Gentoo Foundation Website Redesign Contest -- the vote

[STEDevil]

I have 12" only display here. I really dislike 'Aaron Shi', it wastes useful space with huge, senseless images and places the navigation links on the bottom of the screen, so almost anyone will have to scroll. Leave the website as is or choose iris on mirror.

i concur. choose iris on mirror.

LOL?

How can anyone critizise the Aaron site becuse of it taking too much space and then prefer Iris on Mirror?!?

Iris take up more minimum space both vertically and horizontally, and that is WITH the huge image add on the Aaron site (which I assume most agree on should be removed from a final design anyway).

If anything, Irisis a much worse choise then Aarons if used screensize is of ANY importance.

Some people just crack me up
Thanks for todays best laugh guys

[vodkin40]

Just my 2c: Aaron Shi is most dull and takes too much of precious screen real estate. Charles-Andre - too cluttered, too much cliche "corporate" graphics. Derek Gerstmann - guys, do you really need such a huge banner to promote yourself on your own site?

Iris on Mirror is the best, but I voted for current design. Simplicity is the virtue.

[tigrezno]

I liked Iris on Mirror, but chosen Aaron's because bad color scheme in Iris.
It could be funny having a final vote about two finalist. Iris should be redone with another colors.

[Zacay]

I made this in about 20minutes when I saw the contest..
but then I had alot of work and didn't manage to work on it more..

http://www.zacay.com/gentoo.jpg

I hate myself cause I didn't find time to finish the design.. but I like it anyway being a fast design and a nice facelift to the current design...

ohhh I feel so bad that the current design will be replaced with anything else..

[motub]

The one I liked best visually was the Aaron Shi, but the one I voted for was the Charles-Andre Landemaine - gencorp, for one reason only-- that search box at the top of the page.

I have longed for that feature on the main site for a long time.

But all the finalists have earned their place-- congratulations to all for such good work.

[thoffmeyer]

Gencorp man.. Shi's is just... too.. professional for a distro.

[keli]

After a long deliberation I felt I had to go with the last choice - not because I would think the sites wouldn't need a redesign, but because I had more or less objections to each designs, objections, with which I couldn't cast a confident vote on any ...

Here's my two cents of criticism [ducks]

Landemain (gen*) - sorry - no go, none, at all... reminded me of prefabricated website templates - of wich you can find too many floating around - their "value" being just as much too, not a penny more.

the seemingly higly praised Iris design: I like the header, but the content (especially on the entry page) is organized - and looks like - a one-in-a-million php-nuke template. Stuff that reminds me that much of cheap template or content-management systems producing ugly websites with the dozen just can't win me over ...

Then both Gerstmann and Shi have very interesting designs, but both feature huge - not quite justifiable "banners". Banners of that size, just like splash screens for a webpage ... well ... s*ck. There are still some people browsing @ 800x600 or less, and they might not be impressed with a single huge banner clogging up their screen.

Oh yeah - and as others mentiones several times earlier, the Shi design has a rather "SuSE"-like look (and osCommerce has one too, not the other way around )

So I'd think at least three of the five designs are quite good, but all of them could use some more work.

And of course I guess it would be close to mandatory to TRY at least to keep it valid/accessible - a good schemantic design with (X)HTML/CSS ..

[keli]

I really wouldn't like to hurt anybody's feelings who's new to the gentoo community - and especially to the forums, but *khm* rather surprisingly *khm* this topic seems to be a very *khm* favourite place to start *khm* for newbies, being a bit too filled with members with 1-4 posts ... all very up-to-date on how the gentoo sites should look like

again: any newcomers - please don't take this onto yourselves ... those, who should - I think get the point themselves ... if not ... well...

[Tweakin]

I really wouldn't like to hurt anybody's feelings who's new to the gentoo community - and especially to the forums, but *khm* rather surprisingly *khm* this topic seems to be a very *khm* favourite place to start *khm* for newbies, being a bit too filled with members with 1-4 posts ... all very up-to-date on how the gentoo sites should look like

again: any newcomers - please don't take this onto yourselves ... those, who should - I think get the point themselves ... if not ... well...

At one point I was thinking this too, but there are to many factors against this train of thought to go straight for a conspiracy theory.

A) You have people who use Gentoo, maybe for a year or more, but have never registered at the forums because they 'just don't use forums'. I know tons of people like that, in particular old linux geeks that would rather use a mailing list. These people may justify registering an account to vote in this poll, however, as they are sure to have an opinion on it.

B) You have people like me, who have registered at the forums at one point or another, but have never done much posting. When I come to the Gentoo forums it's not to chit-chat and boost my post count, it's to find an answer to a question in which most of the time I don't have to post to get (ie it's already been asked and answered).

Those two catagories alone probably make up for the majority of any 'n00bs' posting here. I don't question the possability of maybe a few bogus accounts, but I would really questions rather it's even 0.1% of the current ~1900 votes. An admin, if any alligation was serious enough, could track down new accounts who have posted/voted and verify unique (and not bogus) emails and unmatching IP adresses.

[Tweakin]

Doh, I think I misread the post. You wernt jumping to a conspiracy theory (good) just pointing out newbies may not have the best diea of what a Gentoo site should look like.

I can't speak for everyone, but I have been using Gentoo and the gentoo websites and forums for coming up on 2 years. Even though my forum title is 'n00b', I do have an opinion and ideas of what I would like from a new site design. The above two catagories fit for this type of point too, though.

[dcstimm]

I made this in about 20minutes when I saw the contest..
but then I had alot of work and didn't manage to work on it more..

http://www.zacay.com/gentoo.jpg

I hate myself cause I didn't find time to finish the design.. but I like it anyway being a fast design and a nice facelift to the current design...

ohhh I feel so bad that the current design will be replaced with anything else..

