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WRtL Forum Design?

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ScrungleBlumpkus
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Post by Wizzy Tue Jul 07, 2015 4:27 am

I sent a PM to Rabid asking about the design of the forum because I curious:

rabid squirrel wrote:
FreakingKoalaMan wrote:Hey
I'm pretty sure this was brought up in the past or at least I think it was but I was curious about the look of the forum. If I remember correctly we were in the process of making WRtL look like IRtL with the red and everything, but I don't remember why we chose not to or if it wasn't finished or whatever the reason.

I was wondering about the look of this forum because I was just thinking if I were a new guy or a guest and I saw this place for the first time I'd be kind of turned off by how boring it looks (no offense to whoever designed the place.)

We don't have to make it look like the old IRtL, but it would be cool if we came up with a new design.
I was wondering about:
1. The banner
2. Symbols for things like Bosh's face for forum topics, pencils for threads, etc.
3. The blue color of the forum

I'm just thinking aloud. Thought it would be nice to jazz the place up a bit to make it a little more interesting or at least different for the old members to make it nicer to look at.
1. it says we ride the lines. I asked for a banner that said that and got only one so I took it. If someone wants to redesign I'm all for it.

2. Is this a suggestion or an observation? I honestly forget who but a number of people helped me personalize the default phpbb icons with line rider related ones. If someone makes better ones, again, will totally consider.

3. The blue color is something I am going to have to stand by. As a longtime admin I can speak to the fact that the blue color of the forum has led to an enormous drop in overall anger levels of everyone. This is something I realized years ago, and only recently have I noticed that this is actually backed up by psychological science. Googled "website color psychology" and this was the first result:
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/psychology-of-color-and-conversions/
3. Use blue in order to cultivate user’s trust.
Blue is one of the most-used colors, with good reason. A lot of people like blue.

Read the literature on blue, and you’ll come across messages like

  • The color blue is a color of trust, peace, order, and loyalty.
  • Blue is the color of corporate America and it says, “Chill . . . believe and trust me . . . have confidence in what I am saying!”
  • Blue calls to mind feelings of calmness and serenity. It often is described as peaceful, tranquil, secure, and orderly.

There is wide agreement in the research community on the psychological effects of the color blue. Its subtle message of trustworthiness and serenity is true. You can use this to your advantage on your website and landing pages.

The world’s biggest social network is blue. For a company whose core values are transparency and trust, this probably is not an accident.
I don't want WRTL to feel like IRTL did, a place of excitement and intensity and anger and high emotions. I want it to feel calm, trustworthy, and peaceful. Like a home.

Any reason this is in a PM and not a thread?

TL;DR

If it's ok with the administrators, I was thinking if anyone was even interested at all in this perhaps it would be cool if we had a contest for a new banner/icon(s) (the little symbols in front of thingys, such as Bosh face, pencils, etc.) and we would vote as a community on the one we like the best and we would use le winrar's new design(s). I'm just throwing this out there :| would anyone even be interested in doing this? Do any of the admins mind? Should I add another question to this sentence? Let me know what you think. IMO I was thinking it would be nice to have new, fancy stuff/thingy(s) to look at that would be refreshing and new and cool.
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Post by Lukking Tue Jul 07, 2015 4:47 am

Im totally up for that! Would love a slightly different design.
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Post by Z_N-Freak Tue Jul 07, 2015 11:02 am

The current design is quite clean and orderly, something that I personally like, but I'm quite okay with changing the lay-out. I'd be all up for having a contest, but I think we should keep the current lay-out in mind as a contestant, meaning that the current design is included in the contest.

Change is all fine and dandy, but it is not always necessary Smile

FYI: You won't be seeing any designs from me (don't have any real experience with designing stuff)

Edit:
Just realized that we can probably change the design anyway, as most forums actually allow for more than one designs right? So we would be able to switch between designs if you have an account I think. In that case we can maybe even have more than just one winner.
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Post by rabid squirrel Tue Jul 07, 2015 12:34 pm

I am totally cool with this... as long as I don't get hate if someone makes something and some people like it but we decide not to do it for whatever reason.
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Post by ScrungleBlumpkus Tue Jul 07, 2015 1:09 pm

This sounds fun, I haven't done much graphical design but I know how to work with it so I might give it a shot.
As a side note, the faint contrast between post bg color is a calming effect imo and I know for a fact that sharper contrast or colors are, while more exciting, very provocative of heated discussion. I was once on a forum where dark red back ground was the color for admin posts, and all else was blue. The admin wasn't well received. Even if the forum was red and the admin's posts were blue, it creates a subconscious separation of feeling from authority. Humanity really is driven by color.
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Post by Sheldon Tue Jul 07, 2015 3:36 pm

this for you benwubble :|
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Post by OTDE Tue Jul 07, 2015 3:40 pm

I'll give this a shot, myself!
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Post by BenWubbleyou Fri Jul 10, 2015 6:16 pm

Sheldon wrote:this for you benwubble :|

Oh ok Inverted Onoz
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Post by BenWubbleyou Fri Jul 10, 2015 6:32 pm

Alright, my observations

There is a disconnect with what we call ourselves. Is it I Ride The Lines, or We Ride The Lines? Comparison of names

1. IRTL is singular, feels personal, but lacks any real way of distinguishing that this is a community.
2. WRTL has a sense of community, but the name itself feels exclusive, as in "we ride the lines, you don't" it has a feeling of a club that is hard to enter.

