PWEB COMMITTEE: Design/Logo Integration Discussion

[Dr. Mobius]

I like this one. I also like the idea of having multiple rotating or randomized banner icons and there's a how-to on phpbb.com for doing just that.

[Cassandra]

To sum it all up...

So we're all pretty much in agreement about which banner we like for pweb.

I really like this one for my site:
[/quote]
Just three things I would change:
1. No actor pictures in this version (I think we all agree, but possibly maybe later in another design closer to the movie blah blah blah)
2. Can you make pretty much the same design on the other sized-blank I provided so that it fits my site width...? yes please.
3. Can you make the "Ender's Game" lettering light blue instead of green so it matches yours?

Things to figure out:
Do we want a randomized banner icon? if it's easy enough, go for it!

I like the suggestion to use MY STUFF in the header, of course.....how can I help?

Maybe that's how we can incorporate Stephen's design.
Other ideas for the randomized icons?
book covers, fan art maybe?

[Taalcon]

Changes as requested,
a)With movie release date:


b)And without:

[Cassandra]

Thank you! I like them both, and I'm open to using either one.

[Taalcon]

Alright - are there any objections? If not, I say we go ahead and get these put in place.

Let me know if different dimensions would be more helpful, and I can adjust as needed:

[Gravity Defier]

I say we go ahead and get these put in place.

That's my vote. Thanks for working on these, Taal. :)

[Taalcon]

Alright. Casting news is freaking hopping. Who's in charge of getting graphics/layout changes in effect? Are they aware of this thread?

[Wind Swept]

I can do that. Do you have a .psd or other working file of some sort? That'll make it easier for me to fit it to each of the themes. Just put it in Dropbox or Ge.tt or something similar and PM me a link.

[Cassandra]

I just noticed I gave you the wrong banner blank arghhhh
I uploaded it on my tester and it looks really wrong.
I'll get back to you with the right one, so so so sorry, serious where is my head? :/

[Cassandra]

Alright this is the final one! I tested it on the tester layout to make sure it was the right one!
A few more things I noticed
1) So use the new right-sized blank (again I'm really sorry)
2) In the last edition you put a black shadow behind the description text, liked it better without it
3) When I uploaded the wrong-sized blank I noticed that the darker shading you did looked weird on my site because my background is navy and the shading was more blackish. I just looked wrong, so no shading please.

[Taalcon]

Here's a link for the psd of the PWEB logo version (with text layers rendered out):PSD LINK
The image:


And here's a new version of the Ender's Ansible header:

[Cassandra]

Done and up!
Thank you again, Dave and everyone who else who helped!

[Taalcon]

It's up! And looks awesome

Also, nice on the bolding of Ender's Ansible in the menu!

[Taalcon]

Also, if you're interested in using the yellow-ship favicon, here's a link to the one I used at thephiloticweb.net : favicon.png

[Eaquae Legit]

Looks great, guys!

[LilBee91]

Looks awesome! On both sites. Is it possible to do in-image links to each other's sites, or is that too 90s web?

[Cassandra]

It's up! And looks awesome

Also, nice on the bolding of Ender's Ansible in the menu!

I agree is looks great on both sites! Thanks for the favicon, I'll try it out! If you all I want I could do something similar (bold Philotic Web) in the links bar on Ender's Ansible? I think the yellow link looks better though, plus I linked pweb/phoebe under "Forums+Chat" ...thoughts?

Looks awesome! On both sites. Is it possible to do in-image links to each other's sites, or is that too 90s web?

The thought crossed my mind but I have no idea how to do that.

[steph]

I'm breaking out the big one for this.

[Dr. Mobius]

Also, if you're interested in using the yellow-ship favicon, here's a link to the one I used at thephiloticweb.net : favicon.png

Great work on the banners.

I'll swap out the favicon here next time I'm on my computer (probably sometime Christmas Sunday).

[Wind Swept]

[...] plus I linked pweb/phoebe under "Forums+Chat" ...thoughts?

I like. My initial thought was to just put a News link in our bar that went to your site, but it was not terribly noticeable.

I'm wondering if it would be possible for you to link to the forum and the chat separately, and include the currently chatting number like we have here. I'll investigate on Monday how to make that number accessible to your site.

[Wind Swept]

I've been contemplating how we might pay for hosting if we were to change hosts. A few options:

• Donations — Pretty straight forward. We stick a Donate link on the site and hope people support us.
• Generic Ads — Google Ads are stupid simple to set up, but they're a bit tacky and I'm not sure our demographic is terribly prone to clicking on them. Cassandra, if you don't mind my asking, are your ads bringing in any revenue on Ender's Ansible?
• Ender Ads — We could set up an Amazon Affiliates account and make our own ads to sell Ender books, Ender comic books, etc. Perhaps other OSC books or whatever we feel is a good fit.
• Sell Fan Merch — Ender's Ansible hats, Phoebe shirts, etc.

[Cassandra]

[...] plus I linked pweb/phoebe under "Forums+Chat" ...thoughts?

I like. My initial thought was to just put a News link in our bar that went to your site, but it was not terribly noticeable.

