]

brilliant. thanks guys, your thoughts are really appreciated.

I also prefer the second one. it was a result of looking at the first one and just going with my own feelings.

it's purely artistic like the current design.

I can appreciate how it looks clumpy, i think. I'll have to think about that and ways to work at making it feel a bit more relaxed.

also, I understand about the words. I can understand how they might get lost within the commotion if they stay where they are.

some ideas i had, the same way as what we have now, I was thinking a two stage image. as the mouse goes over each section, it actually 'opens up' and the words sort of 'shine' out from within. that's pretty ambitious, but if I was able to pull it off, it would turn out pretty damn beautiful.

[*Jess♥]

Hey, I decided to work on this design idea today.

playing with some themes i thought might be really cool.

[durendal]

I too like the second design. It looks like a henshin belt, with the middle globe similar to the gravitational sphere of the guyver. But I'll be blunt, the design needs a little refining. I mean the general idea and shape of it is great, but it looks too plain and doesn't seem to have any flair like the current logo. Maybe it's the color combination. Maybe it's the shape of the balloons. I don't know, I'm not a creative person, but I think it can still be improved upon.

[*Jess♥]

Thanks durendal, I appreciate what you're saying, of course this is a basic concept and would be developed more.

like you should be able to see the development that has occurred since my first post up there and my post previous to this one.

my intention is to work on the separate panels, adding shading and highlights to give them much needed depth.

the central 'disc' is quite flat and dull on our current design, I want to give it a bit more 'life' by giving it a shine and faux reflection like a control metal.

The separate panels, are rather ambiguous shapes unless you see them as three dimensional. I will be adding shading to them. the logo I am working on producing will have a more solid feel rather than the flat watercolour style of the current front page logo. sort of a similar fashion to this old guyvernet splash logo http://drag-5.deviantart.com/art/The-Guyver-Net-splash-screen-40711314

[*Jess♥]

So I decided to go ahead with shading and highlighting on this today.

I don't believe I ought to consider this a finished design. Aside from necessary colour adjustments, I think it needs something more, possibly in the way of texture or additional detailing.

I'd appreciate any further thoughts you may have

[Bio-Boosted Dude]

I think a texture could do a lot for it. maybe the kind of smokey look that's on the current one.

about the highlighting and shading, . it looks like they're all hard edges with soft ones around at the moment? i think it would look nicer with some variation around the edges. hard and soft and both?

also isn't it a little wide with the feathery things? you said a problem with the current design is that parts (links) get obscured by the newsfeed. this design is wider than what we have now. unless you're okay with the design being obscured as long as part of the panel can be clicked on

[*Jess♥]

it looks like they're all hard edges with soft ones around at the moment? i think it would look nicer with some variation around the edges. hard and soft and both?

could you elaborate on this please? I don't really understand what you're trying to say. do you mean it might look good if I vary the softness of the edges for the highlights and shadows?

I'm not sure about that since the technique I am using for this is shape layers with soft edge style applied to it. you can't vary the width of styles within a layer, I'm not even sure what I would do in order to cheat the effect. oh.. actually I do have an idea... but that is a real pain, I'll wait to confirm what you mean before I go ahead with anything. I'd like your assistance with some kind of mockup if you have a clear idea of what you mean.

good observation on the width, actually this is 66% of the original document size. I am not sure about teh way the news would be incorporated with this logo, because of the symmetry, I don't really want this logo to be offset to one side. it needs to be central. what I was thinking of doing is to have the links that are currently horizontal, set as vertical to mirror the news. then have both of them set to hide by default and to become visible on mouse-over. that might result in less people viewing the news panel, so I may just do that for smaller screens and somehow have them set as visible by default for larger screens. though I'd have to investigate the potential of including IF statements in CSS. want to avoid jscript...

p.s. I'm hoping you like it as it is anyhow, since every time I look at it I fall in love a little bit. I find it rather sexy, aside from the need for some improvements. can't wait until it gets finished.

[Aether]

i like where this design is going..

a few suggestions from me:

1. Centralise the words in the segments ( i did a really rough mock up to see the difference)

2. Make the words darker so they stand out more. if not in black then a shade approaching black. at the moment i think theyre a little too subtle....

or make them lighter to be really noticeable, but it depends what overall feel you want.

3. have some kind of shading in the central red parts of the medallion

4. consider a minor glow effect around the medallion or emanating from the centre???

apart from those small things i think its going really well !

