Night Mood redone
Wed 7th Jan, 2009
21:05
21:05
I have played again a bit with my future web and change a bit presentation of the images for Nigh Mood project</a>. I would really appreciate if you could take a look and let me know if you like it more or less than other projects at the same site and why.
I am really happy that Dave and Paul gave me so much feedback and help. In mean time I fixed error I introduced in my modified version of slimbox and it should now be perfectly working in Internet Explorer versions 6+ as well.
Some brief points from me:
- I don’t like the square thumbnails as they sell the material short
- the lightbox cycles through all pictures endlessly
- the next and previous buttons are hardly visible
- would prefer some indication of 1/6, 2/6 etc
- your text under the image with the grey bold font on gray background is not very readable and I suggest presenting the text differently
Still, a good series, getting better each time I look at it.
I think it was a good change and idea, Richard.
Even though it was neat how the bottom would literally drop out and display your image’s title and text, when the little down arrow was initiated, I think it works better for you, and the visitor better this new way. Reason being, I think now, people won’t miss your accompanying text with the image, if it has it, because it is automatically shown. Whereas before, people might not have clicked on the drop down.
I also like how you increased the canvas to your photos and put the image’s title on it, as well as your “Richo” moniker, and left the description for the photo to the Slimbox area… good call, I like that.
As for Dirk’s fine suggestions:
- I can see where going with the square thumbs, as opposed to have the thumbs being displayed in their normal dimensions, do make the thumbs page more aesthetically uniform, and nicely aligned, I have considered that too with mine… that is a toss up
- I agree to have the images ‘next’ disabled at the last image in the series, so that it does not loop back to the beginning, especially since you do not…
- … show the image count. Which I do not either, because I don’t want to… so, that is another toss up for you
- I’m the last to comment on text color, opposed to it’s background, as you scolded me for the very same thing! :-)
Overall, it still looks very good to me, and think the changes are good. Good job!
Jeff
Richo,
Good points made above.
I prefer the presentation of your photos in slimbox in the Night Mood gallery as opposed to the other galleries.
I am not a big fan of square thumbnails either, but I am a fan of the uniformity it provides. You’ll have to decide which way to go on that one.
I see that each gallery has a different number of thumbs per row. I do not like 3 … too much space on the right. I think 4 looks nice – and almost, taking into account the left padding, fits perfectly into the space before the “Projects & More” menu begins. 5 also looks ok, particularly since there are a lot of photos in the particular gallery where you presently have 5 thumbs. Personally, I think I would either go with 4 as you have it, or perhaps use 5 but increase the padding between the thumbs so that the rightmost thumb lines up with the right edge of the site design, and see how that looks.
I already mentioned in a previous email that I did not like the fact that the photo captions weren’t immediately visible but required action from the user, so personally I’m glad to see that go :)
All of the above, of course, are just my opinions. I am not a designer, but I do prefer “grid” type designs where things line up.
Paul
Wow thanks a lot my friends!
- The looping I just add to see how you will react ;-)
- The numbering I removed I think it is useless info. Tell me Dirk, why you think it is handy. People can expect how many images are there from thumbs previews and if I disable the looping…
- Square thumbs, well I did that because I like to have it nice uniform ;-) and I also decided to crop piece of the picture only to thumb so it doesn’t show whole image.
- Making consistent amount of thumbs in row is nice, And i really need to increase the padding to make it equally wide, good point Paul!
- The next/previous buttons Dirk, well originals where too big maybe these are not to small just not placed well, I will try to fixed that.
- The info under the image (now text) will be soon changed as well as its colors, this is left over from original slimbox and when I have changed the background color the text has not enough contrast against it.
Once more thanks to all of you very much, I hope you will stay with me until I make it final :-D
-r-
I think I missed the image count because of the looping so if there is an end and also the number of images correspond to the number of thumbnails then stay without the count.
Still don’t like the square tumbnails. The pics are all horizontals so why the need to be even more uniform. And talking about uniform… square thumbs are so generic – you are producing artwork which is anything but uniform. If it is uncomfortable… well then it is.
Good job anyway and I look forward to more improvements. But I am most happy to find the series grow on me as time progresses. Good photos are like wine, they become better with age :)
I went for square thumbs because I like to make them only crops from the image. Sort of peek, not the whole image.
Interesting that you find images better with time. For me it works just other way around. As time goes on I am more critical and like less images. Only the real good one stays.
If you don’t want to gove things away, then I would just use one thumbnail or maybe none. Guess I just don’t like cropping for no reason except to make things look nicer.
Interesting, I had actually always problems with thumbnails. Anybody else on this issue? Thanks!
I’m on both sides of the fence, I see and agree with your point and reasons behind doing it, and have considered doing it for my images for the exact same reasons.
I guess it would be something different and interesting to creatively think of some other method to use instead of thumbs… like maybe just the image’s title, and the visitor clicking on that to see the image belonging to it… or, just having a running text, one image’s description/caption, one right after the other, so it all together makes this unifying paragraph on the page, textually conveying the theme and what you are trying to tell with the series, and then clicking on a line, sentence within it, will take the visitor to the corresponding image… That could/would be unique and different.
I think you have to decide for yourself how you want people to see your work. Only you can make that decision depending on your intent. Thumbnails are a web convention, not an artistic presentation to enhance the imagery. Less is more, reduce to the max.