SliderPhoto.com New Look - $150

[Neupix]

Contest Holder: Slider

Deadline: August 18

Prize: $150.00

Company Details:
SliderPhoto.com (http://www.sliderphoto.com)

I would like a new look and feel for my existing site. SliderPhoto.com is an event photography site. There are currently three areas, I'm looking for a design for the Motorcycle area only at this time. The primary purpose of the current site is for people to find their photos from an event. There are several ways to find the main page for the event:

1) Home page has a table of the last month or two of events,
2) Home page has links to main organizations, AMA, CCS… that takes them to the organization page which would have events listed in a table,
3) The schedule page has a listing of all the events for the year.

Examples:
I'm adding a lot of new functionality to the current site. What I'm looking for though is a new look and feel, and new color palette. I think the best way for me to do this is to get designs for the common elements that appear throughout the site. I'll list these elements and then ask you to put together a page or maybe two with a design that incorporates each element. (I ask for two pages because the Home page will have the Organizations Navigation Bar and other pages wont.)

Header:
The header will appear on each page and contain the following three subelements: (example: http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/)

1. Logo I'm okay with the current logo. It is very simple and if you want to spruce it up or do something that is unique, that would be nice. Keep in mind it may need to translate well in the future to stickers, t-shirts, etc. It should be somewhat compact so it can be displayed on the side of a bike (http://www.sliderphoto.com/images/jack/barber1.jpg.) In the past I had flowing text and a waving flag behind it. (You can see the old logo on the main photo in the current Home page.) I liked the flag a lot. Slider in SliderPhoto comes from knee slider. Motorcyclists use a puc of sorts on their knee to slide on the track. So, working a slider in the background might be nice. Here is a logo I really like: http://www.madisonsportbikes.com In fact, that site design and color scheme is the direction I would like to go.

2. Navigation Buttons The main areas should be shown here. These are new for the redesign: Home, Find, Schedule, Links, Members, Shopping, and Gallery. Tabs would be OK here, or highlighted buttons of sorts. I'm fond of realistic looking buttons -- like you would see on some type of device – a camera?

3. Navigation Bar I would like to display a bar the shows the user's current path in the site and easy ways to go back using links. The link text might be: Home | CCS | Blackhawk July 20-22, 2004 | Rider # 234 This would tell them where there are in the site and allow them to quickly navigate back. The bar will also contain links right justified for things like login or perhaps a cart.

Organizations Bar:
This will appear only on the Home page. It will contain navigation to each of the organizations and one miscellaneous or various category. (example: http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/)

Main Content Area:
I think I would like the main content area to appear in a raised frame. I'm open to ideas but two examples would be http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/ and http://www.madisonsportbikes.com/contactus.shtml

Photo Frame: I would like a generic frame I could use for photos. This would be a frame I would use for showing a main photo on a page, like on the Home page, Organization page, etc. The photos will vary in size but commonly 400-500 pixels wide. (example: http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/)

Photo Frame with Navigation:
Similar to above but I would like navigation for previous photo, next photo and a number display like "2 of 10."

Photo Frame with Additional Info and Functions:
Similar to above, I would like to maintain the navigation but now also add additional functionality and perhaps information like Add to Cart, Add to Favorites, or see information like where the photo was taken. I envision the normal frame but perhaps wider and contain the buttons and info to the right. Maybe Function and Info tabs. Maybe the additional information is not inside the frame at all but next to it. (example: http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/desig...rider_page.jpg)

Thumbnail: I need a way to show a thumbnail. It could be the photo with the Photo Frame from above. In some cases I need to associate additional info like unique photo ID, and star ranking. I was thinking a photo slide, but I'm open to ideas. The slide I did is nice but a more realistic looking one would be better. (example: http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/desig...rider_page.jpg)

Thumbnail Strip: I need to show a vertical stack of thumbnails. This could be individual thumbnails from above or now more in a film strip type view as in the current site. (examples: http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/desig...rider_page.jpg, http://www.sliderphoto.com/bin/photo...4&Event=071904)

Table: This will be used to show schedule of events and other info. (example: http://www.nesba.com/info/trackevents.aspx)

Folder: A folder or other organizational framework that I can use to contain thumbnails or additional information. (example: http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/desig...rider_page.jpg)

Sites I like:
http://www.nesba.com/ Their new design is awesome. It's clean, professional, yet exciting. I like the colors. I don't want my site to look exactly like this, but this is a wonderful style.

http://www.madisonsportbikes.com I like the logo, and the colors on this particular page.

My New Design:
A few months ago I came up with a new design and I've linked it above as a few examples. I think it is close but I'm definitely open to new ideas. I think the layout of information is important. I want it easy to navigate and compact because some of my users have old computers with small displays.

My design is blah. I hate the color palette – I'm looking for something lighter and cleaner looking. The photo frame is too bright, prominent and in your face. The current font is not good. I like realism, realistic looking buttons, realistic slides, etc. I've wanted to work in photographic elements, thus the slides, film, etc. I'm not sure that is necessary, just the direction I've gone. I would like the Home page to be exciting. I'm not set on having photos in the frame, it could be blended somehow. My intention with the frames though is to rotate the photos on different visits.

