TPR Front Page RE-Design Contest!

Hey TPR Members

Some of you might remember our Club TPR Logo & Membership Card Design Contest from a couple of years ago, where our TPR members helped us design the logos and membership card that is used every day with Club TPR!

Well, it's time for another similar contest!

This time around, it's all about a long overdue update to TPR's front page! While I'm not a huge fan of "change for the sake of change," I do feel our front page is very dated looking, after all the current front page was designed in 2004, and it looks it!

We are looking for submissions from our members and they must fall withing these rules and guidelines....

RULES!

1. The ultimate winner will be chosen by Robb & Elissa. We welcome everyone to give their comments and input on the designs that are being submitted, but we will have the final say.

2. The prize you are playing for is a $100 credit in the TPR store, good on ANYTHING. TPR merchandise, events, or even TPR Tours. If you aren't interested in anything in the store, we can try to work something out. Trust me, if you end up winning this contest, we won't let you go empty handed! We'll take good care of you!

3. You may submit multiple versions and revisions of your front page design. However, your final version *MUST* say "Final Submission" and you may only submit ONE final front page design per person. We are not setting a time limit on this contest, but I would like to have something we are "happy" with within the next couple of weeks.

4. Robb & Elissa will be giving critical feedback on submissions and you can either decide to or not to revise your image based on their feedback. If you are not open to constructive criticism on your artwork, we suggest not participating in this contest.

5. Any images you produce shall be owned by TPR and we will own all rights to said material and can reuse those images in whatever way we feel will work best for the website.

6. You will need to be prepared to submit your work in a layered .PSD file if requested.

GUIDELINES

Below are some of our thoughts and guidelines on what we'd like for the front page. Keep in mind that we are not really "graphic designers" so you can take these guidelines and either stick with them, or try something else to see if we might like it. End of the day, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what we are looking for, and we'll sort of "know it when we see it." I realize it's difficult working in that kind of a vacuum, but it's just the reality of how things work.

1. While the front page is currently "dated," we are not looking for a total 180 departure from what is currently there. It needs to still feel "familiar" to our legacy TPR members, and not have someone look at the new design and go "What the hell? What page is this???"

2. TPR has always been a "visual" site with our photo trip reports and our videos. I prefer more pictures and less words. Which is why we've stuck with images on the front page for every one of our updates. I'd kind of like to have a "big image" that will grab people when they first enter the site, and that can be an image that changes, along with the link and description, for our most recent 2-3 updates. Many sites do this already, so I'm sure you're pretty familiar by what I mean.

3. I'd still like to keep some sort of a list of "recent updates" that if you scroll down you can easily see what has been posted recently, in case you haven't visited the page in a few days. This is VERY important.

4. At the moment, we have two columns of updates. The left side that are official TPR updates and the right side that is more recent, day-to-day updates, news, and other information. I kind of feel that this has never really worked as intended, but you can see why we'd want it. The TPR Updates are a very important, main section of the site, but we only do a handful of them each month. They would easily get lost if they were included in the daily updates. A solution for this would be great to have!

5. Must stick with the "Gadzoox" font for our logo (attached below). Feel free to create a new TPR logo, or use the one that is currently there. I would say if there is one thing to keep from the old design, the TPR logo would be the only thing.

6. A "wish list" item would be to showcase one of our YouTube videos on the front page as well. A "Daily Featured Video" for example.

7. Updated navigation bar with better functionality - this needs a lot of work. Something sleek, easy to read and navigate, with options that will pull down when you mouse over. Would also love to get some input on what you think those mouse over options should be.

9. We want to keep the "random" section and the "announcements." But where they go and how they are presented is up to you.

10. Must include the search box and the social networking buttons.

11. We are not looking for someone to "code" the front page - just layout and design only.

12. Please leave room for our sidebar ads.

In short - Visuals are very important! More pictures, less text. Simple to read, easy to navigate. Got it? We look forward to your submissions!!!

--Robb

EDIT!

I just realized something I should have pointed out to begin with. The "Park Index" is the most recent design we've done on TPR, and while I'm not looking for a design which looks exactly like those pages, I do think its important that TPR's front page looks like it comes from the same "family" if that makes sense.

gadzoox_999_124.zip

I can't wait to see the awesome designs people come up with. TPR is in need of a bit of a refresh, and what an awesome way to keep the member's in the loop with the process.

Hey Robb

I say Give Kidtums her own blog - she must have more credits than a lot of ACErs by now!

So this is purely from a design standpoint (as in no coding, just concept)? If so this is something I'm defiantly interested in doing. I'm going to keep this in mind today and write down ideas and start my photoshop mock-up tomorrow!

This should also be a challenge because TPR has a lot of needs that need to be addressed in the homepage. And for the most part the current page meets those needs extraordinarily well IMO. So the question is how to keep that functionality and ease of use while making it more visually appealing to visitors?

I'm excited about this!

Also wondering for clarification with what Doug mentioned. Can we provide a mockup via photoshop and if that selection is chosen TPR's web designers will implement it or are you also looking for code?

