blog 
2006/10/20

A New Daily Has Come

That's right, Kotogoto Daily has been redesigned. Actually, I started to dislike the old design just a few weeks after I had launched it. But I didn't get around to creating a new design until now. Well, in fact, this design has been laying around for some days, as my pc is down yet again. Luckily I had uploaded the files to my server in order to test them. So on this old pc that I use currently, I downloaded them and finished the rest.

The site has a new layout and elemente are arranged differently. It was actually a very interesting process to move everything around and see where things could be placed, how the layout works, and how it doesn't. Plus, I wanted to make certain functions more obvious. Take for example the comments. Before, comments and the input form were located in a pop-up window. In an attempt to make the comment function more attractive to use and make it easier to read the comments that have been posted, I integrated it into the main page. It was a tad more complicated to code than the individual pop-up window.

Other design issues came up during the process and further shaped the layout and functionality of the page. The image title and text and the comments form two colums below the image. Now if the image has a portrait format, the page will not be wide enough to incorporate both columns. Thus, I created a second layout where those colums turn into two rows. Pretty tricky, huh?

Working on this pc is a mess, even HTML editing is just awful. The computer is really slow, and it just doesn't “feel” as good as my regular one. Maybe it's due to Windows 98? I guess you get used to the usability of XP, but don't realize its improved handling until you go back to an ancient OS. I wonder how Windows Vista is going to feel like. I've seen it in action and it's shiny and everything's glowing, but I haven't worked with it myself and thus I have no impression of its usability yet. Well, next year then.

In other news, a project I made at work is now online. It's a microsite promoting a new kind of cellphone with television functions. I made the design according to the company's CI, and also wrote the HTML and did the Flash streaming videos. This is my very own project and thus I am somewhat proud of it. Go see it here.


Comments

– 2006-10-24 09:30:22

Wow, Toby, the new layout looks very professional! It's really nice and very pleasing to the eye.

But I think it has turned out a little too professional :) Maybe the logo at the top of the page doesn't need to look so elegant -- perhaps you could try a sans-serif font for it, and retain the overall colours, but add a bit of style?

I'm also used to seeing kotogoto all written in lowercase, so the capital "k" seems out of place :)

I can appreciate the amount of tinkering that must have gone into this though. The "changing" layout depending on the dimensions of the photo is really cool. It's also good that you made the comments appear on the pages themselves -- allows the viewers to see what others have said about the photos without having to click again.

Great job on the TV-Phone microsite too. The photos of different people using the phone, were those taken by you as well?

– 2006-10-25 00:30:37

Karthik, thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts! I sent you a mail with some answers and other speech. ;-)

The photos at the TV-site were shot by an external photographer. No Photography by Tobias Münch this time. ;-)


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