Edited June 16, 2012 by Aether

[Bio-Boosted Dude]

here's a very crude mock up of what i meant about the shading

it's been a while since i loaded up photoshop so this one segment took me quite a while. i don't think i'd have time to do the others i forgot how much effort such things can be!! so well done on what you have so far because it does look good. also my colours aren't as nice yours but you should get the idea!!

the panel at the top is what i thought you did - draw in hard shadows and then soften the edges while still keeping some of the hardness

basically i'm suggesting having a mixture of softer and harder edges. unless you are specifically going for the glossy look. maybe what i've suggested is too derivative of the 3x3 design i made for the site some years ago.

[*Jess♥]

I understand what you mean now BBdude. thanks for doing a mockup for that.

I can say quite clearly now that you are absolutely right when you said I may be going for the glossy look. my whole thought process is focused quite clearly on the armour of kamen rider kabuto whilst also considering the shell of a crab and turtle.

I can understand that even such a glossy look will have more fuzzy edges on the highlights in places due to the angle of incidence.

I'll consider that strongly so this is very useful, thanks.

Aether, thanks very much for your feedback. I appreciate the centrality of the text from a layout perspective but I need to point out that with the top 'clam' being 3 dimensional, the part where you placed the text is almost at a 45-90 degree angel from the viewer. I guess I didn't put that across very well so I need to figure out a way to make it clearer. the reason I put the words on the edges was to try and accentuate the edges themselves. sort of... if you think of a steering wheel and the writing that sometimes appears on it... do you understand what I'm getting at?

the text is actually black, but i made it subtly transparent, so it looks like the shade of being inset, but i will definitely play around with that to make it more apparent.

the central part, it is meant to be lit up. shading it in any way would destroy any hint of being lit so I need to do something about creating a bloom effect over that. is that what you meant by light emanating?

I really appreciate all your feedback guys

it is really helpful and what's more, makes the designing a far more fun and less lonely process!

I can't work on this today because i'm going out, it'll be tomorrow when i can work on some of those things.

well, I might be able to do a quick mock-up of something just to get your thoughts....

[*Jess♥]

this is kinda what i was thinking for putting mouse over segments.

[Bio-Boosted Dude]

now THAT is nice man. really like it.

i'm a little confused about what you meant about the angle of the top panel

i attached an image of its profile

on the left is how i thought it was shaped. did u mean for it to be shaped like the right?

i'm only asking in case i can be of any help in helping you sort out the confusion

[Aether]

Ah i see!

Ok i get what you mean about a sort of steering wheel effect. if it was just a 2d non all singing and dancing piece i would insist the centralising would be better in my opinion, but seeing as there is a reason you did it i fully appreciate why..

as for the mock up of your next intentions it looks great

i like the way its popping off like a piece of armour with a bit still attached. nice.

a 'bloom' effect is maybe what i was thinking, but i've just thought... if the centre is supposed to be lit up, is there anyway to have it one shade when the sections are not 'activated' and then have it change to a lighter shade when they are?? so when the fwoosh (white whispy energy type stuff) appears the central bit could appear to glow - like when the guyver bioboosts and the eyes light up along with the fwoosh!

sorry if i'm getting carried away or didnt fully understood your already outlined artistic vision!

Edited June 16, 2012 by Aether

[*Jess♥]

nope, you understood perfectly

I was also thinking of that. having the central 'eyes' light up a bit when the armour section pops out.

bbdude, you were pretty colose with your first thought of the profile.

here is a slightly exaggerated idea of what i was thinking

[durendal]

So the text are placed horizontally, but when you mouse over the link the text turns vertically? Do you intend to put some sort of animating thingamajig for this? When you mouse over the link, the link doesn't look like it's highlighted very much. Nice shading though. And I think I like the image better with darker tones of color. Don't mind me, just some innocent bystander here.

[*Jess♥]

that's my fault, I didn't leave any indication of the placement of the words.

the words on the shell are meant to remain static on the shell. they are meant to be solid, inscribed.

I realise it could appear as though those words had moved, but what i intended was to have these words appear from within the structure.

it's good that you asked about animation.

I had an ingenious idea. I was surprised at how i thought about this, I was struggling with the issue for a while.. how to make it less of an abrupt change...

basically when putting mouse over an area, I can tell it to change the image. what i came up with was having a transitional area, like a target and bullseye. the outer ring shows a transitional image and the centre shows the final image.

I'm really glad you're liking this more anyhow.