What do you think of our new site design?

Hi all,

We've just pushed the new www.elated.com site design live. The new design has the following features:

- New branding

- A cleaner, 2-column layout

- A nice drop-down menu for the articles

- Images for the news items on the homepage (once we've finished adding them!)

- You can browse older news items from the homepage (just click the "Older stuff" link at the bottom of the page)

- Nice big Share/Follow buttons at the bottom of most pages for, well, sharing and following!

- Various other minor tweaks and improvements

We'd love to know what you think of the new design. Let us know in this topic.

Matt

--
Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

Hi guys,

Congratulations! I love the new layout and colorscheme. The dropdown menu is a very nice addition, as it makes it easier to navigate the articles.

Great job guys. Well done.

mauco

[Edited by mauco on 09-Apr-10 05:30]

--
http://www.mauconline.net

Wow, you guys have once again surpassed yourselves!

The new look Elated is quite exceptional - clean but not clinical, and with a lovely '60s kitchenette feel to the whole shebang!

Keep up the excellent work. I'm a long time fan and often pop in to read your articles and keep up-to-date with the cutting (even bleeding?) edge of web design and development, if only as a keen onlooker.

Whilst I have your attention, might I add how pleasantly surprised I was to find my forum account was still active after all this time?

May your new look bring you many new successes.

--
Chris Philpot
www.chrisphilpot.co.uk
www.flavors.me/chrisphilpot

@mauco: Thanks - that dropdown menu was a lot of work to get right (and even then I couldn't get it working properly in IE7). I'm glad you like it.

@Crispy: It's really good to hear from you - it's been a while! Thanks for your kind words on the redesign. The new look is mainly down to Simon's superb design skills.

I'm glad your forum login still works too - I completely rewrote the forums in PHP last year but ported all the old accounts across. What's more, since you're an old regular, you automatically get Silver status. Wahey!

How are things with you, and what are you up to these days? I see from your Facebook page you're living in Brighton - great spot, and it also happens to be where Simon lives.

Matt

--
Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

@Crispy. Woah, a blast from the past! Welcome back! Glad you got the retro kitchenette thing - that's totally how I saw it! Although maybe more 50s than 60s, but let's not quibble.

@mauco Thanks! I really tested Matt's CSS to the full with those drop downs, so glad you like 'em!

Simon

--
ELATED : )
http://www.PageKits.com
Professional Website Templates

Actually, if anyone's interested, I can reveal that I stole the palette for the new site from this one image:

http://www.evernote.com/pub/simonmeek/coloursinspiration#v=t&n=1dd78aac-ea9c-45dc-af83-beeaf9c9a36f&b=0

This is via the marvellous Evernote by the way, where I keep all this inspiration stuff. You can see my whole Colours & Inspiration notebook at:

http://www.evernote.com/pub/simonmeek/coloursinspiration

Simon

--
ELATED : )
http://www.PageKits.com
Professional Website Templates

@Simon: It's good to be back! You are of course right about the decade - it is more '50s. In my defence, that's a long while before I was around!

@Matt: Things have been going very well. I'm not actually in Brighton itself but it's my closest city when at home. I'm presently halfway through a University of Surrey degree in media and broadcasting, which confusingly sees me share my time between Sussex and a satellite campus in Hampshire.

--
Chris Philpot
www.chrisphilpot.co.uk
www.flavors.me/chrisphilpot

@Crispy: I nearly did a media degree, but ended up doing a much more dull computer science degree instead. Sounds interesting - does the course cover the internet a lot, or is it mostly traditional media?

Going a bit offtopic: Found this great old Canadian TV news report today (early 90s at a guess?) talking about this strange new phenomenon called "internet"...

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/21452/first_report_on_the_internet_cbc_prime_time_news/

How times have changed!

--
Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

Hi guys! I love the new look, I will try to give my opinion later, don't have enough time right now!

Cheers from Portugal!

Márcio Guerra

P.s.- Now that you have fixed my name's issue you change the look? Ehehehe! It was nice! Eheheh! I know that it was not for me! Ehehehe!

--
There are only 2 infinite things, the universe and mens stupidity, and Im not sure about the first one!

Or something like it...
By Albert Einstein

@Matt: My degree is pleasantly flexible; in my first year I had compulsory modules covering multi-camera TV production, single-camera short film-making, live and pre-recorded radio production and interactive design (largely Flash) alongside my theory units. Then in year two I have been able to specialise in those which most appealed to take on more advanced projects using the same core skills.

So the answer to your question is probably "both"! Interestingly I didn't take the interactive design second year module as I have found a greater affinity with radio presentation and production. I do still try to keep my web design skills reasonably fresh, though - I'll have to launch myself onto the web properly within the next year or so if I am to find work, after all!

