[BETA] Stop & Paint - A community project

[$t3v0]

http://bb.xieke.com/files/stopandpaintlogo.png[/img]

Hey guys,

I've been meaning to launch a few web based community projects for a while now but it's just been a case of filtering out the bad from the good. The one I'm bringing to you here is probably bottom of the list out of the three I have sketched out for portfolio use.

What the hell are you talking about?

To put it simply, "Stop & Paint" is an imitation of an art gallery wall. This wall is filled with images that people submit representing their websites/blogs/online portfolios for the world to see. Think of it as a more fun way of advertising yourself to other designers. There's nothing better than having links to a wide range of different artists from all around the world, It's interesting to see how different people go about designing something and even more exciting when their work breeds new ideas.

So what do I have to do?

Go here

Once you're there read the on-screen instructions and create your own piece of the wall. You can make as many alterations to the original frame as you want as long as you stay within the original document size (and the background is locked for a reason). Bare in mind that this is a BETA test to run through any problems and decipher whether or not this project is worth investing into in the future.

I've only added the template in .PSD and .TIFF formats because they are the only open source file types I could think of. If you can think of any others that are not present which are preventing users to participate, please let me know. I'm only a rookie ;-;

Rules

1. Image size: 200x472
2. No racism or pr0n plz (that includes tentacle rape and bukkake :fap

Just to confirm

Send all entries to stevo@lenshaw.com
your image will be moderated before being published.

Have fun!

 

[BunnyKinx]

hiya, sorry i have not been intouch yet... been reinstalling my computer with all programs :D

but i just wanted to say. this idea is SOOOOOOOOOOO SIMPLE.
SOOOOOOOO SIMPLE that its GREAT.

but what happens when the wall gets to long.... and where do the new pictures go... at the back or at the front?

 

[$t3v0]

No problem at all

The concept is just that, a simple yet (potentially) effective method of advertising graphical artists. I mean it isn't just limited to the graphics section it can be used by anyone from any background of art, I just use bias language because I'm from that area.

When the wall gets too long there will be an arrow on the very last picture on the right. This then leads to the next page and sew on. As for the order they are displayed; the latest appears to the far left of the screen, the area that's visible upon page load.

I hope I'll be getting an entry from you soon :B

 

[BunnyKinx]

yea you will. if you want some space to upload all the images to you can do also.

and look forward to having you help me

 

[Despain]

what? it looks like another one of your HERE ARE SOME PHOTOS OF ME AND MY FRIENDS sites

 

[$t3v0]

Haha it isn't like that at all, Despain. Considering the images on there are placeholders and it has nothing to do with my friends whatsoever. The wall is for anybody who wants to add to it, and at no point does it need to be a photograph of yourself or your friends.

I can see where you've got that idea, but it really isn't like that.

 

[Despain]

oh okay i think i'm starting to get it. i could actually see someting like this becoming a pretty popular sort of web2.0 style site in terms of user-generated content and stuff. if you go beyond an email form and allow people to upload their images it could be pretty neat

 

[$t3v0]

It was only a project idea I chose from a long list. I am planning to promote it and do my best to make it work, but that can only happen with the help of viewers. At the end of the day, it costs nothing and it advertises your work to everyone who goes there. Even more reason to make your picture stand out from the rest.

The email form is only in the BETA version until I work out a method of uploading. It's not the uploading part that I'm worried about, I've got a few ways of doing that, it's the fact they can't really be moderated before being placed on the site (or can they?). The way I'd like it to work is they can upload there image and BAM ... there's their image on the site, but like I said, this can cause a spam spree and ruin the image of the site itself because porn and cumshots will soon find themselves on there.

Thanks for the input, are you going to add to the wall?

 

[Despain]

Not in its current form, email's a massive hassle for me. And I think it's the same for a lot of people.

You have a few options in terms of moderation. You can have it go through and just manually (you and other moderators) delete stuff that violates a ToS. Alternatively, if you want it to be a little stricter, you could have the images uploaded to a queue where a moderator would approve/deny them. It would be similar to your current system, but MUCH MORE efficient.

I'm actually totally with you on this idea because it actually has potential to be pretty big if made and advertised properly, it could work as a pretty rad link exhange/social network thing but based around something very simple like images and links, which is a formula that i think has some cool potential.

Best site project that you've come up with, I think.

 

[Despain]

oh yeah also the big suggestion that will help this a lot: don't give them a psd and don't use the whole wall section as an image. expecting them to do that kind of work will turn people off, where it would be very appealing to just upload an image cropped to a certain size.

use the wall and picture frame as the background and just position their uploaded images within it. the text under the picture then could be actual text. this approach would also have the site load a lot faster, which is important to keep in mind when you have hundreds of paintings on the wall

 

[$t3v0]

Not in its current form, email's a massive hassle for me. And I think it's the same for a lot of people.

