I'm planning to redesign my site for its 1st year anniversary (on June 30th), and I was wondering if you guys could help. When you go to a webcomic, what kind of things do you like to see or expect from the layout?
Tsk. In 1995, we didn't even have the chance to choose the background color of the webpages. Nor animated GIFs. Nor Java or Javascript support. Nor font resizing, except if you used the <h1> tags. Nor anything useless. See it by yourself.
In 1995 I was browsing with Lynx.
[IMAGE]
[IMAGE]
[LINE]
[IMAGE]
Yep, that's how the web looked to me.
Oh! I got an idea! How about an obnoxiously long flash intro of some sort! People love that!
here is part one of a piece I did for Comixpedia before. Don't ask about part 2! I wrote it, got lost during some computer problems, and I never did finish. But the basics are here.
http://www.comixpedia.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=844
~dave
www.toddandpenguin.com
www.collectiveinkwell.com
Personally, I enjoy an appealing site design that reflects the artistic style and mood of the comic. I also like the idea of any related content accessible for those interested in learning more.
For instance, if you have a comic about space travelers, then perhaps some links or related news about space travel would be of interest to readers. Update it regularly and I believe you'll have some relevant extras for your site. Or as I read in a different post in this forum, a comic about a she-male gunslinger could have links to sites featuring information on how to become a she-male along with links to learn how to be a gunslinger.
Hell yeah! The internet needs more links relating to shemales and gunslinging.
No black for backgroud? No way. I am so using that. Some people use it and it really good.
The sparking unicorn GIFs do show up better on the black background.
:D
I use black backgrounds! Heck, even Comixpedia uses black backgrounds!
The only problem I see with sites using black backgrounds is the general lack of sparking unicorn GIFs.
Black can work, however I must agree with what both Ghastly and Hard said here. Gastly especially, don't be a "geocities" site, and DEFINATELY don't go with the keenspace default (sorry, EGS is a real kicker.
DO incorporate your art, DO use PNG (get PNG crush or optimise!) DO use CSS2 and definately DO use some creativity.
remember, people are more likely to stay if your site is easy to read and access, make everything under the KISS princilple and you'll be ok.
Oh and your current site? compat it a LOT, you have too much white space and too large graphics. remember that net standard is now 1024x768 so USE IT! The more the lazy peeps can see at a glance the better, cause remeber WE ARE LAZY!
damn, I now have to get a account here, in the meantime, sonictail AT jafwachat DOT org will get to e-mail me. i'll keep a eye on this thred, it definately intrests me.
ST~ out
The most most most most important thing is NAVIGATION. It's one thing to have a cool design, but most of your readers will come into a lot more contact with the navigation. It's a CHORE reading Scary-go-round, for example, because the buttons are all so inconvenient. But at least it has them on the top and bottom, unlike Checkerboard Nightmare (which I'm reading now). It only has navigation buttons on the top and if I didn't have a scroll mouse I would have cried and written him an angry letter.
It's in your best interest to make it as easy as possible to get through the archives of a comic. Remember - people are lazy. Also dumb. And some don't have the patience for long waits, so make sure things download quickly. A webcomic site should center around the COMIC, so it should stand out on the site.
-Meaghan
I've always believed in easy-loading websites, which is why I didn't put cartoons on the web in the dialup age and am not now one of the old men of webcomics like Scott and Pete. Of course that's helped along by that I write all my own HTML by hand and haven't learned much new code since 1996 or so, but that's yer proverbial chicken-and-egg situation.
Easy navigation is a plus too, something I know from experience and was reminded of in no uncertain terms by a reader of my protosite: my brother reminded me how much easier it is reading a webcomic's archives if you have to move the mouse minimally or not at all.
Paul Gadzikowski,
http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com New cartoons daily.
I know I'd hate reading my own comic if I was on dialup. But I had to choose between living on the year 2004 or on 1995, and between doing something that pleases me or adjusting myself to the readers, I chose the first.
It's been working quite fine up to this date.
Ok, I've been working on this, and I'd like to hear what you guys think. Here's the redesign so far :http://www.joypadcomics.com/new.htm
That's not the main page, but what a comic's page would look like if you were looking through the archives. Also none of the links are working, and the comic has the wrong title, but I just wanted to get the designed locked for now.
Is it too much? Too little? Is it an improvement over the old design? I designed it for 1024x768 , I'm not even sure if it looks ok at other resolutions.
Thanks for help.
It's too wide for my resolution, which is 1024 x 768. You want a design that works at 800x600 AND at 1024x768 ideallly, but for a comic that's not going to appeal to my parents, I wouldn't worry about 800x600.
Also, the navagation being off to the side doesn't work with a comic that is verticle in nature. You really can't go wrong with buttons on the top and bottom of the comic.
The good stuff: The graphics seem to go really well with the comic and the color scheme is nice. All you've got are placement and navagation to play with, I'd say.
Only use 2 or maybe 3 different fonts. One serif for large blocks of text, and one sans serif for headings. If you must, use a third font (of any type) for monumental text. Any more and it looks cluttered and sloppy.
Wired Style is bad style. If the text on your page is at all important, then so is readable design.
Avoid high contrast--it tires out the eyes.
PNG is good for images with large single-color areas. JPEG is good for grainier or photographic images (where distortions in the image noise won't be noticeable). GIF can be safely avoided in favor of PNG: unless you're doing some realy cutting-edge things with PNG (which you can't do with GIF anyway), you shouldn't have to worry about browser support.
Doing a website all in Flash is overkill, and annoying to boot. Avoid.
Just make it look simple and make sure the images are unobtrusive. Make it doubly sure it's easy on the eyes and easy to navigate. That's it in my opinion.
I just re-did my website design and I think it's much more sutible for a webcomic.
I agree that the navigation is very important because it gets annoying trying to find the newest comic.
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Web Design: What do you look for?
I'm planning to redesign my site for its 1st year anniversary (on June 30th), and I was wondering if you guys could help. When you go to a webcomic, what kind of things do you like to see or expect from the layout?
The above post was made by me, I accidently forgot to log in. My bad.
I look for something that is stylish, attractice, easy to navigate and easy on the eyes that doesn't scream "WELCOME TO 1995".
In other words.
NO Black backgrounds
NO Starfield backgrounds
NO MIDI files playing in the background
NO frames
NO Animated 3-D rotating .GIFs of something flaming
NO "This page is under construction" with a little Men At Work road sign.
NO Giant gawdy fonts in a colour that clashes with the background
NO FREAKING SPARKLING UNICORNS
NO Background .GIFs that completely obscure the text
NO Stupid little mouse cursor JAVA thingies
NO Emoticons in every sentance ^_^;
... and all those other ancient website cliches from 1995.
But that's just me.
Well, I managed to avoid all of those the first time, thankfully. Though I did create a fan site for the computer game Monkey Island that wouldn't be too proud of showing right now.
[quote:f875e2845a="Ghastly"]NO Black backgrounds
What?! Next you'll be asking people to not have red pseudo gothic 70s metal text as their masthead as well