4 WIP layouts for feedback

[momijizukamori]

...because posting these publicly will give me some motivation, and I could use feedback on some of them *g*

Baroque
Notes: An attempt at an elegant one-column default layout.
Issues: Needs the top image flipped, and a nice little scrolly image seperator between entries. I'm also thinking about switching more of the text to serif default and adding a fancy intial capital for entries. Also needs to be fiddled with in two-column/three-column modes.

Corinthian
Notes: Inspired by a preview pic I saw on dreamwidthlayouts (though entirely my own code). Fairly simple Crisped mod to have the header be part of the sidebar, and make the background areas solid (I love solid background areas. See Marginless and Heads Up XD).
Issues: Uh, none that I know of. But I did code this at two am today. Possibly needs a rename (I was going 'I need something more interesting that 'Columns'...)

Fly Away
Notes: A sanctioned port of a custom LJ layout. Started out because I wanted the same layout for a journal I moved over *g*
Issues: Fixed-width at the moment, but I think I figured out how to change that. The original layout removed the header - I'm not sure how to add it back in attractively. Also not sure how I feel about the arrangement of entry footer stuff.

Rising
Notes: rising's design, my code :)
Issues: Relative positioning with em-units leads to rounding errors. I think thicker borders will hide that and keep the dreaded 1px gap at bay? Secondary pages need some padding to make up for lack of icon.

Comments

[gone_fishing]

I really, REALLY, really like Corinthian, and I would love to see the adjustments made to Baroque because that would be a pretty layout.

[momijizukamori]

Corinthian is really simple changes, but somehow it changes the feel of Crisped a lot - I'm still liking it even though it's not 2am *g*

Baroque currently suffers from 'let me whip up a rough draft for proof of concept and then not do anything else with it for four months'

[baggyeyes]

I like Corinthian. But I'm not too fond of line heights where the words collide into one another, unless the lines are different from each other, and are have enough contrast between them so that readability doesn't suffer.
Not sure if I made sense there....lack of sleep. :(

Baroque currently suffers from 'let me whip up a rough draft for proof of concept and then not do anything else with it for four months'
Yeah, I know that one from experience.

[momijizukamori]

Yeah, I can kind of see both sides there - I did the navigation that way to mirror the title text, and I like the tighter look myself, but I do understand the readability concerns.

I am great at whipping up proof of concepts and then abandoning them for months XD

[baggyeyes]

Well, the line heights I referred to were the Journal Title/Subtitle Page Name.

The navigation looks great to me; the headings opposite the links create (for me) a kind of dynamic feel. It might be different for someone else. But I really like how the navigation and the entry text flows. It is a nice design.

[momijizukamori]

Ah, okay! I actually could probably add a little more wiggle room there and still get a similar look - it's pretty tight on line height right now, yeah.

[gone_fishing]

let me whip up a rough draft for proof of concept and then not do anything else with it for four months

SEE ALSO MY BACKLOG OF COLOUR THEMES. XD

And yes, I do that thing too where something looks GREAT at 2 in the morning and then, in daylight, I'm like "um, what?" :P

Even though the changes to Corinthian are simple, though, it does change that feel of Crisped. I like it, I do.

[momijizukamori]

Yeah, I go both ways - 2am 'this is great!'/morning 'what was I thinking?' and 2am 'THIS IS THE WORST THING EVER I HATE IT'/morning 'no that's pretty nice actually'

and yeah, I figured it justified making it it's own theme. I kind of love full-page content. Not that headers aren't bad, but having the whole expanse there looks nice.

[ex_rising236]

Have I mentioned how much I love what you've done in coding the design and I love that you've done it? I have some chatter at you about the layout at some point (ideas eeee) but probably … Tuesday. I WILL try and be on IRC this week to chatter.

I think that maybe, having a little tiny bit of base padding on either side at default (my brain says 1em, maybe even 2em, but figure out what works) could help all the pages and would balance things out, and such. And that way you have some base padding that you have that doesn't affect the width of the header, which is the thing I don't like about setting the margin in the wizard. Maybe even like, 3 or 4 em, just enough to have a nice little border on each side and still have it have the /feel/ of a full width layout.

[momijizukamori]

That could work! And I'll try to be on IRC Tuesday then, though forwarning that it'll either be before 2:30pm PST or after 11:45pm PST (curse you, work)

[ninetydegrees]

(I hear you!)

