arcie
05-11-2005, 07:32 PM
(Admin code added by Palmer - J26763002)
Site name: This is True®
What it is: Smart-assed commentary on weird news stories; published weekly online since *1994* -- True has a long and venerable tradition online, and is read internationally.
Domain: http://www.thisistrue.com
Audience: All ages, all interests, all political persuasions. That said, the audience tends to be more educated, more affluent, and more intelligent than the "average" person. We're not afraid to use big words if they are appropriate to the story. Anyone who doesn't understand can darn well drag out a dictionary, yaknow?
Mood or tone: Fairly simple (see notes), fast-loading, fun, yet fairly professional. Note that "This is True" is a sort of warranty as well as a well-established brand name, so a frivolous design won't do.
Color psychology: Open to suggestions. Not tied to current colors whatever.
Deadline: May 31. I am NOT particularly amenable to those who wait until the last minute to jump in and say "I'll do it!" on the last day. If you want to compete, please announce yourself by May 20.
Notes: This is a LONG-existing site. It gets quite a bit of traffic, but we'll be doing some changes in the next couple of months that will multiply traffic by at least 10X, and maybe much more. The past design driver was to be FAST loading. That's not as important as it used to be, but I don't want an extremely complex design *because of* the expected increase in traffic. Thus, the fewer graphic elements the better so that the site stays fast. That's what I mean by "simple". A lot of graphic elements means a lot of "hits" on the server, bogging it down. Note the current design is pretty much all plain HTML to create the different sections on the page. It may be ugly, but it sure worked well for its time.
Of course, that means NO Flash/etc. elements.
I want the nature of the site to be obvious immediately without any scrolling, which means critical text must be up high. TRUE has received a LOT of great press coverage over the years, which is reflected in the pull-quotes you'll see on most pages. I'd like to keep the pull-quotes on the page, but they don't have to be as prominent as they are now. The navbar is done as an INClude; I'd prefer it on the right side (currently it's on the left), NOT across the top.
The new design MUST be CSS-based so that later redesigns can be accomplished by changing the style sheet, rather than having to touch every page again.
Pages I need:
Index to replace http://www.thisistrue.com/index.html
"Long" internal page template (e.g., http://www.thisistrue.com/dellhell.html )
"Short" internal page template (e.g., any of the pages besides the index at http://archive.thisistrue.com -- this subsite will be folded back into the main site after the redesign is put online. I'll need "Home", "Previous" and "Next" buttons for that.)
Pretty much every page will need space for an ad block (currently in the navbar, but they need to be in the main part of the page in the new design). See the archive pages for examples of that.
You should probably redo the "logo" on the index to fit your design. Simple is fine.
So: let the questions (and the competition!) begin! :)
Site name: This is True®
What it is: Smart-assed commentary on weird news stories; published weekly online since *1994* -- True has a long and venerable tradition online, and is read internationally.
Domain: http://www.thisistrue.com
Audience: All ages, all interests, all political persuasions. That said, the audience tends to be more educated, more affluent, and more intelligent than the "average" person. We're not afraid to use big words if they are appropriate to the story. Anyone who doesn't understand can darn well drag out a dictionary, yaknow?
Mood or tone: Fairly simple (see notes), fast-loading, fun, yet fairly professional. Note that "This is True" is a sort of warranty as well as a well-established brand name, so a frivolous design won't do.
Color psychology: Open to suggestions. Not tied to current colors whatever.
Deadline: May 31. I am NOT particularly amenable to those who wait until the last minute to jump in and say "I'll do it!" on the last day. If you want to compete, please announce yourself by May 20.
Notes: This is a LONG-existing site. It gets quite a bit of traffic, but we'll be doing some changes in the next couple of months that will multiply traffic by at least 10X, and maybe much more. The past design driver was to be FAST loading. That's not as important as it used to be, but I don't want an extremely complex design *because of* the expected increase in traffic. Thus, the fewer graphic elements the better so that the site stays fast. That's what I mean by "simple". A lot of graphic elements means a lot of "hits" on the server, bogging it down. Note the current design is pretty much all plain HTML to create the different sections on the page. It may be ugly, but it sure worked well for its time.
Of course, that means NO Flash/etc. elements.
I want the nature of the site to be obvious immediately without any scrolling, which means critical text must be up high. TRUE has received a LOT of great press coverage over the years, which is reflected in the pull-quotes you'll see on most pages. I'd like to keep the pull-quotes on the page, but they don't have to be as prominent as they are now. The navbar is done as an INClude; I'd prefer it on the right side (currently it's on the left), NOT across the top.
The new design MUST be CSS-based so that later redesigns can be accomplished by changing the style sheet, rather than having to touch every page again.
Pages I need:
Index to replace http://www.thisistrue.com/index.html
"Long" internal page template (e.g., http://www.thisistrue.com/dellhell.html )
"Short" internal page template (e.g., any of the pages besides the index at http://archive.thisistrue.com -- this subsite will be folded back into the main site after the redesign is put online. I'll need "Home", "Previous" and "Next" buttons for that.)
Pretty much every page will need space for an ad block (currently in the navbar, but they need to be in the main part of the page in the new design). See the archive pages for examples of that.
You should probably redo the "logo" on the index to fit your design. Simple is fine.
So: let the questions (and the competition!) begin! :)