About That “Corrective Surgery” …
Posted on April 3rd, 2008 by Bassett
The switch was made to the new design last night. Some have already let your opinion be known about the change for better or worse.
We have found that redesign to be one of those topics that can be polarizing and we suspect some of you will be less than thrilled. Our hope is that you won’t leave the site over this, everything is open to debate so ALL comments will be read and considered.
Some thoughts before you tear us a new one:
- We need to make some tweaks or understand why some of the headers on the sidebar have a nice smooth transition, while others not so much.
- If anyone knows PHP / CSS well enough to help us expand the middle section a little, please let us know.
The banner might not be permanent. To that end, we’d like to have a design contest. We’ve got some swag to unload (2008 Reebok Draft Day cap anyone?) If you’d like to participate, send your entries to us at thejetsblog@gmail.com. Some rules: no guaranteed winner, and as we’re getting more exposure w/SNY, please avoid using official team logos and up-close images of players (copyright violations), dimensions are 988px x 120px.- If you have any specific problems/requests, send us an note. We hope that the new design isn’t as unflattering as our favorite image of Marmalard.
Filed under: Main Page
Bassett — no ripping (can’t stand in the way of progress!), just a few suggestions for the look & feel…
1. Drop the sans serif on the section headers (the ‘widget titles’ – pages, popular links, archives, etc.) — will make for a cleaner look;
2. Drop the font size in the side navs — the section headers at 8pt sans serif will still standout given they’re all caps and shaded; the links below could also go to 8pt sans serif and work;
3. Justify — you switch between left and center justified, recommend you keep it all left justified;
4. Drop unnecessary highlights — the highlighting effect under certain section headers (e.g., recent comments, jets fan sites, jets in the msm, etc.) doesn’t really add anything, might be cleaner w/out this;
5. Not that I know how to do it, but there is a way you can construct the page where the banner, and the width in the middle pane, will grow to fit your browser window/width. This is a neat trick, though not sure of the performance hit (e.g., nested tables, though I may be dating myself here, not sure if nested tables are still used for layout)
Good luck!
As long as this site remains open i’m ok with the changes! Only thing that worries me is the increased volume!!! Hopefully this won’t cause the quality of posts to go down!
I’ve been on this site for years and intend to stay! :D
I don’t really care what the site looks like. That’s not a knock on anyone that does, just an insight into my personality.
(FWIW I also drove a battered old car, because I don’t see the point in paying ten times as much money for something prettier that serves the same essential function and derive no additional pleasure from watching a 42 inch HD widescreen surround sound TV as opposed to a handheld portable).
I like the new side bars but the only thing I would change is the font and placement of the text in the banner. That font just doesn’t grab you over the field graphic. If you keep the field, make the “thejetsblog..” stretch across the entire banner, big in a more pronounced font and keep the slogan small underneath it or something. All in all it’s still the best Jets site ever and I hope with your new found fame the the knowledge of the team and the game doesn’t diminish. Best of Luck!
p.s. Does this mean SNY can sponsor the draft party?
:)
Put back the players.
Looks good overall. Only two problems I see. One, on the main page, I don’t see anything on the right side. I only see a blank white and green column, and I don’t see the gray column with links that I see on this page. Not sure if that’s how its meant to be. Also, under the old format it was easier to see the beginning and end of someone’s submitted comment. It would be nice if it was easier to distingish between different people’s comments, but maybe I just need an eye exam (overdue for one)!
Where’s the love for Cimini in the blog or newspaper links?
:-)
I like the old “new” banner better…other then that it’s all good.
I think the new design is a giant step backwards. You went from a boring, but at least modern design to something that looks like it was created in 1999.
For specifics, I agree with everything JP in comment #1 says, you gotta pay far more attention to your typography to make your site easy to read.
And please, please get rid of those gradients on the right sidebar. Not only are they ugly, but they break whenever the headings go to two lines.
I’d also suggest testing the design on browsers other than IE. I think a lot of the design is broken on non-IE browsers.
I liked JP’s idea of making the middle section fluid width, thought that can cause other problems, but another suggestion I would have would be to allow the double right sidebar to be a little more fluid as well, and when the site is viewed in a smaller widthed browser, the double sidebar should become a single sidebar.
Overall I feel the site seems to cluttered and my attention is focused elsewhere besides the main content.