Edit: To break the ice, I came up with this this. It's essentially the familiar TPR everyone knows with a few different features and modernization. The top left hand corner is a TPR video. The top right is a HTML based revolving slide show to allow more announcements while taking up less screen real estate.. The update photos are enlarged and the text is put inside them to grive more prominence to the photos. The background is spaced enough to allow a beautiful image which can either change randomly or be manually changed to coinside with an important update. (stole this from one of the TPR DisneySea updates-Thanks Hanno and the other one from Chadster) The usual disclaimer, etc would be at the bottom and the social media contacts could flank the tag line like before.

Just another variant to show the flexibility of having a nice background image.

I have a couple ideas that i'd like to try out, just one question. Would you like more of a widescreen (16:9) layout or do you want a standard (4:3) resolution?

Patrick while I'm certainly not a web designer, I think most people design for 1024*768 even though 85 percent of people have higher screen rez these days.

People probably should think about leaving room for ad space. A chance to incorporate it instead of having it looked like it is tagged on.

Awesome! I love me a nice design challenge every once in a while ^_^ I'm getting right on this as soon as I have some extra free time.

I think it'd be quite cool if you could implement a facebook feed on the front page, just my two cents.

Also as someone asked above, is it coding as well, or just the design?

I have some great ideas. If there's no coding involved, I'll definitely give this a shot.

So this is purely from a design standpoint (as in no coding, just concept)?

Yes. Sorry, I thought that was clear when asking for "Design and graphic art."

Any feedback on how much you guys hate or like my idea would be appreciated. I have nothing to do today except for photoshop.

I have a couple ideas that i'd like to try out, just one question. Would you like more of a widescreen (16:9) layout or do you want a standard (4:3) resolution?

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure at this point. I think that if I say a layout or design that made me go "THAT'S THE ONE!" we could make it work for either. Probably something that could be scaleable if need be.

I think it'd be quite cool if you could implement a facebook feed on the front page, just my two cents.

Hmmm...if someone could make that work and not be too "cluttered" looking, maybe. The problem I've noticed with other sites that have Facebook feeds is that it's difficult to control that content since it comes from an outside source. So, sometimes when I posting just text, or maybe a link, or a photo, or a video, it all comes up looking different in the feed, not consistent, and really kind of a "mess."

I wouldn't want to have to think about one page while posting something to another, if you get what I mean.

I like having the links to the social networking, but I kind of think each of those pages should live on their own. But, I'm open to the idea if someone could make it not look messy.

Any feedback on how much you guys hate or like my idea would be appreciated. I have nothing to do today except for photoshop.

My initial feedback is that this looks even more amateur that what we already have. There isn't much sense of "design" to what I'm looking at, other than just pasting things into Photoshop in what looks like about 10-15 minutes.

It's also kind of "all over the place" meaning I feel like my eyes are having to look at 6 or 7 different places to see similar items.

When I say I'm looking for "one big image", I don't mean like a background image, I mean like a practical image that would link to an update. While this isn't an example of EXACTLY what we're looking for, we're all familiar with the Six Flags page: http://www.sixflags.com/overGeorgia/index.aspx

See how they have a much larger image, the the four "squares" on the side that tell you which update you're looking at, you click the image and it links you to something, and there is other information on the screen that is not difficult to read.

Now, don't just give me that side with TPR on it, because that's also not what we're looking for. But that will hopefully give you some direction.

Your submissions NEED to have some sense of "graphic artist talent" being displayed. Sorry, I just don't see that in this submission. (fonts, shadows, borders, etc, etc...)

Got it. It was more layout based then design. Thanks for the feedback.

I like the idea of a Facebook feed on the front page.

Here's an example of how they do it on one of the sites I check out regularly, Cruise Critic. http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/

Actually, I like the layout of their front page as well to help motivate you guys! http://www.cruisecritic.com/ I could see the Facebook Feed going in place of two of the boxes on the side or something.

I like the layout that you guys are using right now. Very easy to get around on the website.

I like the layout that you guys are using right now. Very easy to get around on the website.

I agree...but it looks very dated. It needs updating.

For those interested:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

I'd thought I'd post what I have so far for initial feedback. I just don't want to continue if what I'm doing isn't going to work or is too different. I'm trying walk that fine line between familiarity, functionality, and new hotness! I kept everything the same width as the current page.

What I have so far.

So far all I have is the logo, nav bar, and the TPR updates section. I still have a lot to add.

-The News, Trip Reports, Ect. Section

-The CoasterTUBE / YouTube feature section

-Social Network Links

-Anything else I can think of.

If you are wondering where the "exchange" button is, I plan on including it in a drop down menu from the "forum" button. This will let you jump directly to a forum rather than link you only to the forum index page.

Any imput would be great! Also open to ideas and suggestions.

That's actually a pretty good "start" - would need some refining on design elements, but as far as a layout goes, It's not freaking me out or anything!

I went back to the drawing board and came up with this just for fun. More of a just for fun thing as Doug's entry above is more "TPR themed"

Edit: I should have mentioned that this was not something I stole off DougMJR (with the Jaws logo, etc.) it just turned out that way

^ Here's the thing. If you want to submit something "Seriously", that's fine. But I kind of want to avoid anything for "fun" because I don't want people to get the impression that this contest is a joke. It's one of those very few times on the forum that I'm honestly, actually, looking for people to help out...and be serious about it.