[Project Complete] Due Jun 15th - Innovative Google Maps Website - $500

[ICA]

Admin code added by Abby - 66219581WG241304S

Dear Designers,

We are creating a really exciting travel website using Google maps as the main feature. We know exactly what we want so this should be a quick and simple job. We also dont want to spend heaps of time on revisions - 2 or 3 rounds will do it.

We are also using this project as a trial for a much bigger Google Maps project, so whoever wins this competition will be invited to do the design for our second project.

The deadline for this competition is 15th June 2007.

---------------------
THEME
----------------------

We want a clean, uncluttered look. We like most good web 2.0 designs

The target market is very broad - our families, work colleagues and anyone in the general public who is interested in Google map websites.

----------------------
SITE INFORMATION
----------------------

This website is a personal travel site using Google Maps as the main feature. We are currently travelling through Europe and want to show family and friends where we have been and where we are going.

Site Name:
http://www.bestqualitycrab
It's a strange name I know ? The tagline wil give people site identity


----------------------
DESIGN
----------------------

We want to base our design on this website

http://www.miamivice.com/features/miami/map.html

So we will have an image in the background that changes from time to time with the map being the main feature

However - our website will also have site navigation features and a calendar

The main thing you are designing here is the fonts and the overall graphic look, you don’t need to play around with site architechture or page layout. I am attaching page layout templates.

Fonts - We really like the way this website has used tranaperant fonts to 'float' over the image in the background. We would like to see something like this:

http://www.see.com.au/home.asp

----------------------
REQUIREMENTS
----------------------

4 x psd files
1 x css file

----------------------
DEADLINE
----------------------

The deadline for this competition is 15th June 2007.

We are really excited about this project, I look forward to your designs.Innovative Google Maps Website

[ICA]

Dear designers,

PLease let me know if I have set the fee too low or the deadline too tight. If I dont get some bites on this in the next day or so I will start to panic (not a good sight)

This really is an easy job, I know what I want and I wont string it on for ages...

cheers

Robyn

[clink]

I would like to enter, however just one thing thats confusing me. For the homepage layout you have attached you show the main area as an area for text rather than a large map feature. Which of these would you like to see there? Thanks.

Oh and also, do you have a logo that we could use for our designs?

[ICA]

Hi Clink,

Thanks so much for letting me know - yes this is an error. It should be the map! I have reloaded the homepage file, and I am also attachign to this reply.

I look forward to your designs...remember what they say - the early bird gets the worm ;)

cheers

Robyn


I would like to enter, however just one thing thats confusing me. For the homepage layout you have attached you show the main area as an area for text rather than a large map feature. Which of these would you like to see there? Thanks.

Oh and also, do you have a logo that we could use for our designs?

[clink]

Ok thanks for the clarification, and do you have a logo that we can use?

[ICA]

No - there's no logo - just the title "bestqualitycrab"

Ok thanks for the clarification, and do you have a logo that we can use?

[ICA]

Hi everyone,

This is a tight timeline and we wont be able to move it very easily. I know it takes a couple of days for you to get a concept up, I just need to know if anyone is working on this or not (apart from Clink!)

And if not, it would help me to know why....

Thanks,

Robyn

[matude]

Hi Robyn,

Here are my first visions.
Which one would you prefer and could you also give me feedback to which direction should I head with these?

Also do you have any special color combination in mind?


As said, it's just a start.

Thanks,
Matude

[ICA]

Hi Matude,

Thanks for getting this competition started. We have looked at your designs closely and although we quite like version 2 where the map and menus are one block, we think version 5 will work best for all page layouts.

So - going with version 5 here is our feedback:

Heading
We like the white heading for 'bestqualitycrab". Also we want this to work on all backgrounds even white, I can't quite see but do you have a fine grey line outlining the text? If not, can we have one.

Can we see this with another choice of font that is not so heavy?

Menus
We like the grey font, but we dont like the blue for the headers. Can we see them in either white or charcoal grey?

Calendar
We like how you have it floating. Can we see the highlighted days in dark grey or something else (not blue)

Overall Colour Scheme
We like the idea of having a grey, white, black theme with maybe one other colour. This makes all the colour and movement in the map and the background images.

Next Steps

The idea here is that the background image will change weekly, so the trick is going to be finding a font/menu design that will work on as many different sorts of images as possible.

You can download some examples of background images
that we may use here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bestqualitycrab/sets/72157600331325374/


Then we would also like to see the page01 layout

Thanks again for getting this started - you are definitely on the right track.

cheers

Robyn



Hi Robyn,

Here are my first visions.
Which one would you prefer and could you also give me feedback to which direction should I head with these?

Also do you have any special color combination in mind?


As said, it's just a start.

Thanks,
Matude

[clink]

Here is my design, I hope that you like it :)

[ICA]

Hi Clink,

Thanks this is great!

I like the menu design, the font colour is very readable. I dont like the "tab" look though, can you square the boxes off?

I also think the word "crab" in a dif colour is interesting, but dont like the yellow. Maybe a dark blue or grey?

We don't need such a big shaded area at the bottom and we don't require terms and conditions or privacy. However you have prompted us to think about other utilities such as "add to delicious" and rss feeds and such. So if you can find a place for these that would be great. Perhaps along the bottom in a shaded are such as you have there, but thinner. Can you also add an "about this site" to the list.

And - I would like to see page01 to get a feel for how it will your design will work with a text box etc.

Thanks again for your design.

cheers

Robyn

[clink]

Thanks for the prompt feedback :)

Here is my revision, which I feel looks nicer. Unfortunately it's pretty late where I am so I'll have to make a start on the subpage for you tomorrow.

