Mangascreener Re-design...

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:28 pm

Some of you may not have realized, however it’s been nearly 4 years since I’ve done a redesign of mangascreener.com. The web has changed a lot in four years. Unfortunately my web design skills didn’t! So for the past two weeks or so I’ve been reading up on the current trends in web design… planning for a huge makeover (butchering) of mangascreener.com. Back in the old days I used to change the layout on a monthly basis… some of you may even remember the ‘communist’ addition where I replaced Chiba’s head with Che Guevara… or maybe you don’t.

Suffice to say, I want to know what you guys would like to see in a new mangascreener page, I want to make it more interactive, but less bulky. Generally a trimmer, slimmer, mean, lean fighting machine… Which means we’ll finally gut the magazine from the main page.

Do you guys want RSS feeds, do you even use them? How about graphics, what series should we use… (considering that both Beck and Mushishi are licensed, we need to change the ones we’re using). Give me your thoughts!

Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 1:42 am

Personally I've never used RSS Feeds, so can't comment on that.
As to what series to use for graphics, of course I'm biased in my favorite series. But Iou Kuroda's stuff is just too artistically beautiful not to use.
And a pinch of Noramimi here and there never hurt anyone.
Make it Ikki all tha way! :O
I'm a huge Minoru Furuya fan too, but I'm not too sure about how potential it is in "fancying up" a website.

Features I'd like to see.
Hmm maybe the detailed "chapter progress" page shown for every project is kinda redundant? I do like how the projects page itself is shown though, I browse that a lot while I'm trying out something new. Maybe flesh that out s'more somehow. Would sample pages be far-fetched?
Well, basically, a neat looking but simple website is what I like most.
As for interactivity, over at Kefi we put links to discussion topics in our forum for every series on the main site. So maybe something similar in the projects section...

Me wishes for a more active forum tho.

Amateur Musician Joined: 08 Feb 2004 Posts: 197

The site isn't bad at the moment. I think the simpler and cleaner the design the better.

I use RSS feeds, as they're fully integrated to Opera (and I think Firefox too?) There's several feeds that already list MS releases (along with other groups), but but it would be cool to have our own feed. I imagine it would be simple to implement, but considering our release speed would people's feed readers hammer the site needlessly?

I have every faith in your webdesignskillz. Smile

But please, just don't get rid of the "older news" bit.

Fan Boy Joined: 21 Aug 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Brazil

I think that RSS feeds are very useful. I use tham all the time. Even tough it is true that your releases will also appear elsewere (like gotlurk), I belive it's a good thing to have.
I don't dislike the looks os this website, sice its a place to get info. Whoever enters is most likely after something specific. So clean is better. But I think that changing looks once in a while is necessary.
About the series, I would very much apreciate the Ciguatera (Please! please! I'm dying to read the next chapters), Vinland Saga and, if possible, King of Thorns.
By the way, I do webdesign for a living, if you need a hand, I'd be glad to help (if Ihave time). I'm very experienced in Photoshop so maybe I can help you edit something too?

Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:22 pm

Do you have any portfolio work to show?

Fan Boy Joined: 21 Aug 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Brazil

Sure. Here are a few:
www.pakaas.com.br
www.praiadeimbassai.org.br
www.praiadoforte.org.br
www.fgd.org.br
www.mirantedelencois.com.br
www.beeweb.com.br/espera (not concluded)
www.taniafreitasvestibular.com.br

Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:07 pm

Is that where you live... dude, what are you doing inside reading manga... go outside and get a tan and meet some girls!

Fan Boy Joined: 21 Aug 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Brazil

Hahaha... thats an unexpected answer.
Well, the first place is a far corner of the country, but the rest is around here, yeah. About going out, I've done it thousands of times. I still do sometimes, in fact.
Since you didn't mention anything about the work itself, I suppose you dont need my help then, hun?

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 6:45 am

No, i thought the work looked good... a lot more graphic oriented than we need, but i'm sure i could put you to work!

Fan Boy Joined: 21 Aug 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Brazil

Well, thats because in this bussiness (tourism), as I'm sure you've already noticed, images are VERY important to make people want to know the place, thus becoming costumers.
But doing a less image oriented layout would not be a problem, really.

MS Sex Bot Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 21 Location: Paris

You definitly should put some H2 on the new design.

Adachi is the best and should be your trademark XD

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 5:05 pm

Don't you think that adachi is a little over-represented on some other sites already? *may be commiting heresy*

Haziel, why don't you throw together some front end using strong textual and design elements from web 2.0... lets see what you can do =P

Fan Boy Joined: 21 Aug 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Brazil

Ok. I'll try to show you something by next week.

Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 5:53 pm

Damn, tons of tough choices. As much as I love Witches and Me and the Devil Blues (though that would make a kickass design) I'd probobly want to go with something that really pops out. My picks would be Noramimi or Hanaotoko. Japan Tengu would be interesting too, especially since Kuroda has been one of your mainstays (Urasawa being another, though I think Pluto would be a bit too "cold" for a site design.

MS Sex Bot Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 21 Location: Paris

Don't forget to pick Manga which have low chances to be licensed, so you can keep the new design for a long time ^__^

And no Adachi will never be too represented :p