A name change may be in need, but that has a lot of imperatives to it. You have to change the name of the site so people can find it, the names of youtubes, streams, and other things like that, there is also the incredibly large backlog of old material that IRTL and WRTL has been used as for the past 7 years, all those references will be gone if we change the name significantly.

So one thing needs to happen first. We call ourselves We Ride The Lines or I Ride The Lines(Pretty obvious choice here). I think a full name change isn't what we need, just a name clarification.

Another thing I think we should do is push away from our roots. It's been a long time is IRTL was shut down and this forum was created and I feel like this place has created it's own identity separate from IRTL. I think it would be best to remove references to Techdawg's IRTL, we are now our own distinct community.

Finally, I think the biggest way we can promote our community is through the branding of our official videos. The WRTLCC is the face of Line Rider, not just one person, but the collective projects that this community makes. I think we should have an official look to these videos so that they stand out amongst the user created videos. Right now there is a constant change in fonts, colors, and styles, and while it may be fine, it doesn't speak of a unifying community.

So things I am going to make.

1. New logo, color scheme, and design parameters for the website.
2. Create website guidelines for specifics such as color scheme and hierarchy.
3. Create a video spec sheet and animations/titles/styles for official WRTL videos.

Please criticize and continue this discussion! I will be in my hive working on ideas.
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Post by Getthim Fri Jul 10, 2015 7:35 pm

thinking on this logo suggestion above, had an idea and thought to mock it up

Spoiler:

bit big i know, but whatcha think? made in gimp, got the .xcf file if anyone wants to play with it,
(blue doesn't have to be blue, just picked blue cos it is nice)
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Post by rabid squirrel Fri Jul 10, 2015 7:42 pm

Title is We Ride the Lines to distinguish ourselves from IRTL. This was a change I sort of did a couple months after creating the site (which was kind of just an emergency at the time) to make it feel more like a community move than like Rabid Squirrel's IRTL. Unfortunately, http://www.weridethelines.forumotion.com was already taken.

There aren't any references to IRTL that I know of besides the note at the top that says "formerly TechDawg's I Ride the Lines"

An official look to the videos is totally impractical without paying someone to do all the videos, because the people doing the editing, and the software used, varies dramatically from video to video.
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Post by Wizzy Fri Jul 10, 2015 8:28 pm

I actually like the idea of having an official template for community based videos. Perhaps we could use a custom made template (such as an intro in .avi format we could hand off to whoever does the editing for that video and just shove it in the beginning of the each community project) and then have a little trademark logo (sort of like Hedge did in some of his tracks and I think LRG did in BS) and just toss that in somewhere in the corner. And then a template for the credits and boom.

i.e. just make a custom editing project template.

As for people coming up with designs I'll make a separate thread where you can submit your art work so this can be more organized. Perhaps I can get the dimensions of the banner as well and any rules that must be followed (such as color scheme or anything else) that must be followed.
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Post by BenWubbleyou Fri Jul 10, 2015 8:37 pm

FreakingKoalaMan wrote:I actually like the idea of having an official template for community based videos. Perhaps we could use a custom made template (such as an intro in .avi format we could hand off to whoever does the editing for that video and just shove it in the beginning of the each community project) and then have a little trademark logo (sort of like Hedge did in some of his tracks and I think LRG did in BS) and just toss that in somewhere in the corner. And then a template for the credits and boom.

i.e. just make a custom editing project template.

As for people coming up with designs I'll make a separate thread where you can submit your art work so this can be more organized. Perhaps I can get the dimensions of the banner as well and any rules that must be followed (such as color scheme or anything else) that must be followed.

A custom editing project is sort of what I mean. Here is an example.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ce627lhuokfbddv/AACcuhaBQRYfeWZlZ9drLEFta?dl=0

If you see the files, there is a TON of .mov files that are simply used for announcements at my church. I make the animations, while the video producer at my church uses the designed motion graphics for creating the announcements so that they all have the same look. This is what I would do with the videos as well.
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Post by rabid squirrel Sat Jul 11, 2015 9:34 am

I think you guys overestimate the skill level and abilities of the average editor on this site. I have a hard enough time just getting people to do it, getting them to include a logo is another thing going to discourage people.

you said it, wubble.
I make the animations, while the video producer at my church uses the designed motion graphics for creating the announcements so that they all have the same look.
Video producer. Paid. One person. One set of software. Different situation than what we have here.

Plus there's the fact that we've been doing it this way for 6 years with decreasing activity throughout so we have an ENORMOUS archive of videos that would not follow this rule...
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