You have a few options in terms of moderation. You can have it go through and just manually (you and other moderators) delete stuff that violates a ToS. Alternatively, if you want it to be a little stricter, you could have the images uploaded to a queue where a moderator would approve/deny them. It would be similar to your current system, but MUCH MORE efficient.

I'm actually totally with you on this idea because it actually has potential to be pretty big if made and advertised properly, it could work as a pretty rad link exhange/social network thing but based around something very simple like images and links, which is a formula that i think has some cool potential.

Best site project that you've come up with, I think.

That was the method I was thinking would be the most efficient. I'll make changes sometime today and post in this topic when it's up and running. As the topic title states, this is merely in the BETA stages and it's suggestions like that I was depending on before this goes anywhere near the web for real. Before it goes online I want every possible kink to be worked out and have a plan B for everything.

Thanks for the encouragement. The advertising side of things is something that I've not really looked into (due to this being in such early stages), what would you suggest to get the most effective results? I mean there's plenty of communities I can pass this around to and of course Google ads, but it would be nice to hear more ideas in this department.

If this site WAS to get popular and grow over time, It's only then I'd consider giving it more depth. I've had a number of suggestions by e-mail regarding member areas and community build up, but this is going against the whole point of this being a simple, one click project.

oh yeah also the big suggestion that will help this a lot: don't give them a psd and don't use the whole wall section as an image. expecting them to do that kind of work will turn people off, where it would be very appealing to just upload an image cropped to a certain size.

use the wall and picture frame as the background and just position their uploaded images within it. the text under the picture then could be actual text. this approach would also have the site load a lot faster, which is important to keep in mind when you have hundreds of paintings on the wall

This was something I actually did before I altered the image to contain the wall too. The reason I changed it is because I wanted to give them the opportunity to change the frame shape and surrounding to whatever they pleased so the flow of the pictures wouldn't be so symmetrical. You may have noticed I locked the BG layer as I don't want that to change as it would cause the wall to look absolutely shit.

Using CSS the images could be placed into the frames perfectly and yes, this would cause the loading times over time to be reduced dramatically. But for now (as the submissions are low and nobody really knows what this is) I'll stick with the full on images. I can guarantee this will soon change if the site was to gain more viewers, though.

The cropped image size also gives people using ANY design program the chance to add their work. As all it will be is a square image that they add to and submit. Good shit, Despain.

 

[Danny]

I've already expressed interest in this project, just thought I'd pop in with something that came to me. If you do go ahead with an enhanced version of this after the trial run I was thinking that the choice to select a specific genre of submission would be cool, then all items of that genre could be displayed on the whole and sorted through.

By the way two words, Deviant Art. If you pop into the chat rooms and post links where allowed you may get some pretty decent attention, it went down pretty well in some photography rooms.

Also I was wondering, if this goes ahead, I assume you'd be adding in full view?

 

[___]

Stevo this is a great idea man!  I think you're more like in Alpha right now than Beta, as you're lacking implementation of essential features to the design concept, such as a streamlined UI, you should possibly reflect that for people who understand the distinction or expect more functionality out of a Web 2.0 beta.  The design is nice, horizontal scrolling sucks some balls though since most people don't have a sidescrolling mouse.  Nobody's going to put up with that; either include a nice javascript scrolling feature.  Easy to do, wrap the image area in a DIV with overflow:hidden, width 95% or so and a fixed height, and then an interior wrap, use javascript to change the left position of the inner wrapper when the user clicks or mouses over a scroll button.  Obviously you're going to have to page it eventually as well.  (please don't use flash flash makes me a sad panda)

I loove baroque color schemes, the design is great.  In regard to the frame issue, I think it would look much more dynamic if the picture frames stretched to accomodate the aspect ratio of the submitted artwork; when you go into an art gallery you see paintings in a huge variety of shapes and sizes, there's no regularity to it and the variety adds to the aesthetic appeal.  Implementing it using simple CSS rules would only require a couple images and a pretty simple setup, it's well worth the effort and your users won't have to go to any extra trouble to fit their images into your frames.  Later down the road it'd be neat to see something that accomplishes a dynamic layout wherein the images are fit together on the screen like a puzzle, I'll see if I can find an example later, I've seen some great sites that do what I'm thinking of for data visualization.

Moderation is a must, IMO, or you're going to end up with a wall full of 6th grade manga doodles which I think would turn off the type of audience that could really make the idea fly.  Maybe do it by invitation only like gmail with a small allocation of invites per user that grows over time.  Putting that kind of restriction on it could give it a feeling of exclusivity.  I know you want it to be really simple for people to jump right into, though.  Consider a gradual engagement approach, or perhaps an amateur wall with no restrictions, or both.

Anyway I definitely dig the idea and I'll be happy to participate in it; as soon as I get a chance and a couple of the sites I've designed go live so I can start linking them. : )

 

[Ceroscuro]

We are in beta, it's just that the link in this topic isn't linked to the beta.  It is functioning though.