Regards,

[Fabian]

Hey,here's mine :)

[matude]

Hi

Thanks for the fast feedback,
Here are my revisions.

I tried different headings/logos and decided to continue with the one I used on subpage. What do you think?

I also added one view of white background.

Also could you tell me if navigation should be more like a list of options or rather like a regular website-menu. What I mean is should I make them look more like buttons?

Thanks,
Matude

[ICA]

Hi all,

These are looking good, I will go over them in more detail tomorrow and post feedback tomorrow night to keep the job moving.

Matude - good questions re menu, I will address these tomorrow also.

thanks heaps!

Robyn

Hi

Thanks for the fast feedback,
Here are my revisions.

I tried different headings/logos and decided to continue with the one I used on subpage. What do you think?

I also added one view of white background.

Also could you tell me if navigation should be more like a list of options or rather like a regular website-menu. What I mean is should I make them look more like buttons?

Thanks,
Matude

[ICA]

Hi all,

Here is our feedback as promised

Feedback to everyone:

1. We need the calendar to have month and year, plus a forward and back arrow

2. We have decided to always use a background image with the same tone as the blue. This will make the name easier to design, so white will work, as will black or grey. It also means that if the calendar is up top it will be legible.

3. We would like to see all the designs on another of our photos just to get a sense for how it will look with dif shots as background. You can choose another from the FlickR account

4. We don’t require “Copyright best quality crab”

5. We would like a search box

6. Please add the tagline “Deb Verhoeven’s Mapblog”

Feedback to Designers


Clink

We quite like your design, but think that the menu boxes look a bit heavy. Your calendar is clear and we like the 4 thin lines segmenting the page

Matude

Overall yours is probably our favourite at the moment. (crab6_newlogo.jpg) We like the movement in the heading and in the box header backgrounds. We like the font on both the menu boxes and the “bestqualitycrab” heading, although you would like to see heading with the word “crab” in black, not the word ”quality”

We like your second page (but not that logo)

In answer to your question about the menu items, no they don’t need to be buttons, the way you have them is fine – possibly the font is a little small….

Fabian

We really like your design too. We like how you have integrated the map with the photo, but we think it covers too much of the photo…

The calendar is good and we like it there, but we also think it is mixing genres…it doesn’t quite fit with menu etc.

We like the clarity of the feeds etc, having them up the top like that makes then really easy to see.

Next Steps

1. We would really like to see the design of the pop up boxes. We saw one today that we really liked over at http://www.bliin.com the pop ups have 3 tags – details | comments | tags. Can you use these 3 headings also when you design the pop up?
2. We would like to see you lay your designs over at least one other image we have listed on our flickR account under the set “design outpost”

Thanks again everyone – this is coming along nicely.

Cheers

Robyn

[matude]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, here are my revisions.

Alot of different details:

Main & subpage views of searchbar in header up/down and in menu section.
Popup image/text + different tabs for both of them.
And 2 different backgrounds.

Thanks,
Matude

[ICA]

Hi Matude,

Thanks for these. A couple of things:

Pop Ups - can you move details/comments and tags to teh top area of the bok, rather than the bottom? That way if the box scrolls people can still see them clearly?

Also with search - can you try search down grouped with rss feed and delicious?

Thanks for your work - we are liking it!

cheers

Robyn


Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, here are my revisions.

Alot of different details:

Main & subpage views of searchbar in header up/down and in menu section.
Popup image/text + different tabs for both of them.
And 2 different backgrounds.

Thanks,
Matude

[matude]

Hey Robyn,

Here's the new version of tabs/searchbar.
I'm glad you like it.

Matude

[ICA]

Hi Matude,

thanks this is good...

Can you move the tabs inside the box, undeneath the pop up heading - and make box slightly transperant.

also rss, search etc seem a bit lost - is there anything you can do to make them more prominent.

finally - we have extended deadline, as we had to take a quick trip to Berlin (great city by the way!!!). we will be back on 24th and will make a final decisio on 26th - but so far you are looking good Matude!!!

thanks all,

Robyn

[ICA]

HI all,

Is anyone else going to post some designs? We will be making our decision in the next few days.

Thanks everyone,

Robyn

[matude]

Hi,

Here's my revision.
What do you think?

Thanks,
Matude

PS: Yep, Berlin's a nice city, I live in Europe and I've been there many times.

[ICA]

Hi Matude,

Sorry for the delay, we have been held up installing the backend for this site (Joomla!).

Thanks for your last revisions, but on seeing them we have decided on the design in Message #19.

Can you please mock up the 4 templates (the ones attached to the design brief) as images first? Then when we see them we will confirm they are what we want and you can proceed to the ccs files. Does that sound OK?

cheers

Robyn

[matude]

Hi,

Thank you very much.

I managed to do them today and here they are.


Though, I have a question about the said css files.
You mentioned 1 css and 4 psd files in the main post but here you used plural. What are the exact requirements in the css file?

Thanks again,
Matude

[ICA]

Thanks Matude,

I will get back to you later today with answer to css question (I assume we only need one file, but i will check with our IT guys)

WE will also need eps or png files.

thanks

Robyn

ps - where are you in Europe? We are in Portugal.

[Zoe]

Congratulations Matude.

Robyn, I have moved this thread to the revisions forum where you can continue to work with Matude. Once you have finalised the design and Matude has supplied you with the files. Please post back here letting us know.

Thank you

Zoe

[ICA]

OK Thanks Zoe!

cheers

Robyn

[matude]

Files sent.

Thank you very much again!

Matude

[BlueCherryGraphics]

PROJECT UPDATE: this thread has been moved to Templates Archives.