--
Chris Philpot
www.chrisphilpot.co.uk
www.flavors.me/chrisphilpot

@Márcio: Looking forward to your feedback!

@Crispy: Sounds like the degree covers a lot of ground - great stuff. I've always been fascinated by TV production since my visits to Broadcasting House as a kid (my Dad used to work as a TV producer at the BBC).

I think there's a lot of mileage left in radio. I saw a blog post the other day that claimed TV "killed off" radio, while the internet is killing off TV. Nonsense! I love listening to radio, since you can do other stuff at the same time (such as cooking). I even manage to get Radio 4 on my iPhone here in Australia, thanks to a handy app called FStream. Not so easy to cook while watching TV or surfing the web.

--
Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

Hi guys! I am back!

Matt, here comes my little review on the new Elated.

I LOVE IT ALL!!! REALLY!!! I was surfing around (do we still use that word?) (Ah! No, we use browsing, ok! Got it!!!) and enjoy the feel of almost everything, really. The images, the colors, the text, the buttons, almost everything. Ok, then, the least, that is the almost, is regarding, at least to me, in my PC, with Vista, Chrome, and is about the big Headers, like in this very same page where it says «Post a reply». It seems, and yet it doesn't seem that much right now, I noticed it in the first time, it seemed a bit, how can I say it, when we choose the type to be smooth, sharp, and it wasn't any, it was like if the type was «bitten», with teeth. Can't remember proper word. Despite now I don't feel that, or at least that much. So, for now it seems ok. I imagine that it might be some webkit stuff, right? That stuff to help us add some new type to our fonts in the page? Might be my feeling just, but, regarding type that is my only pointing finger.
Regarding the menu... Ouch, amazing. Is that all made with CSS? I love the feeling of them. There, to the whole menu, I would just try to set a bit higher the contrast against the banner itself, where you have pattern, to be even more recognizable, but even that seems very pleasant.
Since I am point fingers here, despite feeling bad for doing it, I must apologize for that, because the overall feeling is so good, I noticed, right now that I am writing, that you can indeed take a bit further the usability of the buttons in the message posting/site, if there are any others that I don't remember like this, to even add some feeling to the user. Both are orange, one cancels the message, the other one, a bit bigger, posts it. Why not go a step further and add some «do» and «don't» colors to the buttons? I mean, like a red to cancel the message, and greener tone to post it, so that we don't rely just on reading. I think that this I am talking about is usability, however I am also thinking about ergonomics and I can't remember any other words/terms. The best I can do is to relate to Jacob Nielsen, and I guess you understand me now, if not already.

That is all, and don't take it too hard, I don't mean to make anyone sad. Like I said, 99,9% is almost 100%, and I just left that 0,01 to the type, menu contrast and perhaps the buttons. I really love the overall look, indeed, from the bottom of my heart, ehehhe!

Cheers from Portugal

Márcio Guerra

P.s.- It is easier, however, to point out the finger, rather then to do it. You guys did, indeed, a AWESOME job here!!! AWESOME!!!

--
There are only 2 infinite things, the universe and mens stupidity, and Im not sure about the first one!

Or something like it...
By Albert Einstein

Hey Márcio,

Thanks for the feedback! I believe that even Vista's font rendering can be quite "bitty", and that Windows 7 is much smoother in this regard (not that I've seen it in either - I only run WinXP in a VM on my Mac!). Yes, we've used Typekit to render the main font (Museo Slab), although there's a bit of a discussion going on here about an alternative (Font Squirrel):

http://www.elated.com/forums/topic/4864/

Yeah, the menu is pure CSS (based on "son of suckerfish"), with a transparent PNG background and CSS3 rounded corners/drop shadows. Couldn't get it to work at all in IE7 unfortunately, so those poor souls that use IE6/7 just get a link to the Articles page instead!

Good point about the buttons. Maybe we'll do bold for the default button, and regular font for the secondary button.

Thanks again - great points!

Matt

--
Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

Hi again! Just to confirm that I hate to «point out» my finger to anyone's work. I only mentioned those things because I like this place. If I wouldn't care I wouldn't even be here at the forums talking to you.
I really hope that I am not misunderstood. Really! I love the whole «shabang»! All Elated is quite nice!

Cheers from Portugal, guys!

Márcio Guerra

--
There are only 2 infinite things, the universe and mens stupidity, and Im not sure about the first one!

Or something like it...
By Albert Einstein

@Márcio: Not at all... We appreciate all the feedback! Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts.

--
Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/