navi02

[NAVI] New Layout

Date: May 24th, 2011 | Site: Navi | Status: | 2 Comments »
Mood: accomplished | Cross-posted to: http://yupiteru.livejournal.com/21547.html

Finally I managed to do it! A new layout for Navi *yay*

When I first launched this site, a few months back now, I had made a grunge style layout, which was nice per se, but I didn’t find it fitting the idea I had of this page. I wanted something more “techy” and minimal but my (many) attempts ended up as a disaster. I tried vectors, css only layouts, a bunch of different colour palettes, the result was always the same: the layout I was coming up with didn’t match the one I had mind so I had to live with that grunge layout you may have seen. Then, after months (yes, even if I didn’t write about it, my first attempts date back to…January methinks .__.), the inspiration arrived…thanks to a local shopping centre called Freccia Rossa (red arrow). (Oh well, I was running out of patience so inspiration, no matter where it came from, was very much welcome! Let’s not be picky, shall we? ;)).

The palette revolves around neutrals (black, white and grey) and the only pop of colour is given by the colour red, since that is one of Asuka’s trademarks. To achieve the kind of “techy” look that I was going for, I opted for a seamless oblique lines background joined (in two sections) by a red background. The aim of this second background is to echo the first, so to speak. They both use oblique lines, and break the page which, being so long, could have looked a bit boring.

Images were kept at minimum, the only thing I liked about the previous design was its simplicity so I wanted to maintain that characteristic. The only two decorative elements are the small logo at the top of the page and its bigger and more elaborate version found at the bottom of the page.

The sites’ screenshots are the same as before. I was actually planning to make them more homogeneous, but nothing came to my mind. Besides, sites like the fanlisting collective or the updates blog don’t revolve around one character only (as in the case of shrines) plus the kind of subjects I created shrines for, and therefore the kind of images I can use, is quite diverse: anime, videogame, TV…I guess I’ll probably have to think a bit more about this aspect. Anyway, what matters is that this layout is now done and I can move on to other projects :-)

Stay tuned!

Coming up: nothing in particular for Navi. Granted if I publish a new site (and I will ;)), it will be updated, but since I'm quite happy with the layout now no major update is planned.

navi

[NAVI] A little tool

Date: October 10th, 2010 | Site: Navi, Network | Status: | 2 Comments »
Music: Ash - Burn Baby Burn
Cross-posted to: http://community.livejournal.com/yupiteru/19551.html

After almost ten days of hiatus (and huge fights with style sheets), I eventually succeeded in putting this little page up:

If you are reading this entry on Sohryu.nu you’ll notice a small bar at the top of the page. That is the first half of Navi, my latest project. The Navi bar, as I call it, contains links to all my sites organised in categories (blogs, collectives, shrines…), two ever useful links (contact and credits) and a section with a short summary of the latest update on the network. There is also a link to the admin page, but it is shown only when a user is logged in. In other words, I’m the only one who can see it :P

But wait, there’s more! The Navi bar is linked to Navi, which is basically a one-page site that, as the bar itself, showcases all my sites…together with nifty screen-shots. The layout is very simple and basic, though not exactly minimal because I fail at making minimal layout -__-
Seriously, I tried for hours to come up with something that looked nice without being banal. And after countless (and quite miserable attempts) I opted to go back to my usual style.

I hope you will find both Navi and Navi bar useful. I certainly will because I sometimes found myself browsing one of my sites, for example when I proofread pages, and need to check something else on another site and with the bar it is very easy to jump from a site to another.

Coming up: I'm still trying to figure out a sort of line-up for my future sites so nothing is set yet. I do however have to finish a shrine I started a while back so…there will be a new site sometime soon :)