Elements In Action:
The current site has a few basic pages:
Home: http://www.sliderphoto.com/cycles.htm
Organization Page: http://www.sliderphoto.com/AMA/index.htm I'm going to remove the navigation in film on the left here and put the events into a table
Event Page: http://www.sliderphoto.com/AMA/071904.asp
Rider's Photos Page: http://www.sliderphoto.com/bin/photo...4&Event=071904
My Attempt at a New Design http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/desig.../home_page.jpg http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/desig...ation_page.jpg http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/desig...event_page.jpg http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/desig...rider_page.jpg


Cool Elements to possibly work in:
Exhaust:http://www.sliderphoto.com/AMA/images/sample_071904.jpg,
Reflection in visors, Sparking sliders, Knee draggin, Asphalt?, Curbing? I'll try and put together various photos you can use that show these elements. If you're looking for something in particular, post and I'll add it.

Deliverables: A layered PhotoShop file that I could tweak would be a bonus Specific Font info or CSS would be nice.

[Slider]

Whew, that's a lot of text! I was hoping more detail would be better than less.

I'll be uploading a few photos that might help out in a bit. Fire away if you have any questions. I'm really looking forward to some fresh ideas. Thanks in advance... Jack

[shaq_sucks]

This looks like a great contest. I'll have something in the next few days.

[Slider]

Thanks! I'm pretty excited about what I do. I've been living with a system that has been easy to maintain, but I've been wanting to update the site forever...

I've uploaded a few photos to the following folder:
http://www.sliderphoto.com/new/design/images

I'll add files here as necessary. The Photos folder contains a few photos that might be useful. The reflection photo shows a very cool reflection of clouds and race track in a racer's visor. This visor signifies to me the perfect day at the track.. nice sun, puffly clouds, and some good lean going on.

The bike photos might be worked in. I like these colorful bikes. One might look good behind the logo.

I'm looking for a good sparky slider photo, I'll upload that later.

If anyone has an idea of something they might like, let me know. I've got thousands of photos.

[Slider]

I've uploaded a few more photos. There are some track photos, a sparky photo, and some MV Agusta bike photos. I'm partial to those.

[Imagenesis]

Does the background have to be black or can we go in a totally diffirent direction?

[Slider]

Does the background have to be black or can we go in a totally diffirent direction?

My design is blah. I hate the color palette – I'm looking for something lighter and cleaner looking. I like the direction of the two sites listed:
http://www.nesba.com and http://www.madisonsportbikes.com. Both sites look cleaner, yet not plain white.

[Imagenesis]

Entry #1

Well, I pretty much finished this entry, I hope you like it, anything you want or need can be changed around. I made several content areas instead of on e big one, because I think people tend to skip over very large paragraphs of text. If you need more areas of pictures/text on the homepage I can change the layout to suit your needs. Either way I'll proabably start on the second entry.

That's alright, and Thanks...I'll post another entry soon, one with a more "photography firm oreinted" look, and your idea of a razed platform content area.

[Slider]

Thanks for the entry. I like it a lot. Here are my critiques:

1) I'm not fond of the orange and green colors. I like the grey.. Orange isn't a favorite of mine and that green is a little too pea-soup.

2) I'm a little concerned that the navigation info, CCS | Blackhawk... is way at the top and not closer to the content. But the more I look at it, I think it will be fine and people will find it there.

Good job! I'm anxious to see what you do with the other design elements.

[Fabolous05]

Ill try to post something within a day or too, need to read over the text a few times

[JakSmit]

I'll enter if I find the time!

[Slider]

aE-COma - I apologize, I didn't see that you had updated your post. Wow, it's very cool. I agree, the separate smaller areas are much nicer. I love the clean look, the overlapping content of the yellow bike and the blue bike in the circle! I'm very impressed! Great job!

[shaq_sucks]

Here's what I'm working on. I went for the fun, yet crisp, clean, and simple type of design. Let me know what you think.

http://img56.exs.cx/img56/2306/slider.jpg

[Slider]

Shaq_Sucks: thanks a lot for the entry. I like it. It's definitely better than my design. Here are my comments:
1) The header, I'm not crazy about the orange playfullness and design. It makes me think Yahoo or some product.

2) The consistent tab theme is good but they're too dark. In contrast, I like the the pinstripe light-grey feel of aE-COma's entry.

3) The main navigation is plain, I like buttons of some sort

4) I think the tabs on the Organizations Bar are too wide and it's too hard to read the text vertically.

5) Picture Frame with Navigation: I'm not sure how to implement easily the rounded corners when viewing multiple photos. I think Next always has to be to the right, even though it's going to be used most.

6) I like the table but I wonder if it would be better without a frame and perhaps every other row colored. I reall like the table vew on NESBA's page: http://www.nesba.com/info/trackevents.aspx

Frames and Borders: I think overall I like a frame around the images, some type of frame, even one pixel would be better than nothing. You have a border around the table, where I think the table could be something left without a border.

I appreciate all your hard work and I hope I'm not too critical. I hope I've given you some useful feedback and thoughts if you choose to revise it. Thanks again! Jack.

[shaq_sucks]

Thanks for your detailed feedback. I will have a revised version in a few days.

[creativemeasures]

Hi

Show you mine soon

[Axi]

I'll have something by tommorow.

[creativemeasures]

Here it is,something a little bit different.

http://server6.uploadit.org/files/cr...es-sliders.jpg

[Axi]

Here is my first entry, as you can see (or maybe not), I tried to be as unique as possible with the overall design. I really hope this is what your looking for. A constructive feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

http://www.atonex.com/contest/slider.gif

[sangit]

i got a question. How many pages should we design/create?