Gloom Magazine and Grim Girls

[grimsgirls]

Website URL: http://www.gloommagazine.com/content/view/15/30/
Template: Made my own, took a little while but I figured it out
Additional Extensions: Added a couple. J! Reactions for site comments, Simple Image Gallery Plugin for Grims Girls, and Fireboard. 
Other Features: I'd love feedback on the overall graphic design of the site and usability. This is my first Joomla website so I know it needs a lot of improvement and any suggestions would be great!

Also I am still working on the index page.

-Alexander Grim

[Diederik]

I like the design. The use of colors is good, the background used works perfectly.

The rollover menu on top: when the stars or sparks rollover the text of the menu isn't that easy to read. Maybe you can change the color of the text.

[snadowitz]

to change the colour of the rollover menu test edit template_css.css line 819 and set the colour to be #FFB6EF and it becomes the same pink colour as the header graphic - much more readable. I did not notice the menus at all in that greyish colour.

[grimsgirls]

I like the design. The use of colors is good, the background used works perfectly.

The rollover menu on top: when the stars or sparks rollover the text of the menu isn't that easy to read. Maybe you can change the color of the text.

Thanks

[grimsgirls]

to change the colour of the rollover menu test edit template_css.css line 819 and set the colour to be #FFB6EF and it becomes the same pink colour as the header graphic - much more readable. I did not notice the menus at all in that greyish colour.

Made some changes to the menu, does this look better?

[jmc]

Heh. I don't believe it. I just spent the best part of an hour checking out your site.
As for the site itself, it's uber-cool. Pink and black - edgy and "girly" at the same time. Aimed so definitely at a niche market. Not too sure about the rollover effect... I'd lose the "noise" personally. Some padding could be used in the models' Profile pages text, but Hey... apart from that...
Mrs Grim's finds... a really classy touch. I mean, even if you are tattooed to hell and back and dressed like Vampirella, shoes and bags are still the essence of life, yeah? (gettin' in touch with my feminine side, here!  ).
Where I find it disappointing is the "short" pages. I'd be inclined to fill that screen real estate with imagery/copy (even if it's simply "First Edition" placeholder blurb on the index, temporarily replicating the menu links to other content/areas of the site). I HATE  that truncated page effect. I feel... uhh... "short-changed". I certainly wouldn't buy a magazine with tiny pages 
What took most of my time was the imagery. The "Editorials" and "Grim's Girls" (some of those are astonishingly strong imagery). You (Alex) take damn good photos. The quality/atmosphere/style/vibe of the pictures alone makes it a site worth visiting for your intended audience. They'll come back to check out the eyeshadow. There's an idea for Mrs Grim... 
Bookmarked.
Good luck with it.
John Mc

[grimsgirls]

Thanks As far as the padding in the model pages I couldn't figure out how to add it. I've been using HTML and CSS for about 10 years and for some reason Joomla strips my html so I disabled the wysiwyg editor. Maybe I'm just over looking the padding thing and it's simple. I agree that it needs the padding in the tables for the models profiles pages.

What do you mean by the short pages? Are you reffering to Mrs. Grims Finds blog? Or you referring to the index page and the Scene page? Both those pages look like crap right now. I am going to be making them look more professional like the Grims Girls Section.

I really appreciate your feedback it's hard to get people to be honest with you about your site. Most people just tell me it looks great. I know there are a million things I need to do to make it look better.

[grimsgirls]

Does anyone think the comment colors/layout doesn't go with the layout?

http://www.gloommagazine.com/content/view/19/26/

I'm using J Reactions and just have not gotten around to changing the style sheet. I know I'm going to make new buttons but I'm not sure is the white and grey go with the over all design of the site.

I'm also using fireboard for the forum. Does the forum look like it needs improvement on the colors?

-Alexander Grim

[Diederik]

The top menu has improved, the initial grey color works great. I still find that the sparks (noise) make it hard to read the menu text.

The comment system looks natural to me.

