Hi Ashraful, First of all, thank you for contributing with your ideas for this project. Your mockup is one of the most aesthetically pleasing so far IMHO but there are some issues that need addressing before it could be replace the current design.
Since the mockup to feedback ratio in this thread seems distant from 1 at the moment, I wanted to contribute to the discussion, so please bear with me. I really like your overall use of whitespace, especially right at the top. My first thought after seeing the design is that it doesn't feel cluttered, and this is my biggest issue with the current layout. But the more I looked into it, the more I noticed key areas are missing. Russel has mentioned several times that djangoproject.com is not only for developers. We need to "sell" the project to sponsors who provide publicity and financial support, and managers who can foment adoption of our most loved framework in design shops around the globe and corporate environments seeking modern solutions to everyday challenges. It could be argued that developers themselves don't need a "download" button. Django is hosted on at least half a dozen platforms and the ways to access these are also greatly diverse. I'm one of those who believe that familiarity with python packages and VCS tools are paramount to the success of Django developers, so pip and git are probably more relevant in today's world than tarballs. We also need to do address how Django relies on the community to prosper, and anyone can contribute. Users can submit tickets, developers can patch code, newbies can write docs and many more. This also needs to stand out in the layout. I like your use of silver and to be honest, it goes with green much better than our current beige, whilst looking more professional, clean and modern. I see no reason for keeping *everything* silver, however. Surely we could include a dash of green in the middle and bottom section, don't you agree? I also don't think the blog posts are layed out in a particularly elegant way. There's no telling what the most recent post is, and laying them out on a grid seems like a waste of valuable space. Perhaps you could split that into a main area on the left and additional, less prominent info on the right? A lot of the previous mockups made great suggestions on addition content that you could incorporate, like videocasts for example. Last but not least, I don't get the logo. It's not that it doesn't look good, but it simply doesn't fit Django. The framework is not in any way related to chatting, so the speech bubble feels out of place. As for the icons, they're somewhat random and fail to illustrate what the project is about. "The web framework for perfeccionists with deadlines" is a very abstract concept. If we can't come up with a concrete drawing of that vision, we should at least be inspired to design a conceptual and abstract piece that resonates with the notions of "framework", "perfeccionism", and "deadlines". Django's most admired strength is how it manages to solve the trade off between robustness and complexity in a seemingly natural way, and we should convey that. Before getting back to work, take a look at the previous mockups and the criticism that followed. There's a lot to be learned from what others did well, and it might also help you avoid the same pitfalls. Cheers, André Terra -- Sent from my phone, please excuse any typos. -- On May 23, 2012 9:38 PM, "Ashraful Sheikh" <inl...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I saw this on HackerNews(news.ycombinator.com) and wanted to contribute. > Here is my mockup: http://i.imgur.com/dSMSJ.jpg > > With the design, I focused on keeping the look extremely clean, > professional and minimalistic. The content is based on that of the current > site. The mockup may seem a bit lacking in color, but adding eye-catching > icons for the features, and the screens for the "built with Django" section > will add sufficient color to liven up the design. On wider screens, the > blog posts will appear in a siderbar to the left of the features list. > > If you guys like it, email me at inl...@gmail.com, or reply here. You can > check out my previous work at madebyargon.com. Some of you may have seen > the redesign I did for VideoLAN (videolan.org) which receive a positive > reaction from the open-source community surrounding VLC. > > Thanks. > > On Saturday, April 28, 2012 2:05:27 PM UTC+6, Russell Keith-Magee wrote: >> >> Hi Dana, >> >> I completely agree. I've been trying to get a redesign of >> djangoproject.com going for quite some time under the auspices of the >> Django Foundation. As you can see from the lack of changes, you can see >> that I haven't been particularly successful :-( >> >> The fundamental problem is that we have plenty of coding talent at our >> disposal, but not as much design talent. That's not to say that there >> aren't many talented designers in our community -- there are -- it's just >> that they're all very busy. We've approached several people in the Django >> design community asking them to help out, and some have even made done some >> initial work. However, redesign of a high-profile site like >> djangoproject.com is a big job, and nobody has been able to spare the >> time to bring the job to completion. >> >> So - at this point I'm open to any offers. I want to avoid design by >> committee -- ideally, I would like to pass this off to a single person (or >> a small group) and give them complete control over design process. I'm not >> completely sure how to organise who gets this role -- suggestions are >> welcome. >> >> If you (or anyone else) is interested, drop me a line and I can give you >> the design brief we've been working with. >> >> Yours, >> Russ Magee %-) >> >> >> >> On Saturday, 28 April 2012 at 3:22 PM, Dana Woodman wrote: >> >> > So now that Django is being moved to Git/Github (which is awesome!), >> maybe it would be a good time to think about a revamped home page for the >> project ala djangoproject.com (http://djangoproject.com)? >> > >> > Obviously this is no small undertaking and would be potentially >> contentions as to what would be the proper path, but I feel (and I don't >> think I'm alone) that djangoproject.com (http://djangoproject.com) could >> use a bit of a facelift. >> > >> > I have some idea of my own as to how this could be accomplished and I'm >> sure there are a ton of others out there with great ideas as well. Maybe we >> could open up some discussion on this idea? >> > >> > Forgive me if this has been proposed before as I'm new to the group! >> > >> > Cheers, >> > Dana >> > >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "Django developers" group. >> > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/** >> msg/django-developers/-/**g8ngEnVG_EsJ<https://groups.google.com/d/msg/django-developers/-/g8ngEnVG_EsJ>. >> >> > To post to this group, send email to django-developers@** >> googlegroups.com <django-developers@googlegroups.com> (mailto: >> django-developers@**googlegroups.com <django-developers@googlegroups.com>). >> >> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> django-developers+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.com<django-developers%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com>(mailto: >> django-developers+**unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<django-developers%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com>). >> >> > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** >> group/django-developers?hl=en<http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en>. >> >> >> >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Django developers" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/django-developers/-/redpIwTY8KMJ. > To post to this group, send email to django-developers@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. To post to this group, send email to django-developers@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en.
