rotating banners, first idea

chasd chasd at silveroaks.com
Wed Jun 6 17:33:41 UTC 2007


> 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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