I think Baroque has a lot of potential (and people will like it because there are lots of people who like one-column styles and we don't have enough as defaults). What you want to do make sense to me. Two things I'm wondering about: the very thin margin on the side of entries and the image between the navlinks and the upper modules. I think it needs to be separated but maybe not with this same big image again (maybe the entry separator would work better; or not ;))

I love Corinthian and would use it in my communities. It's everything I wanted Paletteable and T3 but I'd never understood why they didn't work for me until now. Simple but brilliant, and there's a lot of potential to go fiddle with details when you have such a clean, elegant layout. Also background textures... hmm... This actually ties in a project I never finished because I could never get it right and now I see why too. Ideas, ideas... *bg*

I like the design of Fly Away and the shift on the side is great and, again, something we don't have enough of. One idea (good or bad I don't know): make it possible to alternate background colors for the icon column. I also think the management icons might work better as text but that may too much (especially if it goes on two lines) so... maybe not.

Rising is not my style ;) but the work on borders is really intriguing and interesting and I wonder what the style would look like if you played with them a little more. Also this style would work so well with big banners it would be nice to have one theme with one so people can see that it can be done.

[momijizukamori]

Someone on my Plurk timeline suggested removing the bottom of the three image repeats on Baroque, though I like your idea too - clearly, though, having all three there is a bit much (which is the sort of thing I need to hear!). And yeah, rb and I were talking ages ago about how we don't have many one-column designs, so this was my response.

Corinthian just kind of... clicked when I saw the preview that inspired it. That one was waaaay more pared down than this - no modules, fixed sidebar, stuff like that, but I realized the column layout would work just as well even with more 'stuff' there and - it really does. It's got a very clean, elegant feel to it.

EDIT: Oh, and now that I go and see what you mean about the margin in Baroque - that's an artifact of whatever code I pulled as the base (probably Paletteable as it's my go-to for a simple clean start), rather than an intentional design option, so I could happily go either way on it.

Unfortunately text links makes the footer even more confusing with Fly Away - you can see it here, and with use I've found that I have problems noticing the comment count line because of the layout, which is why it really needs fixing. Alternating colors for the icon background should be doable (I'll have to see if we have class selectors for even/odd entries like we do for comments), and it's a great idea.

[ninetydegrees]

Hmm. I like this person's idea too! Other idea: have you thought about adding shadows to the titles to give them a bit of depth? I wonder if that would work or look of place because the rest is flat. I never know until I see it then ask for a second (and a third) opinion. About the margin, I would say either remove it completely or make it bigger.

Oh, you're right. The big spacing and the alternating side thing makes it harder too. I think Transmogrified has alternating entries so you might find clues in its source file.

[momijizukamori]

The typography on Baroque is very much a work in process, so I'm willing to experiment! I'll play around and see what works.

Yeah, I think the alternating side thing is what kills it, but having it all on one side made it really unbalanced - it's kind of been a point of frustration (along with the fixed-width thing, but I found a fix for that working on Rising, so I just need to implement it). I did just check and even base TR has entry-wrapper-even and entry-wrapper-odd classes, because fu loves us.

[ninetydegrees]

because fu loves us

LOL. So, so true!

[momijizukamori]

core2 makes me want to hug my laptop screen, seriously. And make sparkly eyes and generally squeal like a sugar-high thirteen-year-old.

[ninetydegrees]

As someone who did layout help on LJ for years a world of YES. It does deserve squeeing and squealing. What's even more fantastic is that people keep thinking of new nifty classes to add and the answer is often (always?) yeah why not go for it.

[baggyeyes]

Yeah - I found the code to color the entries in alternating colors in Transmogrified. I have something percolating on my Dreamhack (Unfinished! Of course), that used what I found.

.entry-wrapper-odd

.entry-wrapper-even

[momijizukamori]

One word of caution - Transmo isn't a Tabula Rasa-based theme (although it shares many classes with), and it's also a dw-nonfree theme. I do not know for certain if derivatives are okay, but I know if you do make a derivative it has to go in dw-nonfree as well and can't be redistributed with the rest of the DW source.

(if all you did was look up the entry wrappers, though, I don't think that counts as derivative *g*)

[baggyeyes]

Yeah - I just wanted to see if the even/odd would work. I'm working from a Tabula Rasa Plain base. The classes work. \o/