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Thursday, November 27, 2003
Winds of Change
I feel sorry for Adam sometimes, at least in terms of his stress level. Programming jobs are far behind -- they're just not getting done. And we both believe that we can't start adding major features until the niggling little bugs are fixed. It is my hope that these things can be sorted out as soon as possible. Hopefully our programmer/s will have time.
Still, it doesn't mean that we won't be making some rather significant changes.
For one thing, Adam has asked me to redesign the upper menu bar for theOtaku.com. Whenever Adam asks me to do something like this, there are two schools of thought with me. Or should I say, there are two prominent questions in my mind. Do I take what we have and make it a little more functional and a little more contemporary? Or, on the other hand, do I completely ditch what we have and develop a new style?
Usually, it's a combination of both that ultimately wins out. If you look at our current header, which we've had since v4 of theOtaku (v1 of myOtaku) launched, you'll notice that it's pretty different to anything we've had in the past. Each time, things tend to get more elaborate and expansive.
Not that I mind what we have. I actually like the "two curls" now more than I did at the beginning. Even for me, as the designer, they've grown on me over time. So that's a good thing from my persective.
The big problem, of course, isn't so much art related. It's more design related. When you have a single image as a block, you have to change every header whenever you add a new link for example. Not only does this take time, but it means that users have all-new images to cache in their browsers. This slows things down for narrowband/dial-up users.
And, as you can see by the layout of each one of our sites...everything has been designed with speed and clarity in mind. Everything is designed to be easy to read and to load very quickly, no matter how fast your modem is.
Compared to other major anime sites, I think we achieve that pretty well. We really haven't littered a bunch of pointless images all over our pages. If you see an image, it's either the header or it's something you can click to view at a larger size (ie: artwork or a screen capture). In other words, we have tried to keep miscellaneous imagery limited.
Why do I say all this? No really significant reason, really. Just to muse over the current state of affairs, I guess. But also, the design I've been working on is quite different to what I had originally expected.
I have shown the finished design (or near finished design) to Ger already, to get some feedback. He really liked the two designs (the new myOtaku logo and the new theOtaku.com header graphics), so hopefully Adam won't see them as too different or radical. I think he gave me a lot of freedom with the v4 stuff though, so I am sure he will be as generous this time around.
Besides, I know that Adam wants to push things forward. He likes surprising members and visitors with cool new stuff all the time. And I think he has so many ideas and concepts (we already have two full sites coded and ready to go), that he wants to unleash as much as he can. Of course, programming limitations and other unforseen issues often arise.
Heh, this post has probably been my least structured ever. I'm pretty much just thinking out loud at this point...so I'll stop. But, I will leave you with an important message: there are many cool surprises to come yet.
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