Design Ideas for Programmers Site [Closed] [duplicate]

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New Design Launched

Hi all. I'm Jin, and I'll be working on the designs for the Stack Exchange sites as they graduate from the beta phase. Each site will have its own unique theme that will reflect its topic. However, all sites will share quite a bit of common elements so they feel like they're part of the Stack Exchange family.

Since most user of the base on this site is familiar with Stackoverflow.com, I decided to go with a clean and simple design similar to SO, but with slightly more visual elements. The focus is still on readability and keeping the familiarity you have with SO.com. Layout structure-wise, I'm not changing much.

I've also read the suggestions from the logo thread. I like the idea of using symbols as part of the logo.

(click image to view full resolution version)

update

Thank you for your feedback. I have revise the initial mockup per your suggestions.

some changes:

• Green in the header is changed to cyan, I think it contrasts well against the darker background.

• Updated the logo treatment to "} Programmers {"

• Added <!- --> around the tag line.

• Removed monospace font in top nav

• Question link color is now in blue instead of green.

• Redid the tag treatment, so they're less boxy. I feel simpler () treament makes the home/question pages airier.

I'll be hanging out in the chatroom, feel free to drop by.

UPDATE 2

Thank you for the feedback! I've decided to go with a different approach with the design which I think will work better for the Programmers site. I'm locking this thread so no additional feedback will be posted about the old mockup. I'll start a new post for the next design. Thanks.

Answer 1

I don't want to sound too harsh, but I'm not entirely certain that the green and black monitor scheme is a good direction. Those old monitors are notoriously hard on the eyes, and the current design looks like an attempt to force a reference to something that should perhaps be referenced more subtly, if at all. There seem to be a number of different conflicting styles at work here, as well, from the gradients to the inset navigation links to the mix of oranges and greens.

If others like the idea but not this design, then to improve it I would steer clear of gradients altogether, probably keep the inset navigation, consistently use a fixed-width typeface for small linked items (site navigation, usernames, tags, and badges), be rid of the orange, and reduce the saturation of the green in the body, which right now reads "Christmas tree". The subtle texture in the background works well, as I think do the keyboardesque buttons.

But I'm definitely with Dan Grossman that a whiteboard look would be more suitable. Perhaps a more informal version of the Mathematics design would be more appropriate?

The <Programmers> logo conveys markup more than code, but I'm guessing it's just a placeholder for whatever the name and logotype turn out to be, likely } Out of Scope {.

Answer 2

Perhaps the subtitle should be a comment:

/* programming issues beyond coding  */

For the main design, the chevrons need to be smaller. They are already longer than the monotyped spacing of the other letters. (Although, I think the monospaced font should be kerned. Should create a nice effect.)

Answer 3

The second (revised) version of your design looks better. However I suggest that the curly braces be like: { Programmers } instead of } Programmers {.

Answer 4

I like everything but the greens.

Answer 5

Since you're going markup, the subtitle should be:

<!-- programming issues beyond coding -->

_{...or the jQuery unicorns amongst us: (released under the WTFPD license)}

$(".issues").find(".programming").not(".coding")

Answer 6

I don't like the two proposal. If possible, I would prefer a more positive design.

I think this can be solved by changing the colors. Especially the top gray bar that shouldn't be gray.

The layout itself is fine.

I preferred the BETA layout colors.

Answer 7

I am not a fan of the retro look. Programmers are not dinosaurs living in the past. The current programmers design is much more appealing, but it could use less chalkboard and more whiteboard.

Answer 8

I hate the logo.

Answer 9

Like others, I don't want to reject the effort that has gone into this, but with a subtitle like "Programming issues beyond coding" (which makes sense), do we really want the site to look like code?

I love this site because I learn about a lot more than code here. The site design should not just reflect that, but emote it.

As a side note, if we do have any fixed width font, I'd love it if we could use a similar font-family priority order to the code style on StackOverflow:

code {
    font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,Lucida Console,Liberation Mono,
      DejaVu Sans Mono,Bitstream Vera Sans Mono,Courier New,monospace,serif;
}

Courier is just so difficult to scan.

Answer 10

Answered question can have corners rounded? It can look like a monitor.

Answer 11

Cool Design and Nice colors.

Answer 12

What happen with the most voted logo? Community approved it. Is there any problem?

What should our logo and site design look like?

Added: Write an Elevator Pitch / Tagline

Answer 13

Rather than the brackets, I would like

// Programmers

or

/*  Programmers  */

Indicating comments, rather than out-of-scope. I think that this would be a less obscure reference. But either is good.

Answer 14

Overall, I like the second mockup a lot. The overall look is very clean and looks good. Minor tweak is that the light diamond hash background makes it harder for me to read than the graph paper look we have now. It particularly becomes a problem on machines where the OS doesn't do the antialiasing nicely. I would prefer to see a solid color, or perhaps a variation of the familiar graph paper.

Logos look fine to me, prefering the second logo to the first. I'd also put in a vote for the ;}{; Programmers style logo on the logo thread. Another tweak I'd make is to adjust the look for the "Add" buttons. They don't seem to quite fit the rest of the site. Perhaps all that's needed is for the button to appear as if we are viewing it directly from overhead. As it is now, the perspective is different than the other controls.

The color scheme in the second example is soothing, modern, and crisp. I like it.

Answer 15

I liked the green on grey ( I find the cyan on the title a little bit blaring ) but then I always colour my remote terminal windows to those colours anyways...

Answer 16

The green question links and green answer boxes look fine. They look stellar actually. The green-on-grey header and menu links? Not so much.

Answer 17

Overall, I like it, except for two things.

1) I agree with others that I don't particularly like the logo. I agree with @Jon Purdy that, since the site is about programmers, it should have a code-esque look to it. I also agree with @Renesis though, that since it's supposed to be "beyond coding", maybe it shouldn't look like code. Maybe some combination of "Programmers" in a code-esque look, and then the subtitle something like the first example from @badp:

<!-- programming issues beyond coding -->

2) The font for the questions seems a little thick, maybe something less bold.

Answer 18

Should the title bar background(Programmers) is a little brighter? It may reduces the contrast between the text-color and background-color, which may not very good for eyes.