It also looks like far to many details were ignored, as far to many sections and links in the sidebar and main content areas just seen thrown together with no unifying pattern. Great style is almost always in the details.
I agree with the sentiments expressed regarding clutter/font/etc. While I, much like Bent, like to boast that I am not one to fret over aesthetics, there is a certain line where something just looks silly. Love what you guys are doing with the site, but I thought I’d throw in my two cents where I think a step is taken in the wrong direction. Personally, I thought the old one was fantastic.
db
The importance of this site is the quality of the original material, not the sidebar links to other sites or newsfeeds.
To fit all this material on one page requires compromises. Taking a butcher knife to the width of your origina content and hence the size of its typeface makes it much more difficult to read. Did you give any thought about how this reduction in type point size creates this problem? Exactly what is the point size change, and percentage reduction?.
If this move was made to accomodate the ads on the far right side of the page, you are entitled to make your money. However, IMO you have made it a real pain to read the original material in the center of the page, the lifeblood of the site.
Meant to say drop the serif, not sans. Btw, site is working on the opera microbrowser (on blackberry).
Took a cursory look at the css. You have an absolute width: 438px right now. I think if you make this change, where you specify the min-width and max-width, it will expand the center section, as the user expands the page. It’s only a 40 px difference, but it will look a lot better:
.narrow_column{
min-width: 438px;
max-width: 478px;
margin: 0 10px;
float: left;
display: inline;
}
Haven’t had a chance to test it or sift through the rest of the style sheet, so please test this first!
We have to at least put that image of Ellis sacking Brady back on the banner!!
I haven’t noticed a “home” button. So, I have to use the back arrow on my browser. I find that a little annoying, but maybe I just don’t see where the “home” button is because of the clutter. I’m not a web designer, but I always thought that the genius about “Google” was its simplicity. My two cents.
Sack — you can always click on the top banner to get back to the home page, for what it’s worth.
Hey guys, I know it might seem off topic here but I’m a really big Jets fan and I read The Jets Blog everyday. My question is if anyone knows where the Jets draft party is going to be this year for the upcoming draft. I’m from Miami Florida so I’m going to be flying up to New York just to be with my fellow Jets fans. Please get back to me when anyone finds out the detalis. Thanks
My feeling is that when it comes to design, ease of readability has to come first, before any aesthetic or fancy stuff. The site is a little cluttered, more dead space between different sections would help – makes it much easier on the eye. Also, be careful with background color and font color. For instance, the ’sports spyder rss’ sidebar is a fairly dark gray background with a green font on top – this is very difficult to read. Rule of thumb is that a dark font on a light background reads best (like how you have it in your new content area in the middle). There are always exceptions and it’s fine to change things up on different parts of the site, but triple check that’s it’s easily readable on different systems. I’ve never found a green font (much as I love Jets green) to be very readable on any background.
Congrats again on the partnership and keep up the great work.
While I don’t know much about PHP / CSS or ‘Corrective Surgery,” I would love one night in Paris!
Also, is it me… or did we get screwed with this year’s draft day hat? It looks like it was sewn by Betsy Ross.
Hopefully, the 2009 Draft Day cap will be a little more George Jetson and a lot less Fred Flintstone – Sucks!!!
Forget how it looks, I love not having to enter my name every time I make a comment and I love being able to click to the next post via the links at the bottom. My only complaint about the look of the site is that I haven’t seen Snorg girl since it was upgraded.
Hey e.e. cummings, how about some capitals in the head banner? :)
Also some other nit picky things. The green on the left doesn’t look ‘Jet green’ and the font for the main content doesn’t attract my attention from the side bars.
Bent – funny that you had to enter your name every time you posted a comment, mine has always auto populated. Then again, I use a Mac, so…
Looks great. If only it was easy to switch back to the old design for game weeks when the Jets wear throwbacks
I like it,but the top banner should have closeups of players, fans, namath macking on suzy, something besides that shot of the field
the only thing i want back is the banner that was there yesterday…im good with everythingelse…
by the way bass…dont forget your dealing with jet fans here…we’re the worst critics…of everything…lolol…
Expert – weirdly, I use a Mac at home and PC at work, but had to enter my name on both (regardless of which browser I use – and I use safari, IE and firefox). Oh, well, it’s no longer an issue.
bent…i had the same problem..but nomore thanks to the new look…