What do you think about having some promos/banners/etc that have very
strict visual style guidelines
I think having some kind of guide is a good idea. Too strict of a
guide could make for promo graphics to look all the same. That would
be similar to seeing the same commercial on the telly over and over
again. Attention and impact are reduced. I think each banner should
use a similar treatment to images, a suggested color palette, maybe
even have each banner require a certain effect so that there is a
consistency across all of the graphics. However there does need to be
some individuality between all the promo graphics as well.
There is a need to draw attention to the promos the graphics are
stumping for. Unlike advertising banners where they want to steal
attention away from the page content, on the Fedora site the banners
need to be complementary to the page content, and not more important
than the page content.
(eg must have a particular light-colored
background and a particular (let's say light grey) foreground in this
area?
Maybe the ability to pick from one of ( I'll pull a number out from
under my hat ) three backgrounds. Too many colors and you have a
circus. To me, the grey seems too bland. A light blue might be better ?
See the updated new-mock-2 (and squint and pretend the dj promo is
much much lighter :) ):
http://linuxgrrl.com/misc/new-mock-2.png
I like the idea of a column-type structure. That way you can have 5
one-column promos, fill all five slots with one important promo, or
mix and match. The changing sizes could help to keep repeat visitors
( or hits on subsequent pages by the same visitor ) visually interested.
As an aside, I think each Fedora release should have a branding
color. There are the colors that are used in the logo, which is the
basis of the main Fedora brand and the whole website design. One of
the things that makes the banner you did appealing is that it sneaks
in the teal-aqua-blue/green color from the background title graphic.
It creates a relationship on the page. If we were to assign that teal-
aqua-blue/green color as the branding color for F7, that would help
keep all the banner graphics ( or other F7 stuff ) hanging together
and support F7 as a "sub-brand". I guess that goes back to one of my
earlier suggestions about a color palette, or maybe it is the
background color for the promos instead of grey.
For F8, a different "secondary" color could be used to signify a
change, and to group all F8 promo graphics together as a unit.
Perhaps it is a color to the red side of blue instead of the green
side. F9 could move to a burnt orange, F10 a yellow-green ,etc.
I think you were able to verbalize what
was wrong with each mock really well. I was uncomfortable with each
one
and not quite how to explain why;
I used to be a designer before I was kicked downstairs to work on
computer stuff instead ;)
Again, I hope my comments have helped and not hindered the birth
process of these banners.
Charles Dostale
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