HCoop's web sites have a very drab appearance at the moment. We need to come up with a visual appearance that will attract potential members.

1. Web site scheme

We need an attractive unifying design scheme for our web sites, including hcoop.net, wiki.hcoop.net, and members.hcoop.net.

• Here is a [http://borat.gotdns.org/hcoop.php basic site] with CSS dropdown navigation. I chose a lot of the parameters arbitrarily, such as menu items, colors, and sizes. I need to add a javascript doodad to cope with IE's broken CSS implementation. Please view with a Gecko / KHTML browser to get the dropdown effects until then. The logo (header) area I swept out was 100x770px. -- RickHull

  • I don't think the "dropdown navigation" adds anything over always having all links displayed. The overall layout with the boxes at the top and then normal texty layout below looks uglier than plain boring text, to me. Also, the color scheme drives me out of my mind. --AdamChlipala

    • You can turn the page style off in your browser in order to view the full menu. The dropdown effect serves only to obscure out-of-context submenu choices -- RickHull

  • I guess everone has their own taste. I actually like that look better than that of our new wiki, which I find rather ugly (although I guess I could bother to change my theme). --NathanKennedy

    • I changed the color scheme since Adam's comment -- RickHull

  • By the way, I think the dropdown is borked in IE6. --NathanKennedy

    • yup, it'll be fixed soon -- RickHull

  • Partially b0rked under Konqueror. Needs a little adjustment on the font size. The design is not bad but, like Adam, I think it doesn't add anything to the current page. In fact, I think a few drop of color over added to the current front page would be enough. -- FrancoisDenisGonthier

• Here is [http://bagheera.id.au/hcoop something I whipped together,] after a request on IRC (I'm not part of the co-op.) It's a quick-ish design and I'm open to changes. --Synapse (hcoop at bagheera dot id dot au)

  • Nice work! --NathanKennedy

• An attempt from AdamChlipala. I am far from being an HTML/CSS expert, and I don't particularly want to become one, so treat these as mock-ups that happen to display in browsers. I'm sure I've done all sorts of bad CSS things, and I'm hoping that others who are more knowledgeable would correct them if we chose to use these.

  • http://www.schizomaniac.net/hcoop/

  • http://www.schizomaniac.net/hcoop/portal.html

  Not bad at all. The front page is still rather busy/disorganized. There should be quick navigation links directly to the wiki, the portal, the signup form, and the board page right at the top and bottom, or top and side, or side and bottom, or anywhere that makes it clear. --NathanKennedy

2. Logo

We need one or more distinctive HCoop logos that we can use in suitable places.

See LogoDiscussion for some potential logos.