Neverside

I'm sorry to say this, but the new design looks uninspired. It is very generic, alike many template-for-sale or PS tutorial sites.

The first thing is the colour scheme: the same boring, overused combination of blue, gray and white. Neverside isn't a corporate site (or maybe it is?), so have a little fun with the colours, don't bow to conventions.

Next thing, everything looks very segmented and boxy. Everything has a neat little border around it, killing any possible free spirit.

And the last thing, it overall looks rushed. The header is allright, although not near the caliber of the current one. Everything seems to be gradient + stroke + drop-shadow. Again, this does not help the generic feeling at all.

Seriosuly Dave, take a look at Absolutecross.com and then at the new Neverside mockup, and tell me which one looks more fun and original. You can do a lot better, because as it stands right now the current design is much, much better.

- Alex

I agree with Alex, he really has hit the nail on the head. I tried to say something like that, but I could never write in such a gentil way ;p

The blue 'Search' and 'Login' buttons, and the gray 'Sign Up!' and 'Take the tour' buttons look really cheap and tacky... there must have been 30 seconds or so spent on them.

The rest of the content area also looks rubbish.

The new design looks nice, but similar styles have been done, and overdone a million times. I like the new design mock-up, really.

But the design doesn't "wow" me. Like what Alex said, everything is boxed up, and it doesn't look good. The slogan should not be boxed up, it needs to be in a place where it is eye catching, or at least be easily distinguished from the rest of the content.

Forget the membership spot-light, you're wasting valuble page resources that should be used into attracting, and capturing the first-time users' attention.

An idea would be to have three boxes, stacked, on the right side. They should all be 100% width (of the available space).

First box at the top would be the news - why on earth did you put your news at the bottom, and where it's so darn small? Second box would be a large one, with studio resources. And the last one probably the popular discussions and newest posts.

A good illustration would be Elixant - http://www.elixant.com .

The current box style, as it is, is good, but appears to be... I don't know how to describe it, it seems too... limiting, and 2D. http://elixant.com/ has some nice boxes. You should check them out and take them into consideration.

And the menu on the left. I'll speak plainly - it sucks. Your slogan and stuff could be placed at where the "Popular articles" are. It makes much more sense. And what is with the gradient on the right of the menu? It looks awful.

And lastly, usability problem - what is that RSS icon subscribing to?

Well that's that. I hope I haven't offended anyone in my reply, 'cause I just want Neverside to improve. TF was brilliant. Neverside deserves to be more. (And please don't feel I'm trying to impose my designing style on you. )

my only complaint is the dark grey background. please not again!!

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My Blog

Dave-

While I was messing with the design...I noticed one thing that we may have been overlooking previously. It is entirely too long. There is too much empty space there. Why extend the designer further than we need it to be when we don't have alot of stuff to get across to people? We should put the essentials of Neverside right at the top so that the new visitors see everything in one shot than having to scroll more. People don't really like scrolling. It's science, trust me!

But yesh, I moved things around and tried a few other designs and I think it looks a bit better with things more closely situated.

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Neverside - In Development. Expected Release: Unknown.
Tortustudios.com - In Development. Expected Release: Summer 2006.( You can visit it now)

Mod Edit: goodbye.

- Sykil

what's wrong with the current layout?

i think too much time is going into a design when one isnt needed- its the community that needs the attention.

It needs to be recoded, thus, a new desig might aswell be created. It's up to different people to design and code anyway.

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Neversidian, your staff is broken.

God dam.... haven't visited for two years and so many familiar faces

Nice things ya guys done with this place, can't even remeber what the name was when I left but I'm sure it wasn't Neverside

Byebye!

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...a post by Tobias from

Well, I most certainly have learnt how not to treat your users by visiting this site. I only visit now purely for comical value. NO updates, NO news.

Congrats guys, you took a wonderful forum resource which was unique and turned it into a flop.

If you have a backup of the old site, upload that and lets role with the old times.

"It needs to be recoded, thus, a new desig might aswell be created. It's up to different people to design and code anyway."

Why? There is nothing wrong with the current design. I think the majority of people here want it to stay like it is now or return to what it used to be as TF.

**spam deleted**

WOW an update!

More ads on the left menu! Thats taken 3months to do?

Luke there was no update - this news post has not been updated since November. Also there is no sidebar in the current version of the site. As mentioned earlier, I do not intend on making any further public announcements or discussion of the new version until it is complete. Since the images in this post were added, the design has pretty much been redone. Much of my time has actually gone into research and detailed planning - a lot of what I originally intended the new Neverside to be has changed completely since we began the process, and so I've spent a lot of time laying a proper groundwork for that. Working on Neverside full-time as I originally intended has not turned out to be feasible "yet"... I've had to work on it as much as possible while maintaining another job to pay my bills. I realize there's not a lot of visible results to "show" at the moment, but please believe that I have been putting extensive time and effort into bringing everything together.

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-- Dave
Neverside Admin

absolutecross.com

I generally like it, but personally, I think theres just too much blank space in between things. E.g. The left and top menus. The body area looks awesome. I love the clean look, but the blank spaces are the only thing that bothered me.

Mind you, It's a great design, I probably couldn't do any better, but it just seems like there could be more going on.

Love the color scheme

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