I like it but it looks alot like the original site, and the white ) ( look alittle to white, maybe using some kind of gradient there would look cool or a shaded purple/grey color. Who knows.. looks good though.

[The_Saint]

I like the existing one.
It's simple, not loaded with unnecessary pictures, it's easy to navigate and provides a quick glance of everything.
Besides, none of the five entries contains the picture of the Gentoo-penguin. I like very much this penguin, please do not lose it!

[lunalot]

this topic seems to be a very favourite place to start for newbies, being a bit too filled with members with 1-4 posts...

ah, thanks, keli. what constructive criticism. next time i'll remember that if i'm posting in the gentoo forums and my post count is low, i'll make sure there aren't too many other people with low post counts that already posted in that thread. otherwise, elitists with low self-esteem will feel like they're not getting the attention they deserve.

...all very up-to-date on how the gentoo sites should look like

another gem of advice. thanks to you, i now realize that it takes more than design research (theory and practice), and more than a mere 10 years of browsing the internet, and more than a B.S. in computer science, and more than substantial experience with an array of f/oss operating systems (edit: including 2 years and 7 personal and business machines with gentoo), and more than developing several business process oriented websites, to really have any valuable input to give regarding www.gentoo.org. thanks to you, i now realize that i need a high post count number to fully and deeply demonstrate my value to close-minded, xenophobic, myopic, superficial sheep such as yourself.

again: any newcomers - please don't take this onto yourselves ... those, who should - I think get the point themselves ... if not ... well...

oh thanks for clarifying. you know for a second there, the part where you mentioned "newbies" made me think you were addressing newcomers. also the part where you mentioned people with "1-4 posts" made me think you were addressing newcomers. again, thanks for the clarification. you know, cause, we wouldn't want to say anything that would make individuals new to gentoo or new to the forums feel unwelcome or uncomfortable to post anything in here.

[Hrk]

As a lot of people already said, I voted Iris on Mirror but I'd prefer it with a purple in place of green: white font on green background has a low contrast and is difficult to read.

Iris on Mirror is the candidate I like the most as versatility and look and feel, but the one I can read worse due to those colours.

[sombs]

I'm only three months into using Gentoo and goto the gentoo.org site alot to get answers I need. I liked Charles-Andre Landemaine - gencorp - clean, tabbed navs and has a search function. Did not see a search function on the others but maybe they'll be added - at least I hope because I use it a lot on the current site.

[fdarling]

I also like the "Iris on a Mirror" site, and voted for it. I would like it alot more though if it were purpleish.... I do not like the ones that have the "people" pictures, they make it look like they are selling something, like a corporation...

[Dont know anything]

The Aaron Shi design is very good, but in my opinion it's not usable for a serious linux distrebution. The rocketfuel stuff makes it look realy childish. Being recongniced as a distro more for fun and kids, is one of the problems gentoo has these days. Exagerating this on the frontpage is not recomended.

[BitPit]

I choose to keep the current design because I don like to wait for graphics to load and clutter my display. I hate blury pictures and blury backgrounds. When I read gentoo I want information not eye candy.

My eyesight is not perfect, but good enough to read most web pages without glasses. I like high contrast text with good use of color and font style.

[STEDevil]

I don like to wait for graphics to load and clutter my display.

On a properly designed page you never ever have to wait for images to load before you start reading the text. In fact a properly coded webpage should work equally well with images missing/turned compleatly off in the browser. But that "magic" is done mostly through the underlying HTML/CSS so ensuring good accessibility will mostly be in the hands of the people that are responsible for the actual coding.

[Stormmind]

I voted for Aarons, because it's clean, sleek, tidy and good-looking.
Unfortunately it looks a bit too much like a corporate site - I'm missing
some twist, some playfullness, which I think is very closely tied with
whole Linux-community. Perhaps if it was left exactly is it is now, but
some graphics where exchanged for others with some surprising and
funny motives? Like Tux getting stuck in a 'G' or something like that.
I want humour, goddamnit! =)

That's just my opinion and if you think it's bad or that someone allready
said that and I should have read all the other zillion posts first - bite me.

// Stormmind

[iswm]

They're all nice, but they look to... Commercial? I feel like I'm at some webhost company's website when I look at those, like they're all going to try and get me to buy things. I voted to keep it the same.

[ndraak]

This is going to sound awfully redundant, but Iris is a awsome setup, but a purple color theme would make it look a thousand times better.

[dufeu]

I like the easyer to read layout of Gentech but preferred Gerstmann's look and feel. A colaboration of the two looks would probably be fantastic.

Shi's contribution was too 'corporate' for me. i.e Too cold.

In all cases, the advertizing was a detracting distraction. Then again, whatever pays the bills.

[ancientt]

I looked over the submissions and was impressed, but when I looked at Dereks I said wow.

I called my wife over and asked her to check it out. She said "Wow!"

I asked her about some other ones. She said some of them looked more corporate or professional but no other one had that gut wrenching wow factor that Dereks did.

I'm the odd man out, but if you read this Derek, don't be discouraged. Some of us voted for your design because of the sheer impact.

I'll continue sending friends to gentoo.org no matter what is chosen, but if Dereks design were to win, I'd send them without feeling the compulsion to tell them something to make them read. Eye candy? Maybe.
I'm of the mindset, "If it works, then make it beautiful."

[Dolemite]

Voted for Aaron - It was the least complicated, simple but fully functional and I dig the infinity symbol with the gentoo name.