Help. Hive Site Design?

[Despain]

I'm working on a new website for the Hive. What is the hive? Basically, it's my competitive Pokémon site that was developed from my irc channel, #hive. With the upcoming release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, we're extending the site to include an online league for that game as well (most likely the hive league will more or less become an rmxp.org brawl league since I know a lot of members here are anticipating it).

Unfortunately, the current layout REALLY isnt going to cut it. It's pretty much a wordress layout that I screwed around with for a few nights. The current Hive Website can be viewed here.

I'm looking to take things in a moder modern direction. It started when I was playing around with the logo here:

Spoiler: Original New Logo

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

Next step was to transfer the new style to a website. The early framework can be seen here:

Spoiler: First Design

http://bb.xieke.com/files/hive_new1.png[/img]

After that I had a pretty rad bout of inspiration and tonight I came up with this:

Spoiler: Second Design

http://bb.xieke.com/files/hive_new3.png[/img]

The most current change is this one: The black navigation on the side in the one above felt like a little too much, so I brought over the green box and made it a little more uniform on the sides. There's two versions, with the columns on alternate ends.

Spoiler: Current Design

http://bb.xieke.com/files/hive_new22.png[/img]

Spoiler: Current Design 2

http://bb.xieke.com/files/hive_new31.png[/img]

Basically I'm looking for comments, criticism and advice. The layout is the main thing here, but any other feedback on the site would be great too.

Currently the plan is for a static HTML website with lots of interactivity and member profiles done through the forums and forum modifications. That's obviously not the ideal route for this, so if anyone has any experience with php and is willing to help me out with that end, let me know.

 

[Danton Lavergne]

To be honest, your first design is in my opinion your best. It's simple and sleek. That's probably obsolete though, so I'll comment on the current ones instead. One thing that applies to all of the new ones is the text on top hive.rhinocap.net and #hive irc.slacked.org, instead of condensing that, I would actually extend it. Also, in your last two; since you're evidently going for the modern look, those navigation links a ridiculously small. Make the text much much bigger and separate each link with a light grey colour.

For the logo of the current ones, the Online League looks really faded and bland. Try either making it white, or even a gradient blue. Contrast of colours is great for a type of site like this one. Another thing is, I don't know what anti-alias you're using for the text, but it's almost hard to see. I don't know if it's that, or just the font itself. I have a great font I could send you that would look excellent for both the logo and the top links.

 

[Despain]

Ignore anti-aliasing on the text, since it's a photoshop mockup and that won't be there on the main page.

For your other suggestions, I'll definitely be taking them into account on the newest version. Thanks.

 

[Rare]

Yeah, definitely take out the AA on the text. 

Also, the new logo...Despain where have your pixel roots gone?  I'm really not feeling the bevel on the logo.

I really like the green you have going on there, it's very nice.  One more thing I would change is the justification of the 'log in' box.  I'd justify that to the far left.

Other than that, looks great!

Ps.  Where did the hive logo go?

 

[Despain]

Find me somewhere nice to put it on the layout.

For now, the hive logo is only really used in the news box. Notice the pokéball icon next to the green news title- when a staff member posts news, he chooses between the hive logo (for general site news), the pokémon logo, or the smash logo (for news relevant to those games respectively).  This is of course assuming that I'll find someone to php the site for me. :P

 

[Rare]

Hmm.  You're right there really isn't a place to put it.

My only suggestion would be to semi-transparent it in the background of the far left green box that says "Welcome, Play, Share, Learn".

 

[Lorem Ipsum]

I am able to help you out with PHP. I have been coding it for about a year now, and am totally free. Tell me what you need doing, and I will see if I can do it.

 

[Despain]

Yes I love you. I'll send you a PM once I have more progress done.

My only suggestion would be to semi-transparent it in the background of the far left green box that says "Welcome, Play, Share, Learn".

That's most likely being dropped in favor of google ads.

 

[Despain]

Spoiler: Improvement?

http://bb.xieke.com/files/hive_new4.png[/img]

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Hey Despain, I told you to let me know when you wanted me to do the back-end for this. Do you still want me to? Send me a PM and we can talk.

 

[Danny]

I like current design two better. The idea of having just that little bit mroe information on the left hand side is sort of appealing. However as the left side offers more information it tends to take too much attention and room away from the center of the page. On the whole the design is pretty good, nice job with the logo advanacing through the top of the header, and I really like the colour scheme.

Leaning more towards the newest update, I really like it. I'm not entirely sure if I like the idea of lines seperating each piece of text in the nav box though, I don't know why though, I'm just fussy like that. It's definetely a clean enough design, simple and yet attractive enough that it'll be in a sense 'fun' to use. Good work. I can't see anything wrong with it at the moment.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Oh, I forgot to put it in my last post, but I personally like the latest design you presented.

 

[Despain]

Newest version after more fucking around:

Spoiler: lol

http://bb.xieke.com/files/hive-x.png[/img]

Spoiler: lol2

http://bb.xieke.com/files/hive-x1.png[/img]

 

[Tohsaka]

The second one is a tad bit more appealing.

 

[Rare]

Despain it looks like you're working backwards.  PLEASE take the gradient off. 

 

[e]

The current Hive Website design is better in my opinion. Let's clunky and more informative. But I'm all for Google-ish designs, so eh.

 

[Danny]

Gradient is looking decent, I preffer the game symbols when desaturated though, they don't interfere with the design as much.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Well, I think that if you lose that gradient there, you'll end up with those two logos disappearing in their backround and the focus of your site is unclear. (I honestly had no idea those logos were there until you told me to look for them when they were desaturated XD)

 

[Konstantino]

The so-called "second design" is beautiful. It really is. Totally work with it.

 

[Venetia]

I like the Current Design 2. Makes the green in the logo make more sense.