Website Design, Evolved Network (Fansites, Communities, Networks)

EVOLVED NETWORK DESIGN Overview : The Evolved Network is a fast growing community of fan sites, communities, forums, blogs, mostly tailored to gaming. But this design must be flexible where it could be changeable so it could be used as anything from a clean blog site of Energy or a gaming Fansite. The idea is to keep cost down by creating one solid foundation site which can be easily changed using CSS properties, and banners being switched out. You will be responsible as the designer to create the site which the coder can easily change where ever the main color is for example; Red like at our network site www.apb-evolved.com; used for titles, buttons, etc. This needs to be change by a simple CSS change from the coder to turn into blue, green, yellow, purple, brown (any color we choose). You will also need to allow the site to have a very easy way to change out he banner, this means don't do any kind of method that may make it difficult to put in a box banner at the top. In addition to that the site will require the method of using a banner + background. You can view an example of this at gamespot.com You should take a very close look at this site for the ideal model for our site, and follow the menu style! http://www.behance.net/ The site above has a lot of things we want… *Colors perfect, and where ever blue is would be replaced with whatever. *Menu style is perfect, maybe a bit more gloss idk *Banner size, and the sides are good sides to allow a full background or just a single banner. *Bottom modules are also very good, the 3 levels of the footer. One thing I don’t like about the site is the right side how they did the advertisements, I don’t like that how its like skimmed. Example 1: http://www.bestofjoomla.com/index2.php?option=com_bestoftemplate&task=demo&no_html=1&id=1821 there are a number of things I like in this template, and you should try the model yours after the following. *The Width of the content area *The search module position, you will need to place the search module on top of the banner like shown here. *The menu style is not too bad, I like the size again and it needs to align with the content area. A key feature is that the font when highlighted over it should be able to change colors, so make sure you design this in such a way making it easier on the coder along with the dropdown they did is also pretty good. (I imagine you may need to do a few revisions on this, Im not too sure what I want it to look like yet) Yet you’re the designer ;) *I like the banner size, however you have to put a line next to the banner separating it from the background. This way if we wanted to have simple color background and a game image for the banner we can do that...or we could have one entire image like noted view gamespot.com. *I like how they did the news module, since the site will be coded into Joomla! you should view Joomla! example sites and model your buttons and font etc according to that. Example 2: http://www.purevolume.com/ *Perfect color scheme, minus a little to light. But this gives you a good example of where you would replace the blue with any other color needed. *View the bottom module position I really like this how it is very simple dark grey with the lighter grey title, and even lighter for the font. This would be ideal for our site footer. *Footer bar which needs to be able to be TEXT for SEO reasons. *Also nice to have the banner at the bottom or sides, etc. http://totalgamingnetwork.com/ *This site does a great job showing you some of the advertisement positions that could be done, yet we will do this using modules. Moving on... http://gamespot.com/ *Shows your the banner + background mix for the full effect for whatever our site may represent or advertise. *Module positions are KEY here, please view all the variations, sizes, colors etc. -Latest Headlines module, grey/dark grey or white -Video Picks module color top and grey or white **I like rounded corners!!** Ideally model the design after these colors and glossy feel; http://www.gamespot.com/pc/index.html?tag=nav-top;pc&navclk=pc And http://www.gamespot.com/pc/index.html?tag=bg_toggler%3Bbg_dark&navclk=pc More non; example features: The site needs a top bar which should be like a dark grey or something, not to big; not to small. This will show the date & time, the Evolved Network image or logo. And links to our network sites. This will go on the top of all our sites linking them together. http://www.ign.com/ gives a decent example. gives you more idea of what the top Evolved Network logo button should look like look at Envato Network on the right > http://vectortuts.com/ *Another big key element is that the site needs to be easily transferred to from our current sites. Meaning if you look at : http://huxley-evolved.com/ and then were to install the new template I would like to have that left module position size, and then the new content on the other side. This needs to be switchable and the coder will do this, yet he needs to have a design that isn’t stuck to one side the modules must be able to switch around and move to any position without big design changes. Think Web 2.0 when you’re designing :) Be Creative, and Simple! Other sites for ideas: http://boxwish.com/ http://www.joomlart.com/templates_demo.php?template=ja_sanidine