I'm wondering if it would be possible for you to link to the forum and the chat separately, and include the currently chatting number like we have here. I'll investigate on Monday how to make that number accessible to your site.

That reminds me... I think there's a way to link recent news stories and it could self-update every time there's a new news post. Don't quote me on that.
On another note, I could very easily list the forums and chat separately, I could do that right now (or tomorrow). The number of people in the chat is a great idea! I have no idea how I could make that happen the way I currently have things set up, let me tinker around. To be honest, it might be easier to give someone with more technical knowledge administrative privileges to the tester site.

I've been contemplating how we might pay for hosting if we were to change hosts. A few options:

• Donations — Pretty straight forward. We stick a Donate link on the site and hope people support us.
• Generic Ads — Google Ads are stupid simple to set up, but they're a bit tacky and I'm not sure our demographic is terribly prone to clicking on them. Cassandra, if you don't mind my asking, are your ads bringing in any revenue on Ender's Ansible?
• Ender Ads — We could set up an Amazon Affiliates account and make our own ads to sell Ender books, Ender comic books, etc. Perhaps other OSC books or whatever we feel is a good fit.
• Sell Fan Merch — Ender's Ansible hats, Phoebe shirts, etc.

Yes, but really just a negligible amount. I didn't have ads for a long time. They're only up now because when I put the custom Google search in there would be ads every time you searched anyway and I figured if there were going to be ads I might as well get paid for them. The custom search without ads was pretty pricey. I wouldn't mind taking the Good Ads off. My initial half-hearted-hope was to break even on what I spent on the domain and all that, although I'm nowhere close to that amount and gave up on that silly idea a long time ago. As far as the other methods of generating revenue I'm open to all ideas. I did think about having some stickers made for fun (free advertising on my laptop haha, I go to a very nerdy university) with either my actual logo or the QR code to the site.

[Dr. Mobius]

I don't want ads on Pweb and I don't believe we need ads on Pweb. I don't remember if it ever made it to the public discussion then, but way back when this all started I preferred the donation model if we were to break away from Ami with or without the .net domain.

PM excerpt from myself (and Will) to Jan:

From: Dr. Mobius
Sent: Thu Dec 23, 2010 2:25 pm
To: Jayelle

My preferred option is to pay to have a third party host the site for us - a company Will likes and has used in the past costs about $10/month. I've already volunteered to cover the financial side of things myself, although if others are able and want to assist with payments, I'll set up a special Paypal account or something.

I also remember mentioning at some point that $10/month for hosting is less than the $15/month I used to pay for my World of Warcraft subscription as a matter of comparison.

And I know others have stated publicly or privately that they'd be able and willing to support Pweb financially as well so even if we get slammed by newbies because of the movie and our bandwidth consumption increases, I really don't see money being a concern any time soon.

[Cassandra]

While I'm not particularly for or against ads, I went ahead and took them off.
If you all decide to decide go ahead with the donation button, I wouldn't mind putting the paypal button on my site.
I will note though that my site is pretty much covered financially for the next couple years, unless I end up switching to Wordpress.
In that case, I don't think it would cost that much anyway.
I also went ahead and uploaded the favicon with the little yellow ship. I'll seperate the chat and forums in my site's tab either tonight or tomorrow.


Psst Chris, it suddenly hit me philoticweb.net=Phoebe
endersansible.com=Eric (it also works with Ernie and Enrico)
Phoebe + Eric = hahahahahaha, ok I'm done being silly

[Wind Swept]

Okay, we can get a hosting package for $10/mo., but I don't expect much flexibility from something that cheap. I don't suppose you have a link to the proposed package?

[Taalcon]

Could there be a way to add an RSS feed to the top of the page, underneath the menu, with a title link to the latest News Story from Ender's Ansible? That could be a fantastic way of more integrating the sites, and keep those who generally come here first to be more familiar with the news as it's being reported. Sometimes it comes to the forum first, and sometimes it comes to EA first. This would be a good way for both to be at the same time.

[TechChris]

While playing with RSS parsers just now, I note that PHP has been updated. Hurrah!

[TechChris]

Ta da. Just need to figure out how to only show it on the front page, now... Then I'll add it to the other themes.

[steph]

I'm not a fan at all. The pictures are too big and I have to scroll 2 screens down to get to the forum at all. Anyway to make them smaller and have them horizontal across the page instead of vertical? It's a problem on both my laptop and my phone.

(P.S. Thanks for your work, Chris! I don't mean for this to sound like criticism of you or the hard work you are doing!)

[TechChris]

Hmm. The pictures are tiny for me. Perhaps your stylesheet hasn't refreshed. Let me see if I can force a refresh for everyone...

[Bean_wannabe]

Huge pictures are huge. And everywhere.

[TechChris]

This is what it looks like for me:


I take it that's not what you're seeing?

ETA: I tried forcing a refresh. Did it help?

[thoughtreader]

it was all big scroll forever pictures for me about a half hour ago but now it looks like the little picture you just linked. good job!

[LilBee91]

I have tiny pictures.

[TechChris]

Hooray!

And now it's set to only appear on the front page of the forum.