geektyme.v3 design - take 1

I’ve begun work on the design of geektyme.v3, which has become a bit of a longer process than I expected, but it’s definitely an interesting experience due to the manner in which I’m going about it.

I’ve started on the images, you can see the initial header idea here. It’s not necessarily a final product, however I feel rather satisfied with the basic idea. For colors I’m thinking black/light gray and a slight green tone in some areas. I feel comfortable with that idea, so it’s likely that’s how the final product will be

I’ve also put together a basic design layout (first take, may change some) which I sketched out on a piece of notebook paper (how web 2.0 of me). As you can see I plan to have the width be either fixed at approximately 750px (maybe slightly smaller) or possibly – if I can learn the CSS behind it – have it done so that it expands to fit the size of the browser window. This would be optimal, giving those with larger screens more real estate when viewing the site. I plan to have the header at the top, as that is the idea of the header (o rly?). The navigation will be at the bottom, instead of below the header or on one of the sides of the site. In the center will be the content, which will mostly be information and links to the hosted blogs, svn repositories and sites (depending on which section you’re viewing). If you click on the preview image you can view a larger version of the sketch, which has a bit more detail and will give you a better idea of the plan.

To enact this new design plan will take a bit of learning on my part. Over the summer I picked up The Zen of CSS Design which will help me learn some new CSS tricks, and also how to apply some design principles to the site. I also just recently picked up Pragmatic Ajax – and between the two of these I believe I will be able to create the web page as I envision it. I’m not one to ride trend waves, so understand that I am using AJAX because I feel it is the best solution to the problem of having the web site function as I intend it. One of the ideas I’ve had is to place an “about” link for each site which would bring to the front a section and fade out the site slightly so you can get an idea of what a site is about and decide if you’re interested in visiting it. When I say “sites” I mean things such as blogs that I host, some SVN repositories, and a few other domains that I either administrate or just host. I will also allow others to request a blog or svn hosting – they will of course have to “apply” in some sort of manner so that I can keep from filling up my hosting space while still host interesting projects. That’s the basic idea, to create some sort of a place for other geeks to keep their stuff and basically do their “geek thing”. It should prove an interesting venture.