The forum is OK, the dark pink that's being used is hard to read again. A specially on the grey background and where a small font is used.
for example the link Photographers of Grims Friends  under the section grim girls.

Your site looks great so no wonder people say it looks good.

[steve z]

Alexander,

Great looking site.  I never get tired of looking at the great things that people can do with Joomla.  I am far from an expert designer, but here are a few items for your consideration...



1.  Forum - I agree with Diederik that the pink text is a bit hard to read a somewhat hard on the eyes.  Perhaps a deep gray, almost black, would work.

2. Forum - I am not a fan of the template stock folder images next to each topic.  Have you considered changing the images to something a bit more "Gloomy" such as the skull and flower image in your logo?  My skill set is nowhere near yours, but you can see that just changing the topic image changes the feel of the forum to match the site (see this forum as an example of what I mean).

3.  Gloom Girl pics - Excellent picture qualiy and the Simple Gallery plugin is nice, but the image is so large that I cannot view the entire picture on my 17" monitor without scrolling.  My thought is that it would be nice if the pics were sized to fit on a screen size that most people have with their computer.

4.  Gloom Scene Event pics:
- The header and menu disappears when a gallery is selected.  Perhaps this is by design, but it would be more user friendly if the header and menu was there.
- Any reason why you chose not to use Simple Gallery plugin for the event gallery?

Once again... Great Design!


Cheers,
Steve

[neurobotic]

Hey there...

First impression: Be careful to not get too close to SuicideGirls. I know the guys at Cuban Council killed that site and put a lot of effort into it. Healthy competition (if any) is good, so try to stand out and make "GLOOM" have a look and feel all its own. Cheers, good luck.

[snadowitz]

to change the colour of the rollover menu test edit template_css.css line 819 and set the colour to be #FFB6EF and it becomes the same pink colour as the header graphic - much more readable. I did not notice the menus at all in that greyish colour.

Made some changes to the menu, does this look better?

Very readable now and some lovely pics too.

[grimsgirls]

Hey there...

First impression: Be careful to not get too close to SuicideGirls. I know the guys at Cuban Council killed that site and put a lot of effort into it. Healthy competition (if any) is good, so try to stand out and make "GLOOM" have a look and feel all its own. Cheers, good luck.

I don't think it looks anything like there site. Is there something I should change?

[grimsgirls]

Alexander,

Great looking site.  I never get tired of looking at the great things that people can do with Joomla.  I am far from an expert designer, but here are a few items for your consideration...



1.  Forum - I agree with Diederik that the pink text is a bit hard to read a somewhat hard on the eyes.  Perhaps a deep gray, almost black, would work.

2. Forum - I am not a fan of the template stock folder images next to each topic.  Have you considered changing the images to something a bit more "Gloomy" such as the skull and flower image in your logo?  My skill set is nowhere near yours, but you can see that just changing the topic image changes the feel of the forum to match the site (see this forum as an example of what I mean).

3.  Gloom Girl pics - Excellent picture qualiy and the Simple Gallery plugin is nice, but the image is so large that I cannot view the entire picture on my 17" monitor without scrolling.  My thought is that it would be nice if the pics were sized to fit on a screen size that most people have with their computer.

4.  Gloom Scene Event pics:
- The header and menu disappears when a gallery is selected.  Perhaps this is by design, but it would be more user friendly if the header and menu was there.
- Any reason why you chose not to use Simple Gallery plugin for the event gallery?

Once again... Great Design!


Cheers,
Steve

Thanks for all the feedback

I made some changes to the forum, I was planning on making those changes but just have not gotten around to it.  I see your point on the pictures size for Grims Girls but I like having the larger pictures. If gloom users start complaining I will resize them. For the seen event pictures I was having performance issues loading all the pictures with Simple Gallery. So I just created a custom template in Photoshop and now make all the galleries in photoshop. It's just the matter of running a script

[Da_Joomlian]

nice one ....

[grimsgirls]

nice one ....

Thanks

[snadowitz]

can I have a copy of your template?

[seaside man]

I love the design of this site