A couple-few weeks back, we sat down for lunch with a design-headed, art-minded cohort, and we got to talking about this here webpage. This is a simulated (read: at least half lies) transcription of the conversation:
Art Cohort: Are you guys going to go with any kind of cohesive design?
Two Idiots: *blank stares*
Art Cohort: Set colors? A logo? You might want to consider a certain look — good design offers certain qualities and consistency of elements.
Two Idiots: You gonna eat that pie?
Art Cohort: I don’t… I don’t have pie. This is an omelette.
Two Idiots: Fine. Eat the pie. We don’t care.
Art Cohort: … so, uhhh, for example, some of your early promo materials had a different look and feel from the current website, which is okay, but it’ll be good to have some elements tie the design going forward.
Two Idiots: We call this design, “Space Vomit.”
Art Cohort: That… that’s certainly evocative.
Two Idiots: Because it looks like outer space threw up on itself.
Art Cohort: That’s not entirely untrue, I guess.
Two Idiots: And that thematically reflects our writing, which is pretty much like if outer space threw up on itself. It’s an angry narrative broth. A heady nebula stew. Meat stock culled from the bones of marrow-slick ideas. A turbid, barfy soup with chunks of–
Art Cohort: Yeah, no, okay, I got it. I’m good. I’m also eating.
Two Idiots: You gonna eat that pie?
…
And so on, and so forth. Point is, the Art Cohort has wise ideas, and you might think of him as our Color Consultant and Design Pimp going forward. Don’t expect any drastic changes immediately; right now, we’re working on a rough budget of, “Old coffee cups, shoelaces, and squirrel bones,” with about thirty-five cents of pocket change thrown in. Part of the reason you see what you see here and not some fancy webpage with flash animation and a cool iPhone app and a glossy comic book (or other bells, whistles and dildos) is because we’re doing this all ourselves with our Mad Skillz (read: limited abilities parsed through damaged brains).
So, let’s talk about what we have in front of us — er, you — right now.
We’ve heard good comments (easy to navigate, the colors and craziness suits the tale, very readable).
We’ve heard less-than-good comments (off-white text on dark background makes my eyes bleed, it looks like you murdered a pony to get this effect, the design makes me feel lost and confused and forces me to pee a little in overwhelming fear).
So, we don’t know. We like it. We think it’s pretty easy. You have three easy ways into the current web fiction iteration (Story So Far, above; the chapters on the right of the screen; the standard “scroll-down to see chapter” thing). We also think the crazy space-ish theme and off-white text on dark background is pleasing to the eyes and easy to read.
Of course we like it. That’s how it often goes. A kid paints a duck at school, and brings it home, and the parents are like, “Does that duck have four legs? Why is he purple? That little weirdo is driving a car. Ducks can’t drive cars. Jeez, if the kid didn’t tell me it was a duck, I don’t think I’d even know. Is he eating a hoagie?” Meanwhile, the kid’s proud. He thinks his artistic shit don’t stink. Big smiles.
So, we open the floor to you.
We’d do a poll, but we don’t have one installed yet, and I don’t think a poll could really encapsulate the nitty-gritty of what we’d like for you to tell us. What is it we want to know?
How’s the look?
How’s the feel?
Can you jump right into the story and the design, or do you feel like there exists a visual barrier to entry?
Do you find the text to be soothing on the eyes, or does it confer a stabbing sensation into your cornea?
Does the space vomit make you happy, or sad?
And anything else you care to throw at us!
Comments begin in, 3, 2, 1…
