On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 11:22 PM, Kasim Ahmic wrote:

I've been working on a redesign for the GIMP website recently and I have the homepage almost finished. You can see it here: http://seasonoftreason.uphero.com/templates/

Now when I say "almost finished" I mean that it's not quite cross browser yet. It looks odd in some older browsers and Internet Explorer 8 and possibly earlier. Not sure about IE 9 as I have Windows XP. Tell me what you think!

I wasn't sure whether I should comment at all, but here goes...

(Please note that this is just my personal opinion.)

In general I feel that this is a completely wrong approach. GIMP is a product, hence the home page should be more of a product page. Here are some examples of open source software product pages:

http://hotot.org/ http://sparkleshare.org/
http://www.mono-project.com/

The hotot page, for example, uses a simplified version of the so called pyramid approach where content keeps growing in the top-bottom direction. A more obvious example of this aproach could be, perhaps, http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/

The principle, however, is preserved that the most important content should be above the fold, that is, in the top 768px of the screen (some say it's less, some say it's more, I'm just giving an average value). If you look at your design, you'll see that it has two landscape pictures, none of which are remotely related to GIMP (hence are not important), and one of them even has a bit of a barn in the right side (talking about attention to details).

The logo is part of product's identity, and I'm sorry, but I just dont see GIMP suddenly becoming something related to gothic subculture.

The beveled overrounded buttons are too 2000s (if not 90s), and their spacing is completely out of tune with the top navigation bar. Besides, I feel like two navigation areas are a completely wrong approach as well.

Finally the color palette is out of tune too. You have subtle background, solid and contrasty, nearly black sidebar, rather low contrast body text area and a red gradient filled top navigation bar that is out of tune with the header. The content doesn't even try to make an effort

My suggestion would be to study contemporary trends, composition and color harmony more.

End of a rant :)

P.S. I quite support the idea of a design contest.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 11:46 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

The content doesn't even try to make an effort

Er :)

The content doesn't even try to make an effort of standing out of the background for which a slight shadow is usually used.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 7:33 AM, wrote:

Yes, an inactive team isn't making decisions. However, you said that "there already was a discussion on the need for the new design".
So I asked, out of curiosity, when did that discussion take place?

It was discussed at 2010 LGM where a lot of the developers met. It will probably be discussed some more in the future. If there is to be contest, there will also be design guidelines set. I don't want to be rude and it was a nice effort, but Kasim's work in current state will probably not match them.

Best, Alexia