[ubuntu-art] Website art request

[Matthew Nuzum]

On 5/27/06, Henrik Nilsen Omma <henrik at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It needs to fit into that 190px wide tan region, and be between 50 and
> 100 px tall. IMO it should be fairly subtle since we already have a
> large logo in the top right corner. It doesn't even _have_ to be the
> logo, just something that will look nice in that location.
>
> Thanks!
>
> - Henrik

Hi Henrik,

I hope I'm not about to start a holy war here, but if you don't mind,
I'd like to just offer a few suggestions, since you're making some
changes...

When I set my browser to 1024x768, I get 190px of navigation, 753px of
content and 81px of browser chrome, padding and etc.

It feels to me like the navigation bar is a bit cramped. What I would
do is shrink the content area down a bit, add a little more margin to
the right hand side between the browser chrome and the navigation, and
widen the navigation bar.

At the moment you have 25px on the left, 20 between the nav and the
content and 10 or 11 on the right. I'd start with balancing that out
to 25 on each side. I'd also make the padding between nav and body
25px. Assuming that the extra 15px of padding comes from the body
content, this will shrink your 753px of body to 738px.

That's still too much (see the "wall of text"
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html).  But that's OK, because the
nav bar is a bit too skinny anyway. I'd add at least 40 more px, and
really I think you could get by with 60 more. This would allow you to
make those fonts a little bigger which will allow them to grab your
eye when you come to the home page.

That leaves two problems, one is very easily fixed, the other, maybe
not. The first problem is that I think you've over used bold in that
top paragraph, and the rest of the page is too text heavy. People
don't want to read that much on the home page, instead, it may be
better to shrink the ubuntu definition down to one paragraph with a
heading like "What is Ubuntu?" Then, follow up with information that
will help people find what it is they are looking for. For example,
downloads or information about support. That way people can simply
scan down the home page looking for the information they want.

The second problem is the image needs some work. This may be too
difficult to fix right away. The problems are:
 a: The white space at the top left and bottom left looks like a big
gap with no text. It unfortunately falls directly in the center of the
page and somehow draws your eye right to it. Putting a border and/or a
drop shadow could overcome this.
  b: The image needs some padding, especially on the right side. This
can be provided in CSS
  c: It just doesn't look that good. This really is the least
important though, because doing some or all of the above will make
this problem less apparent.

I know you're in a time crunch. I will have some time on Monday where
I could help out with  these changes if you like. Sending me a
high-res version of that image on the home page would help. I see
you've used the skidoo template for the design; I'm very familiar with
this and can also help with the CSS tweaks.

I may also be able to help with the content on the home page, but I
don't know what politics are involved with changing the home page
content (i.e. translations, approval, etc.). If you'd like some help
and Monday will fit into your time line, let me know. It's a holiday
here in the USA and I have some free time.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
www.bearfruit.org