My latest site design

[Jerman]

Hey all,

About a year ago I showed ya my site design. It has gone through quite a few revisions, and I would like to see what you think. You can find it here:
http://www.jeremiahrich.com/

For comparison, you can see the design from a year ago here:
http://www.thestuffthings.com/jrold/

On the new main page, I wanted the "info bar" to be on the right side, as the eye naturally travels to the upper right side first. The important content is not the info bar, it is the recent blog posts, etc.

Everything is mysql and php driven. When I have a show today, it will have an additional box above the most recent blog post, that says, "Show today" with the shows info.

Another recent addition was automatic thumbnail generation for the blog posts. There are still quite a few things I want to do with the site, but I am pretty happy with where it is. Thanks for checking it out.

[pmazer]

Nice new site. Much better than the last. Your style seems to have changed slightly in "Restore" from your self-titled album, which is nice to me. I'm excited to hear the new one coming out.

A couple observations about your site:

The images seem to take a little bit of time to load. I would suggest seeing if you could compress these a little more without loosing quality. I'm not sure how practical this suggestion is and if it's really needed.

I would also suggest switching the About and Bio pages as the About is more like a biography to me, whereas the Bio page seems more like a "about me as a singer" page.

What are you using as a backend for this site, if I may ask?

[Jerman]

Hey pmazer, thanks for checking it out, and for listening to the songs as well! They are still FAR from completion, but I look forward to having the finished versions up. Turns out our drummer worked with Evanescence for a short time, and my audio engineer has worked for Tony Bennett, so I am sure it will sound much better once we finish everything with them.

Back on topic... On the images, it definitely is a difficult decision on how to do them... They are pretty large, so the file sizes will be, well, large as well. But I may test it a bit more. One thing that makes it slower is that it loads a random image for each page.

And finally on organization, I have gone back and fourth. But at the end of the day, press and "everyone in the industry" looks to the bio page for quotes, etc. So the 'About' page is really a bit of a self-written letter to everyone... I would consider changing the name of it, however, everything is also alphabetized on the menu. But if you have any other ideas, I would love to hear 'em.

One idea that would come to mind would to be JUST to have the 'Bio' section, and have two parts: the actual bio, and the 'letter' would be a sub page.

On the backend, it is all self-written. It's been my big project over the last few years. While the site is simple, I wanted a way to have everything display automatically, etc. So the shows list automatically updates from a MySQL backend, as well as the blog.

I recently finished a script using GD that allows me to post images, etc. So the site is a continual work in progress. It is my goal through it all to let people see back through this whole journey, and this makes it very possible.

Once a week a cron job runs which zips up the full database as well as all the files for the site, and then sends it via ssh to my server at home.

Thanks again for the helpful feedback!

[johnny5w]

The redesign looks great!

[MagSafe]

Hey Jerman,

I'm liking the design :)

The only thing i'd change is to remove the gradient at the very top of the page (behind the menu), and also instead of using images for textual items (like the menu), just use actual text with css, it's far quicker to do and it saves user's downloading unnecessary, bulky images.

Other than that it look's great, really well designed :)

[thegeriatric]

Nice looks great.

[Jerman]

Hey Jerman,

I'm liking the design :)

The only thing i'd change is to remove the gradient at the very top of the page (behind the menu), and also instead of using images for textual items (like the menu), just use actual text with css, it's far quicker to do and it saves user's downloading unnecessary, bulky images.

Other than that it look's great, really well designed :)

If you would like to take a look at my old design, that is what I did. http://www.thestuffthings.com/jrold/ I switched to images so I could have more control over the look. However, with my 'sub-menu' system, it would make rollover images complicated, etc, and I have actually contemplated switching back. (The 'sub menu' thing can be demonstrated on the Media page, for instance, where the videos page is a sub-section). But once again, I am concerned about keeping the look consistent with the rest of the site, especially on PC browsers. Any suggested approach on this? Thanks!

PS: I still personally prefer the gradient. ;)

[MagSafe]

Hi Jerman,

I'd just take out those curved borders on the sub-menu links altogether. If you make them text you can then make the text underlined for better usability and float the icons to the left.

I just don't see how the gradient fits in with the rest of the design, nothing else has a "Web 2.0" gradient, so why at the top :confused:

[Jerman]

When I designed the re-design ;), I experimented with a flat color. The reason I didn't like it was it didn't stick out very well. I like the 'Web 2.0' gradient, as it defines the menu very clearly, without making it stick out too much. Wish I had screenshots of it at that stage. I think the menu will likely stay as-is (except that I may change to text), but would love to hear other opinions. Thanks a ton for the feedback! And a little PS, MagSafe, I love the design of your site. Nice and simple, but professional. :)

[MagSafe]

Thanks a ton for the feedback! And a little PS, MagSafe, I love the design of your site. Nice and simple, but professional. :)

No problem, and thanks :)

[Garamond]

Hello Jeremiah, I caught myself dreaming away at your site while listening to your music, watching great photos and reading about your lives. Good luck with the album, hopefully it'll be a hit! :)

[Jerman]

Garamond, thanks so much for the encouragement, and for checking it out! Ya'll rock for checking out my work